While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make
enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do all of the
professional writers above...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what
I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a
point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see! Hemingway’s quote
above will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and
sales! As always, your comments are welcome! The story's on page 166!
My second-most-recent
sale to ANALOG was more…lark…than serious after I saw this:
Speculation started
soon after that, some positing that it was some sort of starship come to visit
Humanity…https://www.wired.com/story/is-oumuamua-an-alien-spaceship-sure-except-no/
So I indulged in
speculation as well.
But I had to take
it farther than mere speculation. I had to create a REASON that this
interstellar visitor (it IS confirmed to be that) wasn’t just a rock ejected
from a distant star system that perchance flipped through this inhabited star
system (it’s PROBABLY that); a system inhabited by intelligent life (please
exclude the past century or so…) that has learned how to slip off its birth
rock and shoot laser beams (and other electromagnetic radiation) into the space
surrounding it.
What was it doing
here? (I’m saving that for later!) This is a question we can’t answer IF it is
a starship or space probe or something of that order.
I did find it
interesting that the trajectory of Oumuamua had it arriving here from Solar
north – which just so happens to be on the ecliptic of the Milky Way galaxy
So, we didn’t
detect any electromagnetic emissions, or the glow from a decelerating star
drive, or gravitational waves (which we JUST learned how to detect a few
years ago, though Einstein predicted them, https://www.space.com/38471-gravitational-waves-neutron-star-crashes-discovery-explained.html),
astronomers just found Oumuamua one day, and the games were afoot.
So, why IS Oumuamua
here? Like I said, the object is interesting enough just as a chunk of rock
thrown out of its home star system to fend for itself in the dark of space. As
the article above points out, while it’s not going to usher in a revolution, it
IS going to allow us to scratch off a few theories of planetary system
formation from the list. You could probably just answer, “Because physics.”
But what if it’s
NOT just a very interesting rock? We may never know. Oumuamua is traveling so fast
that that after it passed through the Solar system, whipping around the sun and
accelerating more, it’s already well on its way into interstellar space. (https://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives/images/thumb700x/heic1813b.jpg)
But…the realm of
science fiction is all about speculating on current science. So we have current
science, stir in “What if Oumuamua really IS a starship from somewhere else?”
That’s what people were semi-seriously speculating, so my speculations were
neatly aligned with the fun. My explanation though, had to be different. I
threw in a few elements, put the speculation and NASA data collection into an
interesting (and intentionally diverse group – about as diverse as the
near-urban high school I work at as a counselor) and then stirred the whole
thing with a bit of conflict and a dash of humor.
I’d LOVE to tell
you the story, but the whole thing was only seven hundred words long. I sent it
to NATURE-Futures first for a couple of months of evaluation, where I got: “Thank
you for submitting your story Robotic Space Killers, Autonomous.
Broke to Futures. Although I enjoyed the story, I'm afraid that
it didn't make it into my ‘yes’ pile this time around. Sorry to disappoint
you. I nevertheless look forward to reading your next submission.”
Personalized
rejections always mean that you had a near-miss. Without changing anything, I
sent it to my favorite magazine in the whole world – ANALOG. After six months,
they accepted it and it will be in the May/June 2019 issue.
So, what did I do
right?
1) The idea was
straight from current astronomy.
2) I had a cast
of characters who were, to be honest, caricatures of real people.
3) There was
conflict from the word “Go!”
4) There was lots
of “Talk. Talk. Talk.”
5) I stayed with
a brief script – one incident, one UNEXPECTED solution.
It was a long
Probability Zero, which is a series of short-shorts ANALOG used to run regularly
with that title. I’ve noticed that the magazine is running more flash fiction
that they used to and that the PZs are gone. I’ve also taken to reading an
issue straight through and have seen that the editor has minor themes, which is
both helpful and UNhelpful for me. I can’t really write for the theme because
they don’t know ahead of time what the theme will be, but it’s also freed me up
in that I write what I have to “say” and then the editor can fit it in as each
issue coalesces.
Last comment: I’ve
also noted that certain types of SF are “getting the awards”. Aliens are
disappearing and SF is drifting more toward the “near-future” rather than far space.
Current Hugo Awards ( http://www.thehugoawards.org/2019/04/2019-hugo-award-1944-retro-hugo-award-finalists/)
include titles like: “The Court Magician”, “The Rose MacGregor Drinking and
Admiration Society”, “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George
Washington”, “The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince
Who Was Made of Meat”, “A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of
Portal Fantasies”. Four are out-and-out fantasies, one is a sort-of “dinosaur/alternate
history…thing”, and one is about AIs.
No aliens. I
wonder why? What’s wrong with aliens? Hmmm…I guess we’ll see. At any rate, I’m
going to be continuing, “Robotic Space Killer. Autonomous. Broke.” I’ll keep
you up to date!
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