LOST IN THE TRANSPORTER - How do you focus those scattered ideas and fight through the fear of writing?

Divert more power to the pattern buffer, Mr. Scott.

Welcome to the rebellion.

This year has been a filled with much creative turmoil. I haven’t been satisfied with the status quo and have been trying to make things happen by exploring new directions and long-ignored dreams and ideas.

The result? Predictably it's been chaos. I’ve spent of the year feeling scattered as I lurched from project to project.

Sometimes I feel like I’m caught in that moment when Scotty (or Geordi, or O’Brien, or B’Elanna, or Lt. Arex, or Trip depending on your series preference) slides up the fader to activate the transporter pad and all the atoms and molecules that make up Leonard McCoy (or Crusher, Pulaski, Bashir, the EMH Mark 1 or Phlox) are spread across the universe, suspended on the edge of infinity as they wait to be reassembled on the newly discovered planet below.

Inside that nanosecond, all those molecules are hurling around, touching, flowing through and smashing into every point in the galaxy, weaving themselves, however temporarily, into the very fabric of time and space.

While McCoy is standing on board the Enterprise (NSS-1701A through E or whatever), he’s also back in sick bay, walking the streets of the Romulan Empire with beyond the neutral zone and a part of every spray-painted rock and plastic plant on that planetary soundstage below. In touch with all but unable to touch or change anything at all.

Every creator knows that initial, overwhelming moment of inspiration when an idea starts to form in your head. In that ecstatic, birthing stage of creation the choices are infinite and anything is possible.

Anything at all.

But when an idea is suspended in the infinite, its atoms co-mingled with all creation, it’s completely indefinable. I mean, how can you define everything? When something is still everything, it’s really nothing at all is it?

That quantum thought cookie defines the very essence of the creator’s challenge.

Still in limbo...

Every creator also knows we have to reach into that churning, shining chimera of creation and pull it in some direction. Any direction. We shuck away everything the idea isn’t in our search for what the idea will be.

That act of choosing is what defines it. Once we do that it’s no longer linked to the infinite. Rather, it becomes infinitely itself. Unique. Ours.

That’s hard enough for one, single idea. But for many of us it’s not so much the one idea that haunts us, it’s the dozens of ideas per a day that swirl through our brains and harass us to reach into the maelstrom and give them form.

Somehow it always helps when I write those ideas down. Somehow by confining them to paper they feel “captured” and I can move on, secure in the knowledge that they will be waiting for me when I finally get to them. But I will I ever get to them? For most of them the answer is no.

This year has seen my online garden of blogs slow from a sporadic but steady climb in output to a hiccupping crawl. Truthfully, I am always amazed by bloggers who write full time yet somehow manage to maintain their blogging so spectacularly. I get so busy that sitting for another hour of wordsmithing can seem more like a punishment than a reward.

So where do I go from here?

Beam me where, Scotty?

I feel free to explore to the world of ideas here at Rebel Alert. Other outlets feel too specific for that kind of writing. My science fiction isn’t about genre, robots and ray guns. At its heart, science fiction is about ideas. It’s about extrapolating the human experience of today in a way free to explore the true cost of a given way of life -- the cost of our decisions taken to the extreme.

I feel grounded in other genres. But ah, when I have the universe at my creativity’s beck and call, that’s when I surprise even myself! Like a blind transport, I often have only the faintest inkling of where it will all end up. That's my kind of ride!

The universe is calling...

And so, I shall continue to push through the chaos of all those idea molecules crying out to be pulled from the infinite into the definite though the din sometimes grows loud as thunder. I keep trying to move forward on all those projects despite frustrations, dead ends, dangling threads and varying results. It's so hard to forgive myself. It's hard to silence my inner critic. It's hard to keep track of so many moving atoms. But deep down I know that as long as those atoms stay safe in the transporter pattern buffer, Mr. Scott can always bring me home.

I am moving. But is it just spasmodic thrashing or definite steps toward something new?

Past experience has taught me this dazed and confused transporter feeling goes hand in hand with working my way through to a new level of creative output. I had thought that maybe Rebel Alert would not be a part of that new paradigm.

Yet today the transporter beamed me down here.

Perhaps there are still new worlds to explore after all.

END TRANSMISSION

Dammit Jim! The transporter is not a toy.

The Cosmos Tips Its Hand: I want to believe...

Welcome to the rebellion.

The Chandra X-Ray Observatory is making a few waves around the globe right now with one of its latest, spectacular, deep-space pictures.

