By

David Alan Jones

Starship Clearwater, 3.5 million metric tons of human ingenuity and brilliance, tacked galactic south until its proper motion matched that of its white dwarf engine star, Clydesdale.

“We’re in position,” said Stocking, the pilot.

Dr. Gregg Kavet, Clearwater’s director, nodded.  “Ready to give old Mother Nature a pinch?” he asked the ship’s resident astrophysicist, Dr. Sing Tzu.

The Asian man nodded and Kavet said, “All right, give Clydesdale the reins.”

Outside, the star field adjacent and about 0.2 AU from Clydesdale began to ripple and waver as if viewed through a hazy atmosphere.  Almost at once the white dwarf began falling towards the depression Clearwater had created in spacetime, like a marble rolling down a drain.

“Extrusion point projected with minimal power loss,” said Tzu without looking up from his holo-panel.  “Tidal stresses are well within shear tolerance.”

Clearwater rumbled, floor plates shaking like an old-fashioned subway car, as Clydesdale’s gravity coaxed it into motion.  Although the ship and crew had made this type of jump several times before, Kavet always got butterflies at this point.  Of course, if any of the jumps Clearwater had made deserved a fluttery stomach, it was this one.

Where the previous time shifts had been to significant periods in Sol System’s past, and those of only a few million years at most, this one would be Clearwater’ greatest feat to date.

Its mission was two-fold.  First, solve the Paradox of Youth at the center of the Milky Way.  Second, and related to the first, find out what started the event dubbed Spinbirth by its discoverer, Ted Figgen, one hundred fourteen years ago in the year 2018.

Figgen, an astrophysicist, determined that the Milky Way had begun to flatten and become a spiral galaxy almost exactly 7.2 billion years before present day.  This very precise calculation, though proven and refined by later astronomers, baffled scientists of every stripe.

Coupled with the Paradox of Youth — the existence of many young stars at the Milky Way’s center — Spinbirth had become one of modern man’s greatest mysteries, one that had remained unsolvable until the creation of Clearwater.  Now humanity would have its answers.

Kavet smiled at the thought.  It reminded him of a poem by one of his favorite 21^st century authors who had chided man for dreaming of traveling time since he was already a time traveler, moving from moment to moment into infinity.

“Insertion,” said Tzu.

Clydesdale proceeded out of the rip in spacetime — a fiery pinball — Clearwater coasting in its wake.

“Let’s have a look,” said Kavet.

The bridge environment disappeared, replaced by a 360 degree view of the star field.

“What the hell?” said Kavet.

Stars crowded every part of visible space about Clearwater, flooding the ship’s polarized screens with light.

Alarms began to wail.

“Radiation warning,” said Clearwater’s AI in a cool, male voice.

The deck shook violently.  Stocking did something at his post and it lessened, though the hull still trembled.

“Clydesdale has fallen into the gravity well of a red giant about 3 AU from our current position,” said Tzu.

“Collision course?” asked Kavet. His heart was racing, but he couldn’t let it show.  No need to worry the junior crewmembers.

“No,” said Tzu.  “It’s safe, but I don’t like our chances surviving that much heat and radiation.  I suggest we unhitch now and move out into deeper waters.”

“Do it.”

Clearwater veered away from its engine star and the deck ceased its tremors.  After a few seconds the warbling alarm stopped and the AI sounded an all clear.

Kavet stared at the star field, dotted with white, yellow, and red suns.

“Are we in the right when?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Tzu.  “And the right place.  We’re about a thousand light years from galactic center.  You can see it there.”  He pointed at a bright halo of light circling a black sphere.

“What’s with all this then?  I don’t see enough –“ Kavet froze.  “Tzu, did I just see a star appear?”

“I saw that too,” said Stocking.

“And another,” said Tzu.

“Dr. Kavet,” said Stocking, his voice awed, “we’re detecting a massive number of vessels in the area.

“How many is ‘massive’?”

Stocking paused, staring at his instruments as if he could change them by dint of will.  When they didn’t change, he said, “Hundreds of millions, sir.”

“What?”

“He is correct,” said Tzu, a bit of Japanese accent creeping into his voice.  “I’m detecting roughly the same number of stars.”

Kavet felt sweat bead his forehead.

“Tzu, any chance we can catch Clydesdale and go home?”

Tzu shook his head.  “We need flat space for that — no intervening gravity wells.”

Kavet scanned the star field.  The place was lousy with stars.

“What the hell is happening here?” he asked.

Tzu left his science station to walk across the bridge, his eyes fixed on Sagittarius A, the super massive black hole at galactic center.

Kavet knew the man too well not to recognize a sudden insight.  He waited while his science officer studied the heart of their galaxy.

“Spinbirth,” breathed Tzu.  “We cause it — are causing it.”

“We who?”

