SciFi Q of the Day: Transmitted Power

Posted on April 3, 2012 by AmyBeth Inverness

SciFi Question of the Day: What tech do we need in order to power electronic devices remotely… transmitting power without batteries or plugging into a socket? Could Tesla actually do this a century ago?

Facebook Answers:

  Douglas S Caprette  The problem with transmitting power with a Tesla coil is the inverse square law. The power drops off with the square of the distance. This is because the transmission is omnidirectional.

To efficiently transmit power you need a tightly focused beam like a laser or maser. And objects passing thorugh the beam would interrupt the transmission.

That’s with current technology.

If you want an SF technology I would suggest sending two tightly focused beams. One neutrinos,the other antineutrinos. They easily pass through solid matter. You could send a beam of neutrinos right through the Earth and hardly lose any. Then at the receiving end the two beams would be combined. The particles would anihilate each other, producing photons that could be converted to electricity.

If you decide to use a neutrino/antineutrino powere transmission system, feel free to name it after me.

  AmyBeth Fredricksen Will do, Douglas,will do!

  Douglas S Caprette I checked on this and instead of producing photons, which is what you get when an electron is anihilated by a positron, you get charged leptons. But probably you don’t want to get into too much detail anyhow.

Google Plus Answers:

  Erik Swiger  –  Just a thought – know how a crystal radio works? We’re living in a sea of radio waves. Use an antenna and a diode to convert the radio signals to electricity to charge batteries. Problem is it needs a big antenna.

  Laston Kirkland  –  yes he could…  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_energy_transfer

The way Tesla did it was a rapidly oscillating magnetic field

  Laston Kirkland  –  the vibration of a crystal in a radio does very little work, and would do very little to charge a battery. It would be like trying to convince a mouse to pull a horseplow. even in a sea of radio waves, the best you would get would be two or three mice.

  Laston Kirkland  –  the real problems with wireless power transmission were twofold. 1) it plays absolute havoc with radio waves up and down the spectrum.  and 2) how do you charge for it?  The former is a engineering issue, the latter not so much.

  Brent Stires  –  They’ve been doing it with copper and it’s resonance frequency for awhile now.

  Erik Swiger  –  +Brent Stires More info please?

  Brent Stires  –  http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_giler_demos_wireless_electricity.html http://mashable.com/2011/10/20/powermat-wireless-charging-tech/

  Brent Stires  –  The TED talk is from 2009. And he’s talking about the experiment done 2 years before.

  Erik Swiger  –  Super! Thanks +Brent Stires .

  Brent Stires  –  Welcome to the future

  Erik Swiger  –  What I’m seeing from these links is basically charging stations; that is, the device is placed near the transmitter to charge a battery wirelessly. We already have that technology.

How are they going to send adequate amounts of power miles away from the distribution point?

  Brent Stires  –  There needs to be an adequate reason to do so

  Erik Swiger  –  I thought that was the point of the original post: to power devices without wires or batteries. In other words, transmitted power. Not to charge batteries in a charger, but to eliminate the need for batteries altogether.

  Brent Stires  –  the TV in the TED talk was truly wireless.

The phone would’ve been if the receiver was hooked up to the actual phone and not the battery.

At the moment the only way to get power out is by having giant coils.

But free power isn’t something this country would like due to it being a subsidiary of capitalism.

  Laston Kirkland  –  A science fiction idea I had was a fortified monastery… something like Anathem by Stephenson… where the monks had solved the radio interference issues, and were outputting free power to the world…. and big business and government were trying HARD to stop them.

  Laston Kirkland  –  also, reread my original posts, and I didn’t mean to shut you down+Erik Swiger I had the same crystal radio idea myself years ago… a local radio station had the tagline “10,000 watts of power, and no idea what we are doing” and I researched the idea of getting power that way… turns out not so much.

  Erik Swiger  –  I’d still like to play around with this someday, when I have a little time and money to do so. Given a large antenna array (and I do mean large), it should be possible to gather enough radio waves to charge batteries, to run some small household appliances. It’s not like I’m going to be running major energy-sucking appliances like a dryer or an oven, but it should be sufficient to run some lights and electronics.

