Tag: Writing

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Paths

Everywhere you walk on Earth, you can expect to find a path or a road of some sort. Humans (modern and prehistoric), coyotes, deer, cats, rodents, snakes, ants, slugs: any living organism capable of self-mobility tends to find the easiest way to move across the land and use it, over and over. Life that moves leaves paths. There are no paths on Mars.

Or, at least, there weren’t until humans arrived. The five thousand humans of Dawn Colony had created quite a network of roads and paths around their little town. But, travel only a little way from the colony and you were well and truly in for an off-road adventure.

Shelter: Generation Mars, Book Two

Coming in March

(image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell, tracks of Mars Exploration Rover Spirit near “Husband Hill”)

 

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Author copies

Author copies just arrived!
 
Shelter: Generation Mars, Book Two
 
Coming in March
 
#mars #scifi #childrensbooks #middlegradebooks #writingcommunity
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Outside

“I wish I could just goof around outside,” she said, finally.

“Yeah, I get that,” said her dad. He snatched the ball away again, stood up, dribbled it a couple steps away, than passed it back to her. “All of us adults have memories of growing up on Earth, going out when we wanted, goofing around outside. That’s why we built the Forest.” It was not unknown for an adult to climb a tree or grind a skateboard there once in a while. “It’s interesting that you are feeling this way, since you don’t have those memories.”

“I see kids on shows from Earth,” said Cas. She passed the ball back without getting off the bed.

“Ah,” said her dad, “I see. Well, it’s true that you can’t go outside the way kids on Earth can. But the thing is, you probably have more freedom to explore, goof around, and be a kid here within the colony than most kids have on Earth.”

Shelter: Generation Mars, Book Two

Coming in March

(image: Luis Peres)

 

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Sneaky soccer

This was not Surface Training. They had not filed an activity plan. Nobody knew what they were up to except the four of them in that room.

Their suits had not been maintained since yesterday’s Surface Training session, but they still had plenty of breathable air in them, and the scrubbers were well below capacity. They would be fine.

Helmets on, they walked into the airlock, Cas carrying a real soccer ball under her arm. The ball was shrunken and soft. She’d let most of the air out of it, knowing that it would puff up again in the thin air outside. They closed the inner door. Cas was reaching for the panel to depressurize the lock when Sally’s voice came over their comms. “I think that’s far enough, kids.”

Busted.

Shelter: Generation Mars, Book Two

Coming in March

(image: Luis Peres)

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Poop-head

“Would you rather…” said Cas, “walk from the Forest to our hab with a bag from a loo on your head or walk from here to the ObsDome without a helmet?”

Ori smiled. Their mother had taught them this game. “That’s easy,” she said. “Here to the ObsDome without a helmet.”

“Seriously?” said Cas. “You’d never make it. At least with poop-head you’d still be alive.”

“Well,” said Ori, “Without a helmet, I’d have 15 seconds before I pass out. I’ve done that before, and it’s no big deal. Then I’d have a couple minutes before I’d die, and you or someone would carry me into the airlock in that time. That’s way better than poop-head.”

Cas had to admit that her sister’s reasoning was sound.

Shelter: Generation Mars, Book Two

Coming in March

(image: Luis Peres)

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Sisters

Cassidy Byrne-Alli was the first child born on Mars. That had been almost five years ago—Martian years, which made her almost ten in Earth years. Her sister, Oriana, had been born one Martian year later. Other children had been born since Cas as well. Those who were old enough attended the first Martian school—currently just one classroom shared by all ages. That classroom, and the rest of the colony, was deep underground in caves left behind by ancient lava flows. Kids older than four attended Surface Training three times a week.

Shelter: Generation Mars, Book Two

Coming in March

(image: Luis Peres)

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Third book cover reveal

Oye! Just uploaded files to my printer for the third book. Now some back and forth, digital and print, to iron out the kinks before release. If all goes as planned, preorders start February 14 for a March 1 release. Time to reveal the cover!

illustrated by Luis Peres

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Busy busy

The bulk writing, the writing just to get traction and capture the story is long done. Now it’s finesse and fleshing out and filling holes and making consistent: the hard stuff. This is going to take some time.

In the meantime, here’s an outhouse on Mars.

Word count over the past few days: 3796

image: composite using artwork by Luis Peres from the second book and an image from https://www.flickr.com/people/scottkmacleod/

 

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Writing update

Today’s word count: 288

These counts will be very bursty and uneven for a while. Some days will see entirely new sections, with high counts. Others will see glue text, as I bring pieces together and smooth the edges.

(BTW, the images I post with these updates do, in fact, have relevance to whatever I work on that day.)

image: public domain

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Writing update

Today’s word count: -1461

I said changing tooling at this stage would be dangerous.

But I expected this. It’s all part of the Delta-v equation for putting a story together.

That figure reflects the 2063 words removed in redundant sections and the 602 new words I wrote today.

So far, I’m digging Scrivener. Splitting and moving segments around is trivial: exactly what I need as I start bringing sections together into a coherent whole.

image: Richard F. Penn (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Delta_V_Earth_Moon_Mars.png)