Freaky Friday - Life on Mars

Scientists have plans to colonize Mars.

If you consider the population explosion of the past century, the infant mortality deaths that have largely been eliminated and the older ages most country's citizens can expect, it isn't far-fetched to think that, barring some unforeseen global disaster, we will run out of space within the next few centuries. While we won't be around to witness it, our grandchildren or their grandchildren might be.

So in 2023, just ten years from now, the first mission is scheduled for Mars' colonization. Nearly 80,000 people have applied to be included in this mission in just the first two weeks of its announcement.

It will take seven months to reach the Red Planet.

But here's the catch: because each person must become adapted to its environment, they can't come back to Earth. These are one-way tickets.

What will the people do once they reach the planet?

They must begin growing plants, which initially will be in greenhouses. These plants are vital to future life on the planet, providing much needed nutrients to the air and environment. They will build a village, which in the future could become a town or a major city. They will also provide a continuous stream of data that will help scientists on Earth plan for future human habitation.

The individuals selected for this maiden journey will receive eight years' training before lift-off in 2023.

WIP Wednesday - Political Thrillers

I am currently working on the fifth book in the Black Swamp Mysteries series. Entitled The Pendulum Files, it is scheduled for release in the spring of 2014.

The book is a political thriller that combines the expertise of Christopher Sandige, a political strategist, and Brenda Carnegie, a computer hacker, with CIA agents Dylan Maguire and Vicki Boyd. It will take them from their home in Lumberton, North Carolina... to the high seas in search of the perpetrators of maritime bombings... to the halls of power in Washington, DC.

Very early in my career I made the commitment to myself and my fans that I would never allow partisan politics to enter my books' plots. I am keeping this commitment in this political thriller by providing information on political platforms - such as the fictional President's reaction to the bombings and Chris' own search for politicians with whom he can work - but without labeling them as one party or another.

In many instances, they share views common to most Americans, regardless of political affiliation. It also provides the backdrop of our current status as the only recognized superpower in the world. At the time of this writing, there are three others poised to become superpowers within the next decade: China, India and the European Union.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, that region also sustained a dramatic fall from its once powerful superpower status.

Tuesday Teaser - Weather

One of the things that makes a book come alive for me is the backdrop, especially the use of weather and terrain. My most popular book is Songbirds are Free, the true story of Mary Neely and her capture by Shawnee warriors in 1780. In the scene below, she managed to escape her captors, only to have them track her to an abandoned village in the middle of the night:

Mary bolted upright as a wicked crack of thunder erupted in the night. Her heart pounded as a simultaneous lightning flash sliced through the shadows.

The next instant she was plunged into a darkness as black as pitch. Unable to see her hands in front of her face, she groped behind her until she located the back wall, and then settled against it. Outside the storm raged, the water pounding against the roof and walls with such fervor that she grew concerned the aging structure would not hold.

As another flash of lightning lit up the interior, she spotted a rivulet encroaching into the hut. She backed further into the opposite corner and drew her legs under her.

Every muscle in her body ached. Her feet, now crammed into her shoes, felt swollen and cramped, the soles bruised and cut from countless brambles and rocks. Each leg and arm had grown heavy, causing every movement to become excruciating.

As the storm raged, Mary’s eyes instinctively gravitated to the open doorway, where the sheets of rain howled as if trying to enter. Forked lightning illuminated the sky as a simultaneous crack of thunder seemed to shake the ground.

With the next burst of light, a figure appeared in the doorway of the hut, filling the entrance.

Mary gasped. Her body was paralyzed while her mind raced. Every hair on her small frame stood completely erect.

There was no way out. The figure blocked her only exit.

The next flash revealed the form still in the doorway as if he hadn’t moved a single muscle. For the briefest of moments, she caught sight of an almost naked body, the chest, arms, legs and face painted with black and red stripes, the hair plucked to the scalp except for one shiny black patch on top, from which a single long tail extended.

She realized her nails were pressing hard into the sides of her bowl. Yet she was unable to let go. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she saw herself sitting completely still, her bowl clutched in her fingers with the intensity of a mother protecting her child.

When the next burst came, he was standing over her.

Monday Musings - The Irish Lady

I just finished reading The Irish Lady by Jeanette Baker. It is really two stories in one, which merge together as it heads toward the final climactic courtroom scenes.

For someone like me who is of Irish descent, I thoroughly enjoyed the history and backdrop.

It follows Meghann McCarthy's extraordinary journey from the day Protestants attacked her Catholic neighborhood and left her an orphan. The family who took her in had sons who turned to the Irish Republican Army and then to Sinn Fein. One of them, Michael Devlin, was her first love and her great love, a man she turned her back on because she could no longer remain in the very troubled region of Belfast. She moved to England, where she became a successful attorney. But when she is called back to Belfast to defend Michael against the murder of a prominent British politician - a murder he didn't commit - she is forced to confront the demons of Northern Irish history and come to terms with both her past and her future.

Interspersed with Meghann's story is the story of her ancestor, Nuala O'Donnell. Nuala's story haunted me. It takes place during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a time in which fiefdoms ruled Ireland, a time in which the regions' religions were directly tied to its politics and its future as Mary Queen of Scots struggled to take the crown from Elizabeth. It is the dying of a way of life that had existed for centuries and which, under Elizabeth's strict rule, is facing its final, desperate moments. When Nuala marries Rory at the age of fifteen and makes his castle her own, she has no idea that within ten years' time she will give birth to and lose nine children and give birth to a tenth who belongs to the man who captured the castle while Rory fought elsewhere. It is a time when a woman has no rights of her own but is her husband's possession. A time in which, because her husband decreed it, she must give up her tenth and only surviving child to the man who raped her.