By the way, +Laston Kirkland , I would imagine the powers-that-be could wipe out your monastery with an EM pulse. That’s the downfall of any electronic system, as I think we’ll see in the next few years.

  Laston Kirkland  –  heh, I thought of the EM pulse as well… and shortly after that the monks escape with their biomodified yeast that makes gasoline from garbage.

  Thomas Sanjurjo  –  I asked my father (CEO of an energy company) about this one, here is his response, “It’s a great idea, but the problem isn’t the output. You could put a tesla, or something similar, up and charge car batteries, but the problem is in the receiving end. You’d only be able to receive a portion of the energy sent out, so it’d still take an incredibly long time to charge. You wouldn’t be able to use the energy directly because of the loss. Same problem you have with long distance transmission on current lines, just even bigger because of the medium being designed to use resistance rather than eliminate it.”

  Laston Kirkland  –  yup… farther away from source you are the more power is lost just getting it to you… If there WAS a way to store power IN the medium (air or earth) and retrieve it on demand… so all you needed to do was feed power into it, and later, tap it when needed it… so the atmosphere itself stored energy in some way….

something using ELF waves, or magnetic resonance, or I dunno, eldritch runes.

well…. that’s the science fiction idea I’m working on.

I would love to hear what you think! Even if you are reading this post a year or more after publishing, I hope you will leave a comment with your own ideas on this topic.

The previous SciFi Q of the Day is From the Ocean to Space

The shortlink for this post is http://wp.me/p1qnT4-GY

The next SciFi Q of the Day will be up next Tuesday.

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Interview With Kevin Schillo

Posted on March 30, 2012 by AmyBeth Inverness

Kevin Schillo is a Graduate Research Assistant at University of Alabama in Huntsville in Aviation and Aerospace. He has worked on a wide variety of engineering projects, including aircraft, rocket, and satellite design and optimization. His novella Apotheosis is one of five stories that span a ten thousand year timeline in the Orion’s Arm Anthology Against a Diamond Sky.

1.  How would you explain the fusion propulsion research project to my daughter’s sixth grade class?

Have you ever wondered what makes the sun and the other stars shine? The culprit behind that is nuclear fusion. That’s the process by which atoms of the same or different elements combine to form a heavier element. If we could harness this power ourselves, we could send bigger and better spacecraft to Mars, Jupiter, and elsewhere than we could with any other kind of propulsion system.

2.   Is “BOINC” some kind of onomatopoeia or is it an acronym that only rocket scientists understand? 

BOINC stands for Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing. It is an open-source middleware system that has been used to develop many distributed computing projects, such as SETI@home and Folding@home. By taking advantage of the processing power donated by volunteers’ computers via the internet, computationally intensive problems may be addressed that otherwise would require large and expensive supercomputers.

3.   What has been your educational path so far, and how far to you plan to go?

I graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering and a minor in mathematics. During my studies, I participated in many different engineering projects pertaining to space technologies, including the design of a hybrid rocket, a piocsatellite, and a nanosatellite.

I am currently pursuing a Master of Science in Aerospace Systems Engineering at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where I am researching fusion propulsion. I do intend to complete my Master’s, and if I am bold enough, I will pursue a PhD in aerospace systems engineering here at UAH.

4.  What will you be doing at the NASA Robotics Academy at Marshall?

I will be working on a next-generation solar sailcraft that will utilize solar wind for propulsion and attitude control.

5.   How has NASA inspired you?

For as long as I can remember, I have always had a profound interest in space and space technologies. With my passion and imagination having been captivated by every NASA endeavor from Mercury to the International Space Station, I have always known that the career I make for myself must be in the field of space technologies.

This is the reason why I am majoring in aerospace engineering, and why I have taken every opportunity that has been made available to me to become involved with projects related for space technologies.

