fbpx

Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

writing ideas

Terraforming a world with shell technology

by

Live in a dome; artistic flare w/off-Earth life

I love this idea: terraforming with a shell or dome to hold the atmosphere in and generate heat.  That makes use of local planets like Mars, Venus, and various moons as liveable space very doable.

Miriam Kramer’s article “Incredible Technology: How to Use a ‘Shell’ to Terraform a Planet” on Space.com went into much of the details of the practice.  What I find most intriguing was the independence it gave to expanding off Earth.  If we are limited to earth-like planets, than movement off earth will be quite some ways off.  But if we can terraform the moon, Mars, Titus, we have considerably limited the time spent in space and the amount of preparation or technology needed to make such an expedition and colonization.

As Kramer points out, the need for atmospheric supplies and related resources needed to terraform a planet is considerably reduced when a shell is used.  Certainly, we would have to find ways to generate breathable air on site and soil fit to grow food stock, but waiting for a planet to be modified en mass is both excessively time consuming and considerably demanding of resources that would have to be supplied by Earth.

The plausibility of terraforming through the use of shell technology is a great setting for science fiction stories.  It has been used by Heinlein, Clark, Robinson and others.  I can imagine there would be numerous variables to a story just based on selecting a site followed by beginning the process.  Other issues would crop up if this was the first application of the process.  Of course, there would be mistakes, learning opportunities, sabotage or poor management, etc., the list goes on.  There is certainly plenty of resources online to understand the process thoroughly enough to use it correctly in a story.

I believe Niven used a Dyson Sphere in his Ring World series.  Heinlein used domes in several of his novels and short stories set on the moon (Number of the Beast, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Red Planet), Mars and Venus.

What specific novels and short stories do you remember that made use of this technology?

Learning from the masters series: Steinbeck’s common man

by

John Steinbeck wrote for and about the guy next door, the man that works to pay the bills at the end of the month, for the poor cuss who hopes and hopes even when hope is lost, and loses and loses,  even when he wins.

Tortilla Flat
   He moved slowly and cautiously.  Now and then the chicken tried to double back, but always there was Pilon in the place it chose to go.  At last it disappeared into the pine forest, and Pilon sauntered after it.
   To the glory of his soul be it said that no cry of pain came from that thicket.  That chicken, which Pilon has prophesied might live painfully, died peacefully, or at least quietly.

Okay, so that was not Pilon’s chicken and when he exited that thicket, he had already drawn and quartered that rooster, pocketed the parts and left all evidence of its identification behind.  He had a good day, a good meal and a good rule: chickens just wandering about homeless are best eaten fresh.

The Pearl
   His people had once been great makers of songs so that everything they saw or thought or did or heard became a song.  That was very long ago. The songs remained; Kino knew them, but no new songs were added.  That does not mean that there were no personal songs.  In Kino’s head, there was a song now, clear and soft, and if he had been able to speak of it, he would have called it the song of the family.

Kino was in tune with the flow of his community, the sea nearby and the sleepy contentment of his family in the breaking morning.  And song was his element and his barometer.

Of Mice and Men
   “No. . . you tell it.  It ain’t the same if I tell it. Go on . . . George.  How I get to tend the rabbits.”
   “Well,” said George, “we’ll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens.  And when it rains in the winter, we’ll just say hell with goin’ to work, and we’ll build up a fire in the stove and set around it an’ listen to the rain comin’ down on the roof–Nuts!”  He took out his pocket knife.  “I ain’t got time for no more.”  He drove his knife through the top of one of the bean cans, sawed out the top and passed the can to Lennie.

These two migrant workers were keeping the dream of a farm in the future, their own place where they could decide to work or not, stuffed deep in their empty pockets next to dead mice and nicked pocket knives.

And that was Steinbeck, the writer that lived first in the life then wrote the life of those who lived it.  His characters are drawn from people who live in and through hardship, but not the hardship that visits, leaves and sometime later after happy times have worn out their welcome is replaced with another difficult situation to manage through.  His characters are imbued in hardship; that is what life is.  It giveth and it taketh away, and mostly it taketh.

