Last Day to Vote

I haven't checked the boards today, so I have no idea how things are going. Tomorrow is soon enough to find out how my choices did.

I suspect some people (authors, namely) may stay up and wait for the turnover at 12 midnight Eastern. I think Jeff is on Colorado time so would that be 10 PM for him? I don't know when he finds time to sleep.

I have started working on my new website. This will take a while, I think. At the moment, I have no idea what to put on there or how to put it on if I knew what I wanted. I'll learn. Slow and steady.

Today, I decided to work on Past Ties again, the book that started it all. Technically, it is mostly written, but based on my experience with Elementals, I'm probably going to throw most of it out. Maybe. I don't know.

I stopped working on it because of the research needed to answer all the sticky questions that came up while I was writing it in the first place.

The story involves future governments (how far in the future? what kind of governments would have survived? would the US exist? if so, who are her enemies?), nanotechnology (what are we doing today in that field and what do we project for the future?), lunar and Mars colonization (which would come first, if we did either? what would drive such a push? would this be a government-run colonization or a private-industry venture, or both? what would it entail?) and artificial intelligence and robotics (I don't even want to think about how long that research could go on).

Getting an idea of why I stopped working on the book? This turtle don't care for research, and these are all things I would have to answer before I could comfortably publish Past Ties.

The problem with writing science fiction is you have to emphasize the science. In TV and movies, you can emphasize the fiction and use great CGI and explosions to keep the audience's mind off the obvious "that would never happen" plot weaknesses. Don't have that option in books.

However, now that I have the Internet and the will to use it, I'll begin my slow and steady course of answering these questions. Since Past Ties sets up events that impact at least eight other books I want to write, I guess it's time to get it done.

On the bright side, once I've answered these questions, I don't have to answer them again.
And speaking of bright sides, morning comes sooner and sooner for me, so I'll sign off and pick up in the AM.