Whew. Been a whirlwind week of active duty, which means no time to write. In spite of that, the BREACH ZONE 1st draft is over 100,000 words long and I have promised myself I will finish it by the end of August, so I can begin the process of going back over the manuscript and muttering “dude! What the hell was I thinking?” over and over again.
One great outcome of this last push is that I’ve finally earned by Boat Forces Operations certification. It’s a geegaw, some more bling for the uniform, but it marks you as a member of community of skilled practitioners, represents (for me, at least) a 9 month push to the goal post. Very psyched to have earned it.
Coast Guard Boat Force Operators operate our small, high speed craft, and do much of the Search and Rescue (SAR) and Maritime Law Enforcement (MLE) work of the fleet. Earning this certification means I’m meeting the *minimum* standard to wear it, and I have years to go to truly be an expert in the field, but it’s a nice start.
So, now I turn my attention back to my writing career, starting with my trip to London to promote the UK edition of CONTROL POINT, which I posted about here. Check the schedule and see if you can make it.
I’ve also received my schedule for WorldCon 2012, where I’ll be from August 30th to September 3rd. Here’s the breakdown:
| Sat Sep 1 9:00:am | Sat Sep 1 10:30:am | Men Writing Women |
| Columbus KL | For many years, women writers were in the minority, particularly in science fiction. Worse, they were forced to adopt male or gender-neutral pseudonyms. Still, what is often overlooked is how many male writers have written stories from the female protagonist point of view or even using a female pseudonym. This panel will explore this issue from a variety of perspectives. | |
| Alec Nevala-Lee Bradley P. Beaulieu Jan Bogstad Myke Cole Russell Davis | ||
| Sat Sep 1 7:30:pm | Sat Sep 1 9:00:pm | Disaster response in SF |
| Gold Coast | Apocalyptic natural disasters, hungry zombies, devastating plagues. These are all mainstays of SF&F stories. The federal government has real National Incident Management System (NIMS) for dealing with them. How would NIMS react to some science fictional scenarios? What would the response look like? | |
| Eightball Jean Johnson Marie Bilodeau Myke Cole Scott Lynch | ||
Hope to see folks in London and WorldCon! Don’t leave me hanging, bro!