M.G. Herron's Blog, page 25

Words complete on Translocator 2!

Yes, it’s true! Yesterday afternoon I typed THE END on Translocator 2. Only two days past my ideal deadline of June 1st.

I drank an Old Fashioned to celebrate.

Here’s the word count tracker at THE END. Originally I thought the story would come to nearly 100k words! I’m relieved it got shorter the closer I got to the end, because I was running out of steam. Oddly enough, I made the same estimation mistake on The Auriga Project. Both books had 10k words chopped off their estimates during the dr...

How Not to Stay in Vegas

I just contributed a snippet to a collaborative fiction project called How Not to Stay in Vegas, a story that started on Facebook, of all places. Well, that’s probably not uncommon. Writers are introverts. They don’t leave their house, do they? I haven’t left my house in two days. Okay, a week. Actually, all my social interaction happens on Facebook. Get off my lawn. Wait, how’d you get inside? Stop messing with the blinds! Oh, god, is that sunlight? It burns my eyes. It burns! It BURNS I TEL...

The race with time

I can’t believe it’s the end of May already. It seems as if time itself has raced past me this year.

There’s so much I want to accomplish and do before the year’s end. Books and client projects—and what I guess I’ll lump together and call LIFE STUFF—all competing for my attention. Sometimes different stories even compete for the writing time I have set aside.

But I’m trying to stay focused. Most of my writing time has been devoted to Translocator 2. When I get restless I write these blogs and...

Lunar dome concepts

The other thing I needed to research for my book is what a realistic lunar dome would actually look like and be made out of.

You know that Jetson’s style glass dome, straight out of the sci-fi imagination of 1950s America? That’s where I started when I first began to imagine what a lunar dome might look like, and how it all might work.

But technology has improve immensely since the 1950s, and glass domes are not releastic on a moon with no atmosphere and a danger of meteorites, either to live...

Nuclear reactors in space

When I hit that wall the other day and decided to rejig the ending of Translocator 2 (my sci-fi thriller novel WIP), a lunar nuclear reactor became important to the plot. I’d planned this from the beginning, but I was hazy on specifics.

Realizing I needed to backfill some of the details in the book, and wanting to make sure that it’s as realistic and technically accurate as a novel about teleportation, ancient aliens, and Mayan ruins can possibly be, I started searching around on the interweb...

Yesterday was interesting…

Yesterday I realized I’m actually farther into Translocator 2 than I thought I was.

My 98k goal was probably wrong? (That’s a question because I am not sure of anything.) But it doesn’t matter anymore?

This is awkward.

I talked it through with some writers I trust and decided to break up with my plot for the ending. It actually won’t change things that much. Just need to rejig the ending, plant a few clues earlier on, and sprinkle them throughout the book. I’ve been working on revising the ou...

An update on Translocator 2 and some perspective

Still don’t have a proper title for this book yet, but I’m only 11 chapters away from the end of Translocator 2, a science fiction thriller novel.

Okay, I’ve got a few ideas for titles, but I haven’t decided. Still too much work to do.

I wrote 1400 words this morning with a couple writer friends and lots of coffee, and headphones with Ratatat cranked up. It felt like I had to break limbs to get the words on the page, but I had 1400 by 11am.

Then I took a break and came back home to write this...

Bonuses! Artwork! June 13th!

I accomplished a ton of writing and book marketing stuff today, so I am exhausted, but I’m not tired because my mind keeps revving on all the cool art and bonus material I’ve put together for the upcoming launch of the complete Tales of the Republic.

That’s all seven episodes collected into a 400+ page book. A dangerous adventure filled with resistance fighters and scheming politicians between two matte covers.

If you buy the book when it launches on June 13th, you’ll also get all this great...

Reading: Jumper

Jumper by Steven Gould Science fiction First published 1992

Ignore the movie adaption cover for a minute and focus instead on the opening words of this novel. These words drew me in and hooked me straight away:

The first time was like this.

I was reading when Dad got home. His voice echoed through the house and I cringed.

“Davy!”

The first time for what? For David Rice to teleport to the Stanville Public Library, which happens before the end of the first short scene. It is not a spoiler to t...

Designs in the sand

I purchased this fine zen garden and populated the empty sandscape with two patterned planets. Thanks to the artist and his invention’s unique ability to occupy a restless mind for a time on a rainy Portland morning some weeks ago.

Right now, the sandscape sits on top of a small cabinet in the office. May it soon find a new home on a fine modern bookshelf, if we can find the right one for the empty wall in that room.

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