I was driving over a bridge in Bend, Oregon, and a man, layered in several shirts and jackets stepped blithely along the concrete margin that left a tight walkway along the fencing of the bridge.  I looked back (I wasn’t the driver) and watched him until we were out of sight.  He wore a grin on his face, was obviously singing loud and joyfully and looked to have taken his last bath some weeks earlier.  He’s a Steinbeck man, I remember thinking.  You know them when you see them.  It is hard not to be drawn in by their look of hope, their obvious plight, the sorrow you see coming which they don’t seem to.  Steinbeck made me sensitive to them, made me hope and work not to be one, and surprised me when after researching my family tree, I found I was but one generation from them and at times only a paycheck or two ahead of them.

If you want to write about the common man in his glory, in his misery, read Steinbeck first.  Research your family tree.  Look around.  Then sit down and write about the fears that wake you up at night, only let them loose and see what damp place they will land it, dry up, flit about and land in the wet again.

#Steinbeck
#learningfromthemasters
#writing

The variety of the story beginning — 57 and counting

by

start with something & keep writing

What better post to discuss beginnings on than In the beginning….  Where to start the story?

  1. Start with any word that comes to mind — the beginning is just that: a place to start.
  2. a character talking to another character
  3. the character talking to the reader
  4. the character talking to the self
  5. start when things went wrong
  6. start when things finally went right
  7. begin with the ending
  8. begin with an argument
  9. describe an image
  10. the main character meets someone new
  11. a favor is called in
  12. start with an article of clothing and have your character put it on
  13. describe what the main character sees
  14. describe a smell
  15. start with a cup of coffee, a glass of juice, a piece of toast
  16. have him place groceries down before the cashier
  17. describe everything but the visual in a scene
  18. start with a woman crying
  19. start with a man laughing
  20. a fretful child
  21. blow something up
  22. knock something over
  23. land a plane with difficulty
  24. have the car skidding out of control
  25. drive around the circle of a town’s central square looking for a parking spot
  26. stand up from being knocked down
  27. have the cat licking its paw seated next to a severed hand
  28. roll up a garden hose, water spraying everywhere
  29. wake up to the sound of a dog barking 
  30. have him pack his clothes into a grocery bag
  31. the family scrambles to exit a house when a car pulls into the driveway because it is not their house
  32. pull a ticket from beneath the windshield wiper
  33. a stack of papers on the desk,and an empty out-box
  34. run out of staples and cry about it
  35. the chair leg breaks
  36. pick at a sore
  37. dye her hair another color and put on clothes that don’t quite fit
  38. a pipe burst in freezing weather
  39. the car breaks down 500 feet from the entrance to the drive way
  40. the car loses power while your character is driving down the highway
  41. lock their keys in the car
  42. the character checks every day under the car for rattlesnakes.  One day one is coiled beneath.
  43. step in a mudpuddle
  44. step off the curb and be struck by a bicyclist
  45. set a stone in a cobbled walkway
  46. draw money from the bank
  47. the loan goes through
  48. go looking for a new car
  49. quit his job
  50. walk away
  51. run away from something dangerous
  52. run away from someone who loves her
  53. break a promise 
  54. bury a pet
  55. talk to God, tell him how things are going since last the two talked
  56. ask your character a question and write down what she answers
  57. have your character describe someone he doesn’t like

Blog Hop!

by

Hitting the keys

QUESTIONS FOR DECEMBER TWITTER BLOG HOP: I was tagged by E. M. Wynter!
What are you writing?
I am writing my third novel in a time travel series called Students of Jump.  The first book In Times Passed chronicled the activities of Brent Garrett as he learned not just how to travel in time but how to manage his own life on terms he can accept and even find joy in.  He comes from a time in the not-so-distant future and a society that is separate from most of earth’s population.  He has lived under the daunting expectation that he is going to invent something or somehow bring about amazing change in his society.  Jumping into the past was his way of escaping this expectation, but he learns life always carries expectations hard to live up to. The second book No-time Like the Present follows his daughter Misty Meredith who feels Brent Garrett owes her some explanations.  Misty has her own conflicts to resolve and finds jumping through time opens opportunities but cannot by itself fix anything.  But the work I am writing now, Next Time We Meet, involves two characters, Mick and Emily Jenkins, and their search for a sense of belonging in a time ahead of their own. That is the simple premise: it’s the rest that makes it complicated working with these two.