Launched by the Space Shuttle Columbia July 23, 1999, Chandra is one of the most incredible pieces of astronomy equipment ever constructed (and the largest payload ever delivered by the Space Shuttle). With Earth's atmosphere absorbing the huge majority of X-rays hitting us from space, observatories on Earth cannot detect them. However, from its comfy high-orbit in space, Chandra is able to study them at a level previously thought impossible.

A few quick facts from Harvard's site:

• The Chandra X-ray Observatory is the worlds most powerful X-ray telescope. It has eight-times greater resolution and will be able to detect sources more than 20-times fainter than any previous X-ray telescope.

• The Chandra X-ray Observatory's operating orbit takes it 200-times higher than the Hubble Space Telescope. During each orbit of the Earth, Chandra travels one-third of the way to the Moon.

• The Chandra X-ray Observatory's resolving power is 0.5 arc-seconds -- equal to the ability to read the letters of a stop sign at a distance of 12 miles. Put another way, Chandr's resolving power is equivalent to the ability to read a 1-centimeter newspaper headline at the distance of a half-mile.

• Another of NASAs incredible time machines, the Chandra X-ray Observatory will be able to study some quasars as they were 10 billion years ago.

• The Chandra X-ray Observatory will observe X-rays from clouds of gas so vast that it takes light more than five-million years to go from one side to the other.

• Although nothing can escape the incredible gravity of a black hole, not even light, the Chandra X-ray Observatory will be able to study particles up to the last millisecond before they are sucked inside.

More on Chandra's mission can be found at NASA's Chandra page. Chandra, whose name means "moon" or "luminous" in Sanskrit, is one of NASA's four "Great Observatories" in space. Each of the big four studies a different element of the cosmos spectrum.

The granddaddy of them all is the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), which observes visible light, near-ultra-violet light and near-infrared light. It's been in orbit for almost twenty years. Rather than retire, or "de-orbit" the Hubble, a new Space Shuttle mission is scheduled for this year. The Telescope will be refurbished with fresh batteries, new gyroscopes, a new camera, the Cosmic Origins Spectograph and, I suspect, a fresh coat of paint.

The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) studied primarily gamma rays and some hard x-rays before a gyroscope failure grounded it for good in 2000 shortly after the launch of Chandra. The Spitzer Space Telescope (SST) joined its esteemed colleagues in orbit in 2003. It focuses on the infrared spectrum.

So what picture could spur my sudden fascination with Chandra? Feast your eyes on the young, upstart Pulsar PSR B1509-58, or B1509 for short!

That's right, a glorious, COSMIC HAND! You can already the imagine the responses around the internet, can't you? Admit it.

We have people discussing it as the Hand of God and confirmation of his presence in the universe. I see this sort of tack taken by people who denounce science as being 'anti-faith' and against God (until they find something about science that suits their prosteletyzing purposes).

Heck, my own first thought was, "Hey, God's reaching for his alarm to snooze another millennia or so. Pleeeeease?... Just ten more centuries. I promise I'll be up in time for the Rapture."
I'm surprised we didn't see more of this sort of commentary from another one of Chandra's photos, NGC 7049, the Crown Of Thorns Galaxy!



The responses nearest and dearest to my fannish heart were the sci-fi geeks who instantly made a connection between this pic and episode 33 of the original Star Trek, "Who Mourns For Adonais?", guest-starring Leslie Parrish and Michael Forest as the Greek God, Apollo.

"You Greek Gods are all hands."

I was also impressed by the comic geeks at the ComicsCloset blog who remembered a similar image in one of DC Comics' earliest "event" mini-series, Crisis On Infinite Earths.

My first reaction to the pulsar was less shock and awe than dubiousness. The internet has made it easier than ever to float fake news and made-up discoveries on April Fool's Day. Because of that, I tend to disbelieve everything I see around that time as a matter of course, until it's proven to be true. After checking out the pulsar article on the pic at Space.com, I went straight to the source, Chandra's home website at Harvard university. To my surprise the picture was taken and posted April 3. This was not an April Fool's Day joke.

Harvard describes the science behind the event:

In this image, the lowest energy X-rays that Chandra detects are red, the medium range is green, and the most energetic ones are colored blue...

...Neutron stars are created when massive stars run out of fuel and collapse. B1509 is spinning completely around almost 7 times every second and is releasing energy into its environment at a prodigious rate - presumably because it has an intense magnetic field at its surface, estimated to be 15 trillion times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field.

The combination of rapid rotation and ultra-strong magnetic field makes B1509 one of the most powerful electromagnetic generators in the Galaxy. This generator drives an energetic wind of electrons and ions away from the neutron star. As the electrons move through the magnetized nebula, they radiate away their energy and create the elaborate nebula seen by Chandra.