This is the first book I've read by Jeanette Baker, but it certainly will not be the last. She is from Irish heritage herself and obviously knows the country and her subject very well. Because I have distant cousins still in Ireland, it was particularly moving. Both stories are gripping and as they converge during the climactic courtroom battle to save Michael's life, it is one I could not put down.

Freaky Friday - Sky Watching

If you enjoy watching the night sky, you might want to look to the skies on the evening of May 26 (this coming Sunday.)

On that day, three planets - Jupiter, Venus and Mercury - will form a triangle in the sky that will be easily seen from Earth. Those three planets are the brightest in our solar system so this sight will be especially exciting.

The best time to look is 30 to 60 minutes after the sun sets. Then look to the western skies.

Thursday Thoughts - Changing Face of Book Buying

Statistics were released last week on books sold, and some of the figures were quite interesting.

What got my attention was the closing gap between online book sales versus sales in brick and mortar book stores. Book sales rose to $6.93 billion through online sellers while the brick and mortar stores reported $7.47 billion.

Of the $6.93 billion sold online, nearly half - $3.04 billion - were in eBook sales.

I have become an iPad addict. I have been replacing the books on my shelves with eBooks, which is greatly reducing the clutter in my home and office. I've also been discovering new authors and new series. I love reading eBooks because:

I can pick up one device which weighs about the same as a trade paperback and take it with me anywhere;

That one device can hold approximately 50,000 books;

I can enlarge the print so I don't have to wear reading glasses;

It has it's own light so I don't have to sit by a lamp or turn on a light in the middle of the night;

I can download books instantly and not have to wait for them to arrive in the mail;

I don't have to find a place to put them after I've read them;

And I can search for books in the genres or topics I enjoy instead of walking through stores that carry only a tiny percentage of the books published.

How do you read your books - in print form or eBook? Why do you like that method over the other?

Blogging as an Expert - When You're Not

Anyone who has followed my blog tours knows my background. I've been in the computer industry since the mid-1970's. I spent fifteen years training people in the workforce how to use computer software before moving into custom application development, which led to computer intelligence and computer crimes (working with the good guys, of couse.)

So a couple of years ago when someone formatting one of my books for publication complained loudly about having to manually go paragraph by paragraph through my document, it raised a red flag. It turns out that I, like many authors, type while I'm composing. And I've gotten into the habit of pressing the space bar after each period.

The formatter complained bitterly that she had to remove each of those spaces at the end of a paragraph manually. I knew otherwise but didn't want to get into an argument with her. My silence turned out to be the wrong choice, because a few days later she blogged about it.

Recently, another author was in tears when she told me how the same formatter humiliated her in front of others by chastising her for using a tab instead of an indent before each paragraph. Again, the formatter claimed she had to manually remove each of the tabs and insert the indent. A few days later, she blogged about it.

In reality, the formatter didn't know how to use the software.

Most authors use Microsoft Word and most formatters continue to use it until it's imported into PageMaker or Quark for print publication.

So if you're like me and you press the space bar at the end of a paragraph, here's a twenty-second way to remove them all:

1. Go to the top of the document.
2. Select the "Replace" option on the toolbar.
3. You're looking for a space followed by a carriage return. So press your space bar beside "Find What" and then click on the "More" button. Click on the down arrow next to the "Special" button and select "Paragraph Mark."
4. Now move to the "Replace With" box. You want to replace it with a simple carriage return (without the space.) So select "More" if the rest of the Replace box isn't shown, "Special" and "Paragraph Mark" again.
5. Now choose to "Replace" if you want to see what is happening or "Replace All" to do it in seconds.

If you want to remove all the tabs in front of a paragraph and replace them with an indent, here's how to do it in less than a minute:

1. Go to the top of the document.
2. Select the "Replace" option on the toolbar.
3. This time, you're looking for a carriage return followed by a tab, which together marks the end of one paragraph and the beginning of the next. So select "More" and "Special." Then select "Paragraph Mark" and "Tab Character."
4. Now move to the "Replace With" box. First, you want to replace it with a carriage return. So select "More" if the rest of the Replace box isn't shown, "Special" and "Paragraph Mark."
5. Click OK to exit that box, and either "Replace" if you want to see each replacement or "Replace All" to do it all at once.
6. This removes the tabs but the paragraph are no longer indented. Press CTRL/A simultaneously to select everything in your document.
7. Then drag the inverted triangle on the ruler to the desired indentation. All the paragraphs will now begin with that indentation. (If you don't have the ruler displayed, select "View" from the menu and check "Ruler."

Both of these happen so quickly that you might be tempted to think it didn't work. Just turn on the Paragraph Mark to see the underlying code, and scrolling through your document will show you how the formatting has been updated.

It's just a shame the formatter who spread the word far and wide about how hard she was having to work and how difficult authors made her job... didn't know how to use the tools of her trade. Unfortunately, it's beginner authors and beginner computer users who suffer the most from misinformation such as hers.