“We, as in every sentient civilization in the galaxy that manages to create time travel.  We all come here to see what happened.  We come here and we cause it by emptying the galaxy’s outer shell, moving all these stars to the center, not only creating the spin, but simultaneously setting up the Paradox of Youth.”

Several more stars, one a main sequence like Sol, popped into existence in the field.

“How do we get back to our future?” asked Kavet, fearing the answer.

Tzu turned to face the director, silent for a moment.

“One second at a time.”

Jake: Daddy, I need help.  I can’t reach the soap.

Me: I’m kinda busy, hang on.

[Two seconds pass]

Jake: You done now?

– david j.

Because of my sister’s passion for art, I was introduced to a great book on drawing at around the age of 13.  I can’t remember the exact title, but I think it was Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

It detailed a method of drawing where the artist sketches the free spaces around an object rather than the object itself.  Suffice it to say, I was no good at sketching, a fact I determined within just a few days of practicing these methods.  But that lesson has stuck with me all these years, and I believe it applies to writing as much as to charcoal sketches.

As a fictioneer, I want my reader to visualize every detail of my story.  This too is a passion.  Unfortunately, it’s a passion that often leads to a problem, one I see in new writers’ work everyday.  They have a hard time letting even one moment of the protagonist’s life pass unremarked.  Rather than breaking up scenes with a line space or switching to a new chapter, these enthusiastic authors detail how characters wait 20 minutes for the bus to arrive, or follow them across the castle from one important meeting to another.  They have no capacity for reader assumptions–something readers find disrespectful.

That’s where writing around the subject comes into play.  Instead of detailing every moment of everyday, it’s better to let the reader infer mundane details.  After a romantic dinner, the MC heads home, a smile on his face…and that’s it.  Start the next scene with the next important event.  Readers are smart people.  They don’t need to be told that Harry drove home in the dark, or that he drives a Civic because he finds Acuras pretentious (well, maybe that last part could point to character development, but you see what I mean).  Harry got home after the date.  The next important thing that happens–Suzzane calling to let him know she never wants to see him again–is the next scene and it can be started right, freaking now!  Because I want to know how she interpreted their date so differently from Harry, not how Harry flosses his teeth, or sits on his couch flipping through channels.

All this boils down to one main point: get to the action, tie it up as fast as the narrative will allow, and then exit.  No shilly-shallying, no dilly-dallying, let’s have a drink of it now!

http://youtu.be/E9jxyPHs4cQ

– david j.

Rewrites are fun.

– david j.

All this is hard work, but fun even still.  Let’s hope it ends with a contract.

Here’s the chapter by chapter breakout of The Doorlands.  It will change over the next several months, but this is how it stands as of this minute:

1. It Started With a Hammer
2. The Scene of the Crime
3. Stranded in Strayer
4. A Rich Welcome
5. Spacecraft
6. Target Practice
7. Moving About
8. The Doorlands
9. Home is Where
10. Space Upon Space
11. An Invitation
12. Unexpected Guests
13. A Limited Search
14. Strayers Never Stray
15. Off the Wall
16. Into the Doorlands
17. Shifting Fortunes
18. Corner Outcast
19. Tamed Space
20. The Walk
21. Sometimes it Hurts to be Right
22. The Death of Outcasts
23. The Downland Door
24. Breaking Ties
25. Reunion
26. Baiting a Hook
27. When One Door Closes

I expect this book to end up with 30+ chapters.  I’ve already identified at least two I’ll add before the end of December.  The first will be somewhere in the middle–a training chapter.  The second is a final word on the protagonist’s fate and future.  That should be fun.

– david j.

After that I will do a read through looking for major flaws.  I’m already aware of at least two.  The first is a simple matter of better explanation for some key concepts.  The second was caused by shifting focus mid-novel.  It simply requires some revised drafting for  agreement’s sake between earlier chapters and later.

This book is the cleanest draft I have ever written.  Maybe one day I’ll be able to pull a Heinlein of Spillane and just dash off a completed draft in a few days with almost no revisions.

Probably not.

– david j.

– david j.

– david j.

– david j.

I’m excited on both counts.  This was my first NaNo–I may well do this every year!–and the novel I chose was one that’s been on my mind lately.  Pushing through it this fast, to my honest surprise, hasn’t left me feeling lost or unfulfilled or even desperate to launch a rewriting jihad.  Who has time?  And, even better, I feel like I’m tying up all the threads better in this first draft than I did in my last novel.  I attribute this to have things fresh on my mind.  I wrote chapter one of this book last week and now I’m on chapter fifteen.  A lot has happened between those two writings (for me and my characters), but I feel as though I can recall them better for the brevity between creative sessions.   I took months to write my previous novel (the second one I’ve written).  Subsequently, many promises I made to the reader, especially those that came off the cuff in the pursuit of discovery, never paid off.  In The Doorlands, however, I think I’m keeping a better accounting of what’s passed and how it should affect the future.  I hope.

– david j.