Randy Dyess's Blog, page 9

The Farm Chapter 1 Online

Chapter 1 of The Farm is now online for a free preview. Check out the The Farm main series page for the link.

Enjoy reading this chapter.

Chapter 2 on the way–keep checking in.

OxyFoam

I read a blurb in Scientific American about a new kind of medical foam that had been invented which contained micro particles of oxygen and could be delivered directly into bloodstream without fear of the damage that is usually caused by blood oxygen bubbles. I thought this would be a great example of something that could be used as part of a scene in a future book.

The ship shuttered once more in spite of the internal dampers. Doctor Martin looked up expecting a shower of dust and dirt to fall all over his patient as it did during some of the surgeries he had to perform early in the war while hidden in damp basements.

“Hurry,” he yelled to the nurse. “If we don’t get some oxygen into Martinez here we are going to lose her.”

“I’m trying,” the nurse yelled back. “We are just about out of OxyFoam.”

“Damn,” Doc Martin thought out loud, “without OxyFoam I’m going to lose half these kids.”

“Look in the emergency kits,” he ordered.

“Found some,” she yelled back over the breach sirens that were screaming throughout the ship.

“Thank God,” Doc said as he administered the foam to Martinez and saw the blood oxygen levels start to rise. “I hope we got this to her fast enough. I’d hate to think what would happen to her if her brain ends up damaged.”

The nurse just looked at him with understanding in her eyes. Today’s corporations didn’t care if you were injured while fighting for them or not, if you were unable to do your job you were given a small severance package and booted out the door. Bad enough when all you had was a missing limb or damaged organ that could be regrown somewhere else, but to be brain damaged because you were in a section of the ship breached and then cast aside. That was something else. Although it was still better than what the spiders would do to you if they managed to get you aboard their ship. Nurse Carter couldn’t imagine the horror that awaited those kept in a semi-living stasis by the spiders to be used for food. Even after the thousands of years that had passed since mankind had to worry about being hunted for food by extinct predators, the fear still lay deep inside of everyone and caused them to shudder at the thought of being eaten alive by another species.

“Okay, she’s good,” the doctor said as he turned around to work on his next patient. “We’ll have to see once she wakes up if any non-repairable damage was done. I’m not turning her over to HR until I’ve done everything within my powers to save her.” The doctor also had his suspicions that HR didn’t take care of the injured as guaranteed in everyone’s contract. He heard through the grapevine from some of his buddies that the badly injured were swept quietly away to a little planet owned by the Flexior Corporation and eventually were sold on the black market as house slaves or worse.

“OxyFoam,” he yelled again as he started trying to save the latest victim of the hull breach on deck three.

Improving my skills

I didn’t grow up wanting to be an author. Over the past few years as a techie, I started writing technical articles, case studies, white papers, book chapters, books, presentations, and finally training courses. This large amount of writing led me to wonder if I could ever write a novel. I never thought I would be able to do that since my English grades were always horrible in both high school and college. Well Out of Gas finally came out of me one day and I took the plunge.

I understand that writing fiction is not the same as writing highly technical non-fiction book so I need to retrain my mind to write in the style of a fiction author and not a technical trainer. In order achieve this I thought I would start writing scenes from possible future books. This will allow me to hone the flow of a fiction scene, learn more about character development, learn to write conversations that do not sound like they are coming from robots, and even add a little of that descriptive fluff that I would never have put into a technical piece.

I hope you find the scenes interesting and while I improve my skills and I ask that you post comments on your thoughts as you read these small pieces so I can learn from them.

Cover for The Farm

I’ve managed to do a little work over the weekend and finished the cover for the next book of the Out of Gas series: The Farm. I hope you like the new cover and will continue checking back and purchase the book when it is published sometimes in January.

I will put each chapter online like I did with Out of Gas and let you know when each one is available for preview.

Hope you enjoy

Web Site Revamp

As some of you may have found out in the past few days, I have been trying to revamp the look of my web site. Please bear with me as I try to find a look that I like but is flexible enough to provide what I want. I think I have found it but will continue reviewing other sites and might make some changes here over the next few weeks.

As for the writing front, I have decided to rewrite major portions of The Farm and it will probably not see a release date until late January. As I worked through the current drafts of the novel, I was not happy with how it flowed. It seemed to be too choppy for my tastes so I decided to give it another shot. Still learning how to write fiction books and since my background is writing technical articles and doing technical presentations I still tend to write like that.

I hope the rewrite pays off and everyone likes the book once it is released. Stay tuned, I will release each chapter as a blog post as I get it written and edited. Hope to get feedback from everyone to help improve the book and catch those pesky little typos that always seem to haunt me.

N.C. neighbors aghast to learn drinking water contaminated for years – Open Channel

In my Book, Out of Gas, one of the subject areas my characters discuss at the begging of the book is how much the government and news media actually know that they do not tell us. It looks like the government of North Carolina knows quite a bit that they are not telling people. Makes you wonder what else they know about that they figure us poor citizens do not need to worry about or know about.

N.C. neighbors aghast to learn drinking water contaminated for years – Open Channel.

High Fuel Costs Spark Increased Use of Wood for Heating, According to Winter Fuels Outlook

Out of Gas is it really happening?

This is an interesting read about a problem of high oil costs causing people to switch back to wood to heat their homes. I see a lot of people here in Vermont using wood to heat their homes. I also see quite a few of the outdoor boilers. One a cold day when the air is heavy, smoke is often trapped low to the ground and you can see and smell it with the few people around my immediate area that use wood for heat. I wonder what this area would look like it everyone burned wood for heat. I bet the pollution would be horrible even in less populated Vermont, let alone somewhere like New York City. I would have liked to seen more about the pollution that would occur if everyone burned wood today instead of oil or propane. The pellets may produce less smoke but on a cold day, the air around my house can be filled with smoke from homes heating with wood.

I wonder what the wood supply would look like in a few years in much of the U.S. if everyone started chopping down all the trees they could find to keep warm. Most people would not know that many tree species such as pine do not make good firewood due to the speed they burn and the chemicals they produce when burning. I bet they would go just as fast. Imagine what it would be like in a large city with very few wooded areas left. What would central park in NYC look like if it was stripped of trees to keep a small portion of New York City warm. I know they used to do this way back when, but there are a lot more people today than there were 100 years ago.

Just a thought about something that many oil experts are claiming is not happening and the world will always have plenty of oil. It may, but at what cost?

High Fuel Costs Spark Increased Use of Wood for Heating, According to Winter Fuels Outlook.

Book has been published

The hard work is over. I’ve finally finished Out of Gas and published it last week for the Kindle. I’ve also started working with Amazon’s CreateSpace to get the printed copy up and running. Should be available as well. If you have been reading the book online, the Kindle version will be free for the next few days so hop over to Amazon and download the full copy while it is free. Please leave and review and if you really like the book, go back on Wednesday and pay for a copy.

Chapter 22 Online

Chapter 22 of Out of Gas is now online for a free preview. Check the Out of Gas page of the web site for the link. Enjoy reading this chapter and I’ll get the discussion for the chapter up as soon as possible.

Chapter 21 Online

Chapter 21 of Out of Gas is now online for a free preview. Check the Out of Gas page of the web site for the link. Enjoy reading this chapter and I’ll get the discussion for the chapter up as soon as possible.