Hello, again dreamers. Last week was a busy one, and I have another busy week ahead of me. But the new novel is still going very well. I’ve been tearing through it, faster than I’ve moved through any project since Pioneers. And amid everything else going on in my life, it feels good to be back at it.

Without further ado, I’ll get right to it:

Neptune 1

Amid my breakneck pace, I’d begun to exhaust the background I’d created for this novel. The good news is that a lot of the necessary background already exists in my notes for the overall Dotiverse, which allowed me to dive in so quickly. But I’m fast approaching the point where I need to focus on elements specific to this story. As such, I’ve taken a break from active writing to focus on research and expand my notes.

This is hardly unprecedented; I did so frequently while writing Pioneers, for much the same reason. Hard sci-fi is difficult enough when simply focusing on space travel. But as with Pioneers, I find myself creating entire alien ecosystems, as well as the necessary technology to explore them.

At present, I’ve reached the point where the crew of the Challenger have made their initial landing on the ocean moon, Jann. From here, among other things, I need to create a complete alien coral reef biosphere, and design a spacecraft capable of landing on and taking off from water. No small feat, but I’m enjoying the work. Given my background in engineering, I’m particularly enjoying the design of the landing craft. Among other things, I’ve taken advantage of the moon’s weak gravity and thin atmosphere in devising a launch system. To return to space, the craft will use a thermal steam rocket, with seawater as the propellant.

I expect my research and notetaking to last no more than a few more days, after which I will resume writing. I’m eager to see where this story leads me next.

Pioneers

With the holidays past, I intend to begin querying of Pioneers soon. However, that likely won’t happen until late this month, at the earliest.

Writing Neptune 1 has been a lot of fun, but as was the case with Pioneers and the planned (and partially written) prequel Pathfinder, as I’ve written it I’ve found myself making modifications to the Dotiverse continuity that will affect Pioneers. This has been due in no small part to Neptune 1 being roughly contemporary to Pioneers‘s continuity. In addition to editing for continuity, I plan to take a closer look at some of the technology in Pioneers, particularly propulsion, and potentially make some modifications. Aside from a few other minor adjustments to plot and dialogue, I’m considering taking a closer look at the wording. In Pioneers I use a lot of technical jargon, some of which is only lightly explained, if at all. I think it might be best to rethink some of the jargon, to make the novel more readable.

All of this, of course, will be happening concurrently with my work on Neptune 1, which could make it a more drawn-out process. But, once I’ve made all the changes I wish to make, I’ll be revising my query letter and synopsis, and looking for submission targets.

New Content

For anyone reading this hoping for updates on new short fiction, I’m afraid I have bad news: at the moment, I have no concrete plans for resuming my monthly short fiction posts. I do intend to resume my weekly “Flash Fiction Friday” posts this week, so keep an eye out for that. At the moment, I’m preparing to revise Fantoms for another submission, and I have at least five more targets to work through. That revision process will, like that of Pioneers, be affected by my work on Neptune 1, which means that if Fantoms is, in fact, posted to this site, it probably won’t happen until the middle of the year at the earliest. Given my work on Neptune 1 and querying for Pioneers, plans to finish the Beyond Pathfinder series of stories, or begin the Beyond Samarkand series (a planned companion to Pioneers) have been shelved indefinitely.

However, that’s not to say I will be neglecting my website, or you, dreamers. Over the coming months, I plan to revise and re-release several of my existing short fiction pieces, as well as at least one story that appears in Unrealized Realities, my collection of short fiction currently available on Amazon. I also plan to make various improvements across the site, hopefully enlisting the help of someone very special to me, who’s offered to help me up my game in the past. I am also considering resuming my popular “Science in Fiction” posts, though these will likely become a monthly feature, rather than weekly.

Keen-eyed readers may have already spotted a minor change: a new logo. My previous logo was done in a hurry, some time ago, and that same special person has pointed out that it didn’t really say anything about me or what I was trying to do. Thus, amid my work on the new novel and the rest of my overarching Dotiverse, I created a new one:

The new logo is inspired by the mission patches worn by NASA astronauts. Since its inception, NASA has commissioned patches for each mission. The patches are symbolic: every element has meaning. In this case, the bright stars across the upper left are arranged to form the constellation Aquarius, my zodiac sign. The brightest star in the constellation, Beta Aquarii, sits at the top center, rising above the field to represent the dawn of a new era. The sun lights the atmosphere of our planet, while a spacecraft orbits the MTK logo, representing the renewed focus of my work on space exploration and discovering new worlds.

It’s going to be an exciting year, and I’m happy to have you with me on this new mission. I’ll see you next on Wednesday, for my next “WIP Wednesday” post, where I’ll be discussing the setting of my new novel. Until then, as always, dare to dream. – MK