Tag: SciFi

RIP Christopher Tolkien

Word came out today that Christopher Tolkien, son of J.R.R. Tolkien, passed away. For storytellers and world builders, Christopher is the one known for organizing his dad’s notes over the past many years into the History of Middle Earth. He and his work will be missed.

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Water, Oxygen, and NaNoWriMo

This morning’s news feeds featured three stories with a future impact on the search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system and the eventual colonization of our solar system.

National Geographic.co.uk features an article with the title: “Mysterious oxygen spike seen on Mars puzzles scientists“. Nature.com has the news article “A whole new world: astronomers draw first global map of Titan“. And, Space,com features “The Weird Plumes of Jupiter’s Moon Europa Are Spewing Water Vapor” on its newsfeed.

If you’ve followed along with various bits of stories that have appeared in this blog, you know that, like many other scifi writers, I believe either out of necessity or curiosity, humanity will one day be a species existing on other space objects. The common thread in these three stories is the presence of oxygen or surface liquids in places that are not Earth. The implications of this are potentially huge.

We may be one step closer to finding life or being the life on these other solar system neighbors.

I’m still slowly making progress towards my NaNoWriMo goal of 50k words. I am currently at 4723 words. On a plus note, I’ve gotten two in-story groups to where they need to go for future story events.

Distractions

Distractions are always a problem when writing. Sometimes it’s weather. Sometimes, it’s a new job. Sometimes it’s a new medication adjustment. The past few days have been all of the above. I am sitting at 3065 words out of the 50k target as of the moment. I’ve also discovered my latest distraction to add to those previously listed: Disney+.

For those waiting for a paycheck to subscribe, Disney+ is offering a 7-day free trial. So far Disney+ is amazing and the choice of things to watch is huge. For me, so far I’ve watched Star Wars (A New Hope) as a test of the service and I’ m stuck on watching the show Rebels.

For us, this is replacing Netflix for us and World of Warcraft for me. Though I’m starting to think this is going to be a much bigger distraction overall for me.

NaNoWriMo Update and Von Braun Wheel Hotel

My NaNoWriMo project is still behind, but as of this moment, I have committed 2171 words. I should probably stop revising and rewriting as I go to up the number count.

If you’ve followed and read posts here for any amount of time, you know that the Von Braun is a reoccurring theme in my writing and artwork. I personally think moving this from concept to reality is the key to exo-Earth-orbit space travel.

So, imagine my joy and surprise to find this article in my news feed this morning. Titled “Yes, the ‘Von Braun’ Space Hotel Idea Is Wild. But Could We Build It by 2025?” over on Space.com, the article discusses a company working on developing a hotel in Earth orbit using the von Braun wheel for its design.

Image stolen from the Space.com article.