Where to start? Last night I guided a 2.3m telescope to photograph the spectrum of a star. How’s that for amazing? Did labs looking at the spectra of hydrogen, mercury, neon and a couple of other gasses. Counted and categorised galaxies photographedby the Hubble Space Telescope. Manipulated the filters on b&w photographs of galaxies to highlight information visible in different frequencies of light. Amazing!
Excited!
I leave tomorrow for Launchpad. They sent the week’s schedule (which looks heavy!) and a pre-test on science concepts. It was pretty challenging. However, I was relieved at the end when the last question asked how many astronomy courses I had taken and was able to check of “none.” But I think I did okay–will be interesting to see if we get to go over the pretest results (I’m driven by grades, what can I say?).
Sale!
Very cool! I was talking to the editor of the SFWA blog, Todd Vandermark, at Launchpad, and when he discovered I teach creative writing, he asked if I would do a blog post for the SFWA site. Cool! One of my favourite courses is “Backstory Secrets”–which, I have to admit, is mostly a combo of Robert McKee and Donald Maass, but with my own twist on how to apply it to writing. So, I wrote up 1000 words putting into a nutshell (with examples), and made a sale! Yay!
Hmm. What to do?
I’ve been approached to edit another novel–this one, not until fall. I have the chapters to review to decide if I want to take it on. It’s very flattering, but I MUST spend more time on my own work. Decisions, decisions.
Another cool novel
This one isn’t published, but I am really enjoying it–critiquing it for friend, Randy McCharles. Very funny–easy read, lots of fun.