How does this differ from your last work?
I thought the other two novels were difficult because they had two timelines to deal with and a variety of conflicts between characters.  But this book included two demanding additions: one is the fully-developed relationship of Mick and Emily. They are a couple who have lived into their senior years gaining experience, a definite opinion about life and family, and a tight relationship.  The experience they bring feels nearly useless to them as it all occurred in another time, their family connections suffered gaps due to the jumps in time taken by the various members, and their opinions don’t always apply to current conditions.  Their relationship is the only safety line they have.  Mick appears to be the dominant character, but he has functioned for so long with Emily in his life, there is little he does that is not influenced by their relationship, and that brings its own conflicts.  Emily is the hand that carries Mick’s world, and he is the force that keeps them moving forward.  But I love writing about relationships so this has been a challenge but not a difficult one.  The addition of what Mick decides is their best means of becoming part of the family life in the twenty-third century is what creates all the struggle for me as a writer.


It turns out I am writing a science fiction, time travel, mystery novel.  Why didn’t I see that coming?  Mick, with Emily’s agreement, has chosen to spend their time figuring out what caused the unexplained disappearance of Renwick Cray during a simple hop home from Old Garrett Complex.  This occupation is meant to help them become part of the society they have joined.  Emily christens them time-hop detectives, and the two travel about in time following clues as they search for Renwick.  Facing fears and realizing it isn’t as easy as just showing up in a new time is a challenge to the characters, but for me it means a lot of research into the events and locations they are searching as well as keeping their actions logical and progressive as they gain understanding of what actually happened to Renwick.  Hints I left in book 2 effect the decisions and actions, whether sensible or illogical, that occur in book 3. Technology’s limits and advances affect the action as well, and Mick and Emily are learning how to work these new technologies that in many cases are new to everyone in the extended family that makes up the Students of Jump.  That is the main difference, making sure all the clues ultimately lineup without seeming obvious, yet I want the reader to look back and see how the confusion was natural while the final result was also logical.


Why do you write?
To see what is going to happen next, of course.   I don’t think there is an actual reason behind why I write, not one that is a conscious decision, anyway.  I mean, I didn’t decide to breath, but I do breath every day, rhythmically and regularly.  I do decide to eat, but if I don’t, my body won’t last long.  For me writing is a combination of those two normal human conditions.  I write because that is what my mind does with the thoughts that pass through it, and if I didn’t write, something very destructive would happen to my mind; something would most definitely die.  I write because I must, because I feel great when I do it, and I really need to know what is going to happen next.


What is your writing process? 
That is a bit tricky to answer.  I came up with the idea of the first book when I worked as an assembly line worker many, many years ago.  I was listening to the song by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, “I Just Dropped In” and started thinking.  Following the storyline as it played out in my mind kept me from going nutty in the brain-stupefying atmosphere of repetitive work.  I must have written that book in my head at least three times before I finally wrote it down.  The second book just followed the first, like a seedling dropped from the parent into nourishing ground.  Now this third book, I used several programs to assist in developing, though I wrote the first draft of it shortly after finishing the rough draft of book 2.  I used the brainstorming program Freemind to organize the various conflicts, Microsoft OneNote to organize my research and more recently the online program Padlet (see post on selecting timeline program) to keep track of the timeline as Mick and Em jump through time looking for Renwick or his kidnapper.  And all of this ends up in yWriter5 after being drafted in Microsoft Word.


When I get stuck, I lie down and think about where the characters are currently and what they are dealing with.  I don’t get to lay there long, five to fifteen minutes later, I have to get up and write what must be gotten down.  I wake up in the night or find I can’t get to sleep when the two of them are struggling with the facts about Renwick’s disappearance not fitting together, and sometimes I realize I missed an important hint left in a previous book.  Sometimes I work the hint in as a bit of information Mick and Em overlooked, and sometimes I redraft the scene to work more logically with actual events.  I use outlines, hand-written notes, recorded voice memos, and other means of keeping track of my ideas and plans for a written piece.  I avoid telling anyone my ideas so my writing doesn’t lose momentum.  I get feedback after a strong draft is written.  I am inconsistent when it comes to process, but demanding about outcome.  I don’t care how my characters get there, just that they get there.