6.  What do you love about Arthur C. Clarke’s The Star?

I love it because of how it perfectly captures how difficult it can be for a theist to justify their religious beliefs in an otherwise cold and uncaring universe.  It’s a quick but enjoyable read, and I hope that no one will mind if I present a few spoilers here.

The story follows a starship crew exploring a distant star system, where they discover a time capsule left by an alien civilization that was destroyed when its star went supernova. The time capsule contains all of their history, knowledge, and culture, showing an advanced, peaceful people that calmly accepted their fate when the star that gave them life turned on them. The story’s narrator is the crew’s astrophysicist, who is a Jesuit priest. This discovery causes him to suffer from a severe crisis of faith. But this crisis of faith is not caused by learning that such a peaceful society could be destroyed in a natural disaster. The priest has long since accepted that such tragedies are inevitable, and yet perfectly reconcilable in a universe governed by his interpretation of god. But what does shake his faith is when he discovers that when the light of this supernova reached Earth thousands of years ago, it was seen as none other the Star of Bethlehem.

This raises the question: what would it take for the most devout believer to have their faith shaken so severely that they cannot hope to reconcile their beliefs? I plan for this to be a major theme in my future novels.

7.  Do you identify as a geek or a nerd?

I identify myself as both a geek and a nerd.

8.  Do you and your peers identify with any of the characters on The Big Bang Theory?

I myself do not. Some of my friends do, but I don’t name names, or which characters they identify themselves with. I do find the show to be entertaining at times, but I also find the characters to be a little too stereotypical.

9. Have you ever used the line “Yes, I am a rocket scientist…” to impress a date?

I use this line all the time. It works like a charm.

10.  Are you a writer who studies science and engineering, or an engineer who also writes?

I am an engineer who also writes. I’ve always known that I want to have a career in engineering. At the same time, I have felt compelled to write works of my own. There are a few things that I really want to write and have published over the next few years, but I don’t expect to ever have a full-time career as a writer. It is my intention to be able to support myself entirely with a career in engineering. If I can’t do that, I’ll have failed as an engineer.

11.  What is The Orion’s Arm Universe Project?

It is a vast online world-building project. The people who put it together pride themselves on it being hard sci-fi. This means there is nothing in the setting that is known to be impossible, in stark contrast to much popular sci-fi. There are no humanoid aliens, no faster-than-light travel or communication, no psychics, and no transporters. The setting is about ten thousand years in the future, where civilization spans the stars, with innumerable clades of robots, genetically engineered humans and animals, and aliens. And presiding over civilization are powerful, godlike AIs with computation nodes the size of planets, with thoughts beyond our comprehension, and yielding technology utterly incomprehensible to anyone other than themselves. Anyone can contribute to Orion’s Arm if they are willing to conform to the established canon.

12.  Why are there no lightsabers in the Orion’s Arm Universe?

They’re not included for the simple fact that lightsabers are impossible, for a number of reasons. For one, if we’re to assume that the blade of a lightsaber is a laser, that’s impossible, simply a laser is light, and you can’t just stop a beam of light at some arbitrary distance without some material to absorb it. Not only that, but lasers don’t block each other; they pass through each other. Sure, in the Star Wars movies we see lightsabers deflecting “lasers.” I put that in quotations they’re clearly not lasers, since they can be seen moving at only a few tens of miles an hour, dramatically slower than how fast lasers really move (186,000 miles per second). Some apologists say that a lightsaber blade isn’t a laser, but plasma. But that has its own problems, such as generating the magnetic fields needed to contain the plasma, the vast amounts of power that would be needed to do this, and the colossal amounts of heat that it would produce.

But for argument’s sake, let’s assume that lightsabers are possible. How effective would they be in an actual battle? This brings to mind my favorite scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Indiana is challenged by a threatening swordsman. Undeterred by the swordsman’s skills, Indiana simply pulls out his gun and shoots him, demonstrating how useless swords are in a world where guns exist. This scene would play out exactly the same if the swordsman had a lightsaber.

