Taking a short break

by Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Hi guys! I'm sorry to disappoint you today, but I've just come off a very busy holiday season, I'm working on three different books, and I just haven't had a chance to devote time and grey matter to a blog article for today.

We have family scattered over three states, and everybody does stuff at different times, beginning at Thanksgiving. See, there's my in-laws, who do lunch. My family, who does dinner. Oh, and my sister's birthday is Thanksgiving weekend, so we have to celebrate her birthday while everyone's in one spot. And traditionally we all decorate my parents' Christmas tree too, because again, all in one spot. All that makes for one very long, very eventful, very fun day.

Plus my husband, graphic artist and award-winning magician Darrell Osborn, scheduled several really cool shows for us to attend -- such as the Radio City Christmas Spectacular at the Opryhouse in Nashville TN. And the Mythbusters Behind the Myths Tour.

So we did a lot -- a LOT -- of traveling. Pretty much all day trips, but still. It was a good holiday season.

Meanwhile, I'm working on, like I said, three different books. Four really, if you count the one I'm editing. Okay, there's five I really need to work on. Six, if you count the one that's at the publisher's editor right now. (Yeah, I am a busy little -- LOOK! SQUIRREL!)

I'm working on the Cresperian Saga book #4, which will be titled Heritage. I've kind of decided that, well, I'm already the THIRD author to have worked on the series, maybe it should be one of those "shared universes" things, like the 1632 Series (into which I've been invited to venture, by the by, just as soon as I can dig out from under). So I've invited another author to come in and co-author with me, and he's agreed. More about that at a later date, but it'll be fun, and it'll help provide my co-author with some good experience and training, and most importantly we will get the current Cresperian War story arc tied up. I don't plan on closing off the book with a hard series ending, because I think this might be a fun series, like I said, to be a shared universe, and just maybe my co-author and others might want to kick up their heels in it.

The book at the publisher's editor is the fifth Displaced Detective book, entitled A Case of Spontaneous Combustion. I swear to you that the story is contained in one volume this time! I'm currently waiting for edits to come back from the publisher, then I'll have to review them and incorporate them. The core of the mystery involves a tiny village in England, on the Salisbury Plain, which is wiped out in an apparent mass spontaneous combustion. Holmes is, naturally, brought in to investigate, and hijinks ensue.

I'm writing book 6 in the same series, and it's going to be called Fear in the French Quarter. I'd had an idea for a story in the series, but I was going to set it in a castle in Europe someplace, much later on in the series sequence. But back in October I was a special guest at a science fiction convention in greater New Orleans, called CONtraflow. It was HUGE fun, made more so by getting to play tourist while we were there. I got to try alligator (I love it!) and visit Cafe du Monde, and prowl the French Quarter with friends (one of which had been a Tulane student, so knew the area well), and generally enjoy myself. (I already knew I liked crawdads, gumbo, jumbalaya, and beignets.) So I'm walking through the French Quarter at night and suddenly in my head I start hearing Holmes and Skye talking, making comments about the place, and I realize they're having their own adventure -- someplace out there in the multiverse where they exist and are real!

I started writing that story the next day.

It's already completely plotted out; I just need to get it into the computer in readable form. It's basically a ghost story -- since NOLA is rumored to be the most haunted city in the world, it seemed an even more natural setting than an ancient castle, for that sort of thing.

Book 7 in that same series was originally going to be book 6, until the plot bunny of Fear in the French Quarter hit. So I just slid it on back -- it works even better that way, I think -- and so I've started A Little Matter of Earthquakes. Actually had started it early in 2013, but I'm still working on the science to make the central concept doable, aided by my friend and grad school mate, physicist Dr. James K. Woosley. (He makes a great partner to brainstorm scientific concepts, being a huge SF fan himself.) So sliding it back a bit, like I said, works well, not only in terms of my work load, but in terms of the flow from book to book of the series. What's it about? Eh, just what it sounds like: seismic activity is ramping up in the Pacific Northwest. The problem is that it's even occurring in places that, geologically speaking, it shouldn't. When an old friend of Skye's from their graduate school days is killed in a phreatic eruption, the Holmeses attend the funeral, and discover the unusual nature of the seismic activity.

And Book 8 is that book I told you I was editing on, but haven't submitted yet. The Adventure of Shining Mountain Lodge was written before I even finished Book 5, but it requires some building of history among the characters. It's finished, I just have to tweak it periodically to account for things that get included in 5, 6, and 7. A wetback is found in the middle of a snowdrift in January in Rocky Mountain National Park, half-starved, barely dressed, filthy and battered...and dies almost before they can get him to the hospital. Of radiation exposure.

The book that I need to be working on is the sequel to Burnout: The mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281. It's in work...slowly. It's called Escape Velocity. And it picks up pretty much where Burnout left off.

But you're going to have to be very very patient with me for this one. It took me over a decade just to write Burnout, because it hit so close to home. I spent over two decades working console for space missions of one sort or another, much of it for Shuttle and Station, and my main focus was getting the science while protecting the astronauts. When I lost a friend aboard the Columbia disaster, it devastated me. It was all I could do to keep working on Burnout. It was written, but it needed polishing, see. And I find that Escape Velocity is just as hard to write, and for the same reasons. So it comes in fits and spurts. I plan to try to get it completed in 2014 though. Because I've also developed a concept that my partners and I believe will ensure that no one else has to die like KC did.