My books at Amazon.com
My books at Smashwords.com
Twitter handle:  @LDarbyGibbs
Facebook page

Inspiration comes in many forms, mine required a cabinet

by

cream in pink and royal blue

So I am sitting at my kitchen table wondering what I am going to write this post about and feeling very uninspired.  I looked around, and well, inspiration was sitting right before my eyes. Maybe I had to look a little to the left, but it was right there.

A couple of years after my father passed away, my step-mother (essentially the only mother I have had) decided it was time to distribute the family china.  I sat there and realized I had been married nearly thirty years and not only did I not have a china cabinet, but I also owned just one piece of china, a nested tea set given to me by my Swedish grandmother for a wedding gift. 

My parents had two china cabinets and four sets of china from having both been married previously.  Additionally, they had each received sets from their own parents.  Suddenly I had a tea set and a 10-piece place setting plus various accouterments; the place settings were my mother’s (she died when I was a baby), and the other was my grandmother’s which had been given to my father when she was scaling down her quite sizable china collection. I had gone a long time without china and wasn’t sure what I would do with them, perhaps leave them wrapped in tissue inside sturdy boxes.

My husband’s solution was to take me looking for an appropriate display cabinet.  Nothing seemed to fit our taste nor our pocketbook which was not willing to stretch far for something we on our own would not have purchased.  We went to used furniture shops and then finally an antique shop where we found the right cabinet.  Once it and the china were brought together and placed in my kitchen, I learned what my unexpected possession was for.

pink ribbons and roses

Each day I have sat at the table drafting my second, third and now fourth book.  When I get stumped, I glance over at that piece of furniture, then through the curved glass doors of the hutch.  Those delicate cups, soup bowls and teapots always have something to share with me.  They provide glimpses of my mother and father as they selected the roses and ribbon pattern in cream and pink.  I imagine my father nodding at the one that made my mother’s eyes fill with light.

Japanese tea

Or the tea set of Japanese porcelain glints beneath the shadow of the wood lattice. My grandmother was a solid Swedish lady who loved to make braided rugs, crochet, and knit.  Maybe it was the hand-painted cherry blossoms and ladies in kimonos which held her appreciation.  My grandfather died the year my husband and I married, and when she came to visit, she had her first opportunity to meet him.  She had suffered a stroke many years earlier and still struggled to speak.  I remember her puzzling out the means to say, “Good man,” and she squeezed my hand.   Then from a box she pulled out that nested tea set and showed me how to properly display it.

My books don’t have any tea sets in them, but they are filled with family love that is as delicate as china teacups bearing beautiful ladies in green kimonos and sweet bud roses on pink ribbons.

And that’s my post.  Inspiration comes in many forms, and it is amazingly personal and can take up considerable room in one’s life or kitchen.  What inspires you?  What gives you glimpses of the muse that feeds your writing.

There are stories everywhere

by

Yeah, it’s a horse, but why is it in my front yard?

There is a road I drive down every day to get to work.  It is not a popular part of the highway system, so there are few businesses along the way.  One site has changed renters numerous times.  It has been a restaurant half a dozen times, a used clothing store, seamstress business and is currently a donut shop.

Usually, at about a year and a half, the business just closes up and goes up for rent again.  The donut shop hit its one year mark back in May.  So I expect soon to see cars in the parking lot one day and the next the day find it as empty as an old shoe box, tissue crumpled and little packets of granular stuff maintaining a dry but useless environment.

That is a story just waiting for the telling. Why does that store never hold a business long even though they seem to be thriving?  Who owns it?  Are they nothing but trouble to their renters?  Is the highway itself unwilling to take so much traffic for too long and has its own agenda to push through despite human desires to succeed?

There are stories everywhere waiting to be told.

  • Why is that little girl sitting in bored meditation on her porch stairs, chin balanced on her hands?
  • Why did that family throw out a perfectly good couch?  It hasn’t any tears, slumping of cushions, or broken frame and is still in style.
  • Why is that fellow standing behind the tree talking on his phone and swatting at the bugs clearly annoying him?
  • Why is that horse wearing a blue cover over its face when the horse beside it isn’t?

You don’t have to beat bushes to find stories.  Write about the bush.

Where did you find your last story or did it find you?