Run here, run there–it was a day for running. Had to get a toll pass for my car, then went looking at earrings–I need a good, everyday pair, but I love my gold hoops–then . . .
Well, here comes the thinking and the wondering and such that makes up a good part of my day.
Late last night I got back into Replacements and ended up breezing through about a thousand or so words for the second chapter. There were likely about eight hundred words when I started on my editing expedition, but by the time I’d finished I’d added nearly three hundred words to the document.
I felt a lot better while going through the editing process. Maybe it’s the feeling that I do have a story here, and this thing, this pantsing that I did, got me started, but didn’t really create my story. For most of my writing I feel as if I’m in control of the story, but with Replacements, I started feeling a bit lost with the action. Now that may be changing, because I’m seeing something a little differently now. We’ll see how the editing goes today, because I’ll likely do some afternoon work on the third chapter.
Part of my time deals with my alternate space story, which I sort of have a name for, but don’t. I hate when I don’t have a name for the novel–or, in this case, novels, because I can see how this story could be broken up into parts. Gee, just what I need, another series.
I was doing my “thinking” bit, which is to say I was coming up with ideas for how things might progress in the story. I’ve imagined beyond the point of getting the history into place, and getting my people into orbit for the first time. I’m into the part where my characters are trying to establish a foothold in high orbit, and–well, hell, there’s the moon, lets go visit. Of course they gotta go to the moon–I mean, who doesn’t to go there?
The idea I had was that the proof of concept ship would be modified and upgraded to be able to take a lander and an extended living model, launch the lander with a BDR (that’s Big Dumb Rocket for the less knowledgeable, something that arose out of an extension of space shuttle technology, but never came to fruition. The BDR was used by Stephen Baxter in his novel Manifold: Time, so even though I’ve known about it for decades, I can’t claim complete credit), pick the lander up in order, then rocket off to the moon.
Because they were able to take extra fuel, the lander will be able to make three trips to the surface of the moon, and give everyone a change to look about and get their exploring done. Two of the landing cover things that should have happened: the first landing goes to the Descartes Highlands, the landing site for Apollo 19, and the second heads for Tycho crater and the Surveyor VII site, the landing site for Apollo 20. After twenty years, my characters feel they needed to give NASA a little closure.
But what of the third landing, you say? Well, that’s going somewhere else. Originally the main character–who is taking the ship down himself–said they were going to land near Mount Pico, because he always wanted to see it after reading Arthur C. Clarke stories. (The climax of his novel Earthlight takes place near Mount Pico.) Eventually they end up landing near the southwest flanks of Plato, very near the foot hills of the Montes Teneriffe. When it’s pointed out that no one says, “Mount Pico”, that the new terminology is “Mons Pico”, my character will chuckle and say, “Yeah, we’ll, I’m old school. I can learn only so many new things in a day.”
No school like old school, they say. Sometimes learning takes a lot of work. And sometimes, all you have to do it think about what you need to learn, and just start.
As for me? I’ve learned I have a lot more to learn.
Just keep it coming, people. There’s still plenty of room up in my brain for more.