The rest of the article goes in to greater detail.

The cynic in me still wonders if there isn' t some level of "art" to the processing of these images. After all, weren't certain choices were made in highlighting certain levels of X-Rays as different colours? But if it's simply Chandra is programmed simply to differentiate types and levels of radiation with a specified colour scheme, colour me amazed.

My personal favourite Chandra image are these black hole outflows from Centaurus A. They bring to mind a galactic phoenix spreading its solar wings.



I guess the truth is, the universe being infinite, why couldn't a nebula take on such a shape? It's really just us imposing that form on it. For all we know the the Gastalateesians of Umbrata IV probably think it's shaped just like their genitalia. We strive to find ways to connect with nature all the time and I for one am grateful for moments like this where the galaxy gives us something joyous to connect with.

Just let me know when they find a nebula shaped like Leslie Parrish.

END TRANSMISSION

NaNoMo - Deadlines, More Powerful than Hyperdrive

Welcome to the rebellion.

The clock is ticking quickly down to the start of another NaNoMo and for once I've remembered it before it began. NaNoMo isn't baby talk for no more milk, it's National Novel Writing Month. Though truly, it has grown into an international event. You can learn more about the event at its website here.

The gist of it is this... Thousands of people across the globe gather any spare scraps of time they can from their daily to power through a novel of 50, 000 words. Quality is not the point. Quantity is. The idea is to avoid editing or agonizing over plot points. That slows you down and all but guarantees your novel will languish in a an unfinished state for months and possibly years.

Going for word count only as the days rush by helps you avoid the inner editor and let the story itself take hold. Hopefully, you will end up with a first draft. And truthfully, all first drafts are crap. But once they're done, you can really see what you have and fix it. It's in the later editing stage that your gem will truly begin to shine, or not.

So NoNoMo is here every year to take away all our precious excuses and force people to just get tha dang down on paper, or on the screen. The rules are pretty straightforward:

1. Do not start your novel before Nov. 1. You may have an outline and background material but not a word of prose can be typed before the month begins. If you started early, you will always be aware that you cheated and when the going gets tough your likelihood of giving up increases. "Hell, I cheated anyway so what's the point?"

2. Do not bring in an already started novel to complete. It will be too precious to you and make the whole month painful and likely fruitless, as well.

3. You cannot collaborate on the 50, 000 words. This is a personal challenge. But you are encouraged to get your friends and family to go for their own novel so they can share the ups and downs with you. That community spirit helps you feel less alone in your battle of the words. That's why the site has community boards in all the main areas and writing events throughout the month.

These on-line and public hook-ups for people allow us to combat the sheer loneliness of writing, which is at once a wonderful escape to utilize and expand your mind, heart and soul, yet also a debilitating experience when the writing gets tough or a problem seems insurmountable. Sharing the burden can transform that agony into a wonderful experience.

Also, let your non-writing friends and loved ones be cheerleaders (and gentle needlers when your spirit is flagging). Then they too can share in your sweet, sweet victory at month's end.

4. The official site is the home of the official word count calculator. You can submit your novel privately and it will tell you how many words so far and then delete it from their server. No one reads it until you're ready for them to.

5. You can use pen and paper but you won't be able to calculate word count as easily. The site uses the honour system for that. They also give some extra time for a novel to be typed up.

That's about it. Again, no mention of quality here. They just want us to pump it out and prove to the world and ourselves that we can do it.

I know at least one friend who has done it and is likely doing it again this year. And yesterday, another friend declared her intentions to me. That's one of the great tricks of writing a novel in a single, caffeine-fueled month; the more public your declaration of intent, the more embarrassment you suffer if you give up.

The NaNoMo has discovered a fuel more powerful than the Enterprise's dilithium crystals and a Star Wars gravity well projector combined; a deadline.

I never accomplished anything without an outside deadline burning at my ass. As I've grown older , I have realized most people are like me in that regard. That's why I took a writing partner in the first place (along with the fact that we collaborated well, or course)... I knew I'd be too afraid of letting her down to ever not finish my share of the work.

I suspect deadline's are the key to many of mankind's greatest achievements. But I work on deadlines every day. Yet I know I don't organize my time to it's fullest potential.

Dare I try to do my work, share quality time with my wife and write the novel I never knew I had lurking within me?

Heat up the warp drive and use the sun's gravity to slingshot you forward in time and you'll know before I do! Otherwise, keep checking in and all will be revealed.

END TRANSMISSION

A mirror of this post and other thoughts on the business of writing and ideas are at a my new blog: Stark Raving Adventureblog.