Lunatic Writer's Blog

Lunatics: Lost in Space (Cyber-space)

4/2/2013

Just received an email from a press which began, "Dear Patient Author". Nice... It apologized for taking so long to get back to me about my novel, Lunatics. Their editor had been dealing with a serious illness recently. All that being said, if I was receiving this message, my manuscript was still under consideration for one of three publishing slots in 2015... You never know...

Oh, how slowly turn the wheels of 21st century publishing. As slowly as reform in the Roman Catholic Church! (But even there, things can and do change. Eventually...)

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Guy Consolmagno & the Vatican Observatory

3/31/2013

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Brother Guy--A Jesuit and research astronomer--echoes my feelings about the relationship between science and religion very eloquently. At one point he reminds listeners that Scripture says: "God so loved the world that he gave us his Son." Brother Guy emphasizes the fact that it is the "world" that God loves, the physical, real, rational, open-for-investigation world. We are part of this world and, like God himself, are expected to love it. Hence science. Hence environmentalism. Hence all charity and love. Amen.

Br. Consolmagno and part of the Vatican meteorite collection, courtesy Kevin Nickerson

(Originally broadcast on CBC's Quirks and Quarks on April 15, 2006)

Science and religion are often seen in conflict, but that's something Brother Guy Consolmagno would like to put behind us. He's certainly put it behind him. Brother Guy is the Curator of Meteorites of the Vatican Observatory in Arizona, and an accomplished planetary scientist, and he sees no tension at all between his science and his religion. He also thinks many scientists with religious beliefs feel the same way. The conflict, he suspects, is a result of people who know too little about both science and religion.

Click BELOW for the CBC interview with Brother Guy and learn what the Roman Catholic Church really thinks about science.

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VATT--the Vatican Observatory, near Tucson, Arizona.

Ready for more? Here what the Vatican Observatory's chief astronomer, Jose Gabriel Funes has to say about the possible existence of
extra-terrestrial intelligence.

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Back to the Moon, please!

2/21/2013

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As most of you know, my novel, Lunatics, is still waiting in the wings to be picked up by some interested publisher. But the clock is ticking... Come on, guys, do you really want to lose me to the great Ba'al of Literature--Self Publishing?

Most of the action in Lunatics takes place inside the moon's Copernicus Crater in 1974, during the Apollo XX mission (which, alas, men with very little vision decided to cancel.) Yet all was not lost as the Apollo program ended. Several interesting probes have revisited the moon since, though no humans, of course. Presently orbiting the moon is the magnificent Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter which, for the last several years, has been taking thousands upon thousands of ultra-high resolution images of the moon, in preparation for our return there.

Below is a view of the central peak of Tycho Crater, very similar in form to the central Peak of Copernicus Crater. A geologically complex and geographically stunning location.
How could one not want to go there?

Stunning image or what?

My wife and I visited the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Lab in Phoenix, Arizona a couple of years ago. I even arranged for a guided tour. I will never forget the sadness in the voice of the scientist who led the tour when he reflected on the fact that all this magnificent reconnaissance work, creating images with a resolution of less than one metre in some cases, might all be for naught.

George Bush had proposed a new and ambitious program to return astronauts to the moon, and, with that announcement, the community of lunar scientists jumped for joy. But as Bush's administration ended, so did their lunar dreams...

Make moon landings, not war...

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Azimov on Submissions

2/14/2013

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"You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist."
Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)

Fine, inspiring words, but I wonder if they still apply today when the publishing world is SO hard to break into. Of course authors now have the option to self-publish in a quality and economy that Asimov probably never envisioned, so perhaps the game really HAS changed... I don't know.

I would LIKE to know as I still wait to hear back from a half a dozen publishers about Lunatics...

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Lunatics Update

11/16/2012

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Publishers who have rejected the manuscript: 7

Publishers who have not yet responded: 7

Mental health of author (/10): 7

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Still Waiting...

11/4/2012

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Submitting your work can be discouraging--enough to make one grow negligent about blogging! (Mea culpa.) Still, it must be less stressful than the constant auditioning which actors must do (just ask my daughter) where you must stare rejection in the face on a daily basis. As an author, you can at least fantasize, for as long as the reading phase takes, that your work has been well received.

Over time, I am growing a little more thick-skinned. There are a hundred good reasons why a publisher may not choose your work, many of which do not reflect on your worth as a writer. Much as it is in the actor’s world, where sometimes they’re looking for a very particular “look”, or the director has imagined a particular voice quality which you don’t have, or the producer would feel safer going with a well-known name, factors entirely out of your control are likely to decide your fate.

Nonetheless, rejection, even the spaced-out, more distant rejections a writer must endure, do take a toll. I find I must allow myself several months between submissions—time enough to the let the echoing rings of rejection fade before I send my stuff out again.

Here's how Lunatics has so far fared: I sent off my first manuscript to a Canadian publisher in November, 2011. To this date I have not heard back or even received an acknowledgement that the publisher has received my work. I KNOW small publishing houses are busy, but a couple of sentences in an email? How hard can it be? I will count this one as a rejection.

A friend suggested I might find more satisfaction from American publishers. Certainly I’ve found more courtesy. Several acknowledged the receipt of my manuscript by email, and two have since informed me that Lunatics doesn’t meet their “requirements” at this time.

(And probably not later either, I suspect.)

So far then, I’ve had three official rejections of out thirteen submissions. Six of my submissions were sent out only in October of 2012, so the wind hasn’t been taken out of my sails completely… And, in the meantime, my novella, Eta Carinae, HAS been accepted for publication. Hurrah for Vagabondage Press!

Of course, just waiting to hear back from publishers is a recipe for insanity. There can be no better remedy than to start a brand new novel, and so I have. And this time, it's a murder story. Based on a true one. Set in the mining camps of British Columbia in the 1880s. Working title: Big Ledge.

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Lunatics: Lost in Space (Cyber-space)

Guy Consolmagno & the Vatican Observatory

Click BELOW for the CBC interview with Brother Guy and learn what the Roman Catholic Church really thinks about science.

VATT--the Vatican Observatory, near Tucson, Arizona.

Back to the Moon, please!

Stunning image or what?

Azimov on Submissions

Lunatics Update

Still Waiting...

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