13.  What led to the inclusion of Apotheosis in the anthology?

Back in 2008, The Orion’s Arm Universe Project had a writing contest, where anyone with two much time on their hands had an opportunity to given the opportunity to compose a novella between 20,000 and 25,000 words in length and set within the canon of the Orion’s Arm Universe Project. People were allowed to vote via email on which entrant they liked the most, and the five most popular would be published in the anthology “Against a Diamond Sky.” I provided copies of Apotheosis to my friends and family so that they could judge its merit to determine if it was worthy of publication. They all told me how much they enjoyed my novella, finding it to be the best entrant in the contest, and they graciously voted for it to be included in the anthology.

14.  What kind of hard science is in your novella?

Biology, physics, and astronomy are all featured in my novella.

15.  What kind of soft science is in your novella?

Psychology, sociology, economics, and anthropology are in my novella.

16.  What else have you written, and what will you write next?

I wrote my essay “Allure from Afar” as a way to convey the beauty and majesty of the cosmos and humanity’s role in it. This essay won me the student essay award at the Next Generation Sub-Orbital Researchers Conference in 2011.

I also wrote a paper detailing the research on the nanosatellite that I worked on, which was accepted as one of only six entrants from around the country to participate in the annual Frank D. Weld Scholarship Competition at the Small Satellite Conference in 2011.
I have also written a collection of short stories. Some are dramatic in tone, depicting life on an Earth ruled over by an immensely powerful alien entity known as the Overseer. Others are science fiction stories with a dark sense of humor. One such example follows a brilliant up and coming engineering student, who is slowly driven insane when he meets a mysterious janitor, ultimately discovering how the two of them are destined to preserve the fabric of the space-time continuum.
I am in the process of writing a science fiction novel. I intend it to be the first in an epic saga that will span a minimum of four books. After I have completed this quadrilogy, I would like to write three additional novels, which may or may not be related to the first four books.
I am also writing a script for a graphic novel that I would like to make some day. It centers on the story of an average everyday guy, who, after being exposed to nuclear waste, obtains a very bizarre superpower. He attempts to use his superpower to help his community, leading to disastrous consequences.  An evil genius with aspirations of world domination acts as the antagonist when he uses his peculiarly vast resources in an attempt to realize his megalomaniacal goals. And for ill-defined reasons, he also feels compelled to make himself the would-be superhero’s archenemy. I’m writing this to be a satire of various comic book and superhero clichés. It is my hope that if I manage to find a skilled comic book artist, this could be the first in a trilogy of graphic novels.

17.  Are there any SciFi shows you really enjoy in spite of their implausible science?

 I do enjoy Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG-1, Babylon 5, and their various spin-offs. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses, and I do enjoy them in spite of the fact that they all have rather terrible science.

18.  What SciFi works, either books or shows, do you think have the best science?

I think that books tend to have better science than shows and movies because generally, the authors don’t feel that they need to appeal to audiences that are somewhat scientifically illiterate. I particularly enjoy the works of Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Stephen Baxter.

19.  What is your dream job?

I would love nothing more than to work for either NASA or a private space company that pushes the boundaries of human spaceflight.

20.   Who shot first, Han or Greedo?

Since the films are owned by George Lucas, are we compelled to accept whatever changes he makes as being for the better? No. But why not? Because films, like all forms of art, are open to interpretation by whomever views it. But does it matter who shot first? In the context of the films, are any of the events effected by whom shot first? No, but characters are just as vital for a plot to unfold as the events. And this is a defining way in which viewers are first introduced to Han, and how they view him is greatly affected by this scene.

Whenever someone edits their work, they risk alienating those who enjoyed it to begin with. So should they refrain from making any changes whatsoever after their work has entered the public’s eye? No, of course not. As the creator of any work of art, that creator is free to do anything they feel is best. But just as they are free to change their own work, so are viewers free to judge the creator and their creation in whatever way they feel is most appropriate.  And if the creator continually changes their work, their indecisiveness could prove to be as detrimental as whatever changes they may have made.

In my mind, Han always shoots first, and altering this scene in any way has made me lose all respect for George Lucas.

