More Gaiman Guidance

Still true. https://t.co/GXOc3wfFVe — Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) March 12, 2020 My first draft of Solar Prime had 160,000 words. That’s over 500 pages. Bit long for a first novel. The version I turned over to the publisher has 102,000. Hope I made it look like I knew what I was doing!

Pushing Tech

How scientifically accurate does science fiction need to be? When I was looking for an agent, I noticed that many of the agencies would accept science fiction, but only a small subset were interested in “hard science fiction” – stuff that is as technically accurate as the author can make it at the time. The…Read More

Rules for Writing

Neil Gaiman (neilgaiman.com, @neilhimself) is one of my favorite authors. He wrote American Gods, The Graveyard Book, Anasazi Boys, and Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett). I heard an interview with him (maybe about him, and unverified, so consider this as such). In the interview he mentioned that he never shows his first draft to anyone…Read More

Dark matter, dinosaurs, and super-massive black holes

One of the storylines in Solar Prime revolves around the dinosaur extinction event. The quest itself is called KT Crossing in the book. That is a reference to the geological boundary between the Cretaceous (K) and Tertiary (T) periods. Current theory is that a meteoroid hit Earth where the  Chicxulub (CHEEK-shuh-loob) crater is today (Yucatan…Read More

Where did it start?

As an Air Force Test Pilot, I spent a lot of time in the Mojave Desert. Close to Barstow, there was a thing called Solar One. A large tower with a circular array of mirrors that focused the reflected sunlight on a central point atop a tower. Originally the project used water/steam to power a…Read More

Solar Prime

The working title of the upcoming book is Solar Prime. It’s set in the near future and revolves around augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and gaming. Inspiration came from Ready Player One (Ernest Cline), Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card), and The Moon Maze Game (Larry Niven and Steven Barnes) Big thanks to Inklings Publishing (@Inklings7, inklingspublishing.com)…Read More

Hi

Pat Daily here. Welcome to my blog. It’s going to be mostly about my books, science fiction, and writing in general, but will be laced with random topics as well. #author #zerotohero #fridayfeeling