I'll tell you about SPEARED next week, if y'all are interested.


-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

Another Guest Post by Aaron Paul Lazar, and My Comments and Thoughts On It

This little blog article fascinates me. I'll explain why at the end of the guest post.

-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

~~~

Word Paintings
by Aaron Paul Lazar

Word paintings are like photographs. The creative wells from which they spring are similar in both writers and photographers.

For example, it takes a special talent to frame a great shot in nature. It’s this same appreciation for the “visual feast” that gives writers the extra perceptive eye they need to describe a scene that breathes life into a story. Of course, all of the senses are employed when constructing a literary scene. Sounds, aromas, and tactile sensations all contribute to setting the scene that creates a unique sense of place. 

Every image that was ever impressed on my brain ends up in a story. Whether it’s the light dancing through stained-glass windows in a Parisian chapel, curly green-gray lichen covering a boulder at the edge of a pond in Maine, or hoarfrost dangling from a cherry tree branch in January, these images are tucked away in the recesses of my mind. In time, they bubble back, persistently itching, until they are poured onto the page.

If you long to write, if it eats away at you until you are spent after hours of writing, if you ache to join your characters in a daily romp in your parallel universe, this probably sounds familiar. These abundant, precious aspects of life are the sweet fodder for your next story. Soak it all up. And carefully weave them into your next chapter.

~~~

The reason this fascinates me is that -- well, you see, my husband Darrell Osborn is an artist. A GOOD artist. You like the covers on my books? Chances are he did those. And that of some other writers at Twilight Times Books. And those of some other books with other publishers. I watch him work and am in awe: how does he do that? How does an image emerge out of nothingness beneath his fingers? Whether those fingers are holding a sketch pen, an airbrush, or a computer mouse, he's just amazing.

Me? I literally can't draw a straight line with a ruler. Oh, I can see it in my head, but I can't get it represented...

...Unless I use words. I like to say that I paint with words. Given that many fans have said reading my books is like watching a movie in their heads, I suppose I do well enough. And yes, Aaron is completely right in that I store away mental images of the places I've been, the things I've seen, and they all become fodder for my writing.

So yeah, Aaron and I must think alike, LOL.

-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

My husband is a keeper

by Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

I just returned from Libertycon, one of several major SF conventions in Chattanooga TN. There, I was delighted to be this year's Science Guest of Honor. These are good people, down-home, loving and friendly. As usual, they not only ran my standard bio in their program book, they also asked some people to give them their stories about me. Due to some crossed wires, they got two: one from my good friend Sara Harvey, and one from my husband, Darrell Osborn.

Now, Darrell and I have been married quite awhile, and like most married couples of long standing, we know we love each other and that's that. The busyness of life and the knowledge of belonging - as well as some reticence on both sides to be able to say the things that we feel deepest - means that the knowing is felt, not said.

Until the convention. And then my dear husband laid it all on the line for everyone to see. And I am so proud I can't stop reading it. So I'm going to share it with the world:

Let's start at the beginning. Decades ago, before many of you were born, my friend Danny and I were walking through the theater building on the campus of Austin Peay [State University] in Clarksville, TN. We were passing through the "Green Room" on our way to the stage when we saw an attractive blonde sitting on the couch. We looked at each other and then did what any red-blooded theatre geek would do. We hit on her. That was the first time I met Stephanie Gannaway. She was finishing her last year at APSU and preparing to graduate with a triple major in Math, Physics, and Chemistry. She was also picking up minors in Geology and Computer Science. My first thought was, "At last, someone I can talk to."

Fast forwarding a couple of years finds us married and living in student housing on the campus of Vanderbilt in Nashville. Stephanie was working on a Masters in Astronomy and I was creating havoc in the Live Entertainment Department at Opryland [back when it was a theme park -Steph]. One day word came down that Carl Sagan was coming to give a talk. You've got to remember, at this time Carl Sagan was a science rock star. Everyone knew "Cosmos" and he was a regular on Carson's Tonight Show. We later find out that Max, one of her professors, and Sagan were college buddies. The talk was great and we went to reception afterward. We progressed through the greeting line until we reached Max and Sagan. Max introduced Stephanie as one of the two astronomy graduate students. As Stephanie shook his hand, Max leaned over and whispered to Sagan, "She's one of the good ones." Sagan gave a knowing little smile and nod. That was our Sagan moment. Although brief, I think that short phrase and nod meant more to her than any of the degrees she had gotten.

A few decades have passed and so has Sagan. Now Stephanie has moved from science and her involvement in the space program to its symbiote science fiction. I have no doubt that the time will come again when she will stand before some sci-fi writer rock star and once again hear the words, "She's a good one." (That reminds me of the time we ran into Ray Bradbury; a story for another time.)

Last year I re-connected with Danny. He's now an Associate Dean at the University of Memphis. That's a great accomplishment, but I got the girl.

-Darrell "Doc" Osborn

Yep. I always knew Darrell was a keeper. <3

-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com