The shortlink for this post is http://wp.me/p1qnT4-Hb

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Drama Queens

Posted on March 29, 2012 by AmyBeth Inverness

When creating a character, I take bits and pieces of actual people, other characters, and I twist them and mix them into something new. I exaggerate certain aspects. I take some character trait that is the result of a plethora of complicated circumstances, and simplify it.

And sometimes I get so into my characters that I start feeling for them… often more than I really should. 😛 I have a terrible time killing off a character. It rarely happens in my stories. Conflict is difficult for me. I want everyone to be happy, even if they’re fictional lol!

Today I was thinking about those women who are labeled over-dramatic. The swooners. The shouters. The ones who always seem to have a larger-than-life dose of drama.

But are these real women really like that? Well, I’ve known quite a few. A high school friend who would become extremely depressed over any little thing. Looking back, I believe she had clinical depression or some other mental illness, and I don’t think she was getting the help she needed. When I was a Resident Director at a local college, there were several teenagers (18 might make you an adult, but you’re still a teenager) who would take any small setback and turn it into a mega-disaster. This was simple immaturity.

Are there characters like that? Sure. There’s a common theme in fiction (and perhaps in life) that the typical guy starts to mess up his relationship with his wife or girlfriend, and she tries talking to him, or letting him know in various non-dramatic ways that she’s unhappy, but he doesn’t listen until she actually breaks up with him, or she throws a huge fit.

OK, back to real life. Yes, this does happen. The sad thing is, these women often end up labeled “drama queen” or worse. But what happened all those times she spoke softly and politely about her concerns? How many times was she ignored? If she tried hundreds of times to make her needs known in a calm, mature manner and it had no effect, then it’s not right to label her a drama queen if once out of those hundreds of times she ended up losing her composure and causing a scene.

Although complicated characters make good fiction, no character is ever as complicated as a real woman. In a story, a writer might say “The frustration of having gone unheard for so many years finally built up into something she couldn’t control.” In reality, a woman on the edge probably has a cauldron of causes leading up to the big moment. Frustration. Hormones. The little things that shouldn’t matter but do; those hot buttons we all have that other people just don’t understand. It’s more than a writer could or should put into a work of fiction.

So tell me…

1) Do you know real women who are labeled drama queens when they really didn’t deserve the label?

2) As a writer, how do you make your audience understand the difference between a character who is an immature, rightfully-labeled drama queen and a character who goes over the edge only when pushed too far?

The shortlink for this post is http://wp.me/p1qnT4-H5

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SciFi Q of the Day: From the Ocean to Space

Posted on March 27, 2012 by AmyBeth Inverness

James Cameron Begins Descent to Ocean's Deepest Point (Click to read the National Geographic News article)

SciFi Question of the Day: How can exploring the depths of the ocean prepare us for exploring space?

Facebook Answers:

  Amanda Prinsloo Decompression factors.

   Daniel Beard how to get 200 people living together in a small pipe for months without killing each other. or winding up in an “I Love Me” coat.

  Brian Covault  I was reading on the NASA web site that one of the holy grails of flagship space exploration missions is exporing the bottom of the ocean of Europa. Extremely difficult mission – have to get to Europa, drill through miles ice and then freely navigate the ocean below all by remote control. I’d guess part of feasibility testing for that would be so see if the same thing could be done here in the ocean below antarctic ice.

Google Plus Answers:

Brent Stires's profile photo  Brent Stires  –  buzzkill: it probably can’t

Jacqueline Lichtenberg's profile photo  Jacqueline Lichtenberg  –  Actually, the contained environment tricks are very useful. Also there’s no guarantee other planets have any dry land. If we want to explore, we have to be amphibious.

Brent Stires's profile photo  Brent Stires  –  +Jacqueline Lichtenberg gotta get there first

different pressure underwater and in space. completely different types of vehicles.

contained environment tricks yes.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg's profile photo  Jacqueline Lichtenberg  –  Oh, yes, none of this stuff is easy or one-step.

michael interbartolo's profile photo  michael interbartolo  –  closed loop life support (like ISS or any spacecraft), lack of solar power (just like deep space, once you get past Mars solar arrays don’t work so well), remote operations (whether it is driving rover on Mars or fixing a deep sea oil rig spill how much is autonomous vs telepresence) isolation and psychological effects of being spam in a can.

AmyBeth Inverness's profile photo  AmyBeth Inverness  –  I think one of the NASA twitter feeds I follow is something under the ocean…

michael interbartolo's profile photo  michael interbartolo  –  yes NEEMO is our underwater lab off the coast of Florida. we practice spacewalks, close quarters living, remote operations and other tasks.

AmyBeth Inverness's profile photo  AmyBeth Inverness  –  Oh yes! The second best acronym, next to OOREO!

michael interbartolo's profile photo  michael interbartolo  –  OREO is the OMS RCS Engine Officer for Shuttle

AmyBeth Inverness's profile photo  AmyBeth Inverness  –  It is also a nummy cookie

.

I would love to hear what you think! Even if you are reading this post a year or more after publishing, I hope you will leave a comment with your own ideas on this topic.

The previous SciFi Q of the Day is Those Aren’t Planets

The shortlink for this post is http://wp.me/p1qnT4-GQ

The next SciFi Q of the Day will be up next Tuesday.

Posted in SciFi Q of the Day | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Interview With Michael Interbartolo III

Posted on March 23, 2012 by AmyBeth Inverness

Michael Interbartolo III is the In Situ Field Test Project Manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. He is responsible for overseeing the design, test and integration of the first generation system that will process representative Martian soil and atmosphere to produce power, water, as well as propellant for a LOx/Methane thruster. He had the honor to work 10 yrs on the Space Shuttle Program in Mission Control, as well as several other positions with the space agency.

1)      Is your accent still Bostonian or has it morphed with Texan slang?

I still have my Boston accent though not as pronounced and comes out more when I get around some of my friends from the old neighborhood that also live down here and when I have a few drinks in me.

2)      When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I have known since I was about 4-5 yrs old that I wanted to work for NASA as an aerospace engineer. The two impacts on my life at that age was seeing Star Wars and taking my first plane ride. We used to live right by Logan Airport in East Boston and Delta had a community day where you could take a ride above the city. Between the cool ships in the movie and flying I knew I wanted to design and build spaceships. My mom always said with my imagination I would work for either that George Lucas guy or NASA. 🙂

3)      If a High School student told you they wanted to work for NASA, what would you suggest they study?

Definitely Math, Science and Engineering are the easy answers, but it depends what they want to work on. Take for example a Robotic Missions to Mars to detect life that requires chemistry and biology for life detection, but also engineering to design the vehicle/rover and geology to dig and discover the samples. A Space telescope like the James Webb needs cryogenics and other Thermal considerations, as well as optics and electronics not to mention the astrophysics knowledge needed to pour over the data. Work in Mission Control needs engineering, but more so the ability to communicate, sometimes under pressure as well as be a self motivated person to learn the operational and hardware systems. For all the schooling in the world nothing beats on the job training to learn Flight Control and it takes a high motivated person willing to read, train and learn the system.

4)      Have you always wanted to work for NASA? How did that come to be?

When I started Grad school at George Washington University in DC, the co-op program with Goddard had been shut down so I decided the best way to get my foot in the door was to volunteer. It took a few months for NASA legal to figure out how they could let someone on site and work for free ( I think they were worried if I died onsite should they bury the body or just throw it over the fence), but in the end I worked at Goddard for 16 months ~40 hrs per week. When I was about to graduate from GWU I sent my resignation letter to the center director thanking him for my time there since it didn’t look like they had a civil servant slot for me. I was honestly fishing for a certificate of appreciation or something to show for 16 months of work, but they ended up finding a way to bring me on as a term employee. I transferred down to Johnson Space Center about a year later and was converted to a permanent civil servant shortly after that. Working at NASA has had its ups and downs but it is where I have dreamed of working since I was a kid so I can’t think of anywhere else I would rather be unless Mr. Lucas calls with a cool job offering.

5)      What kind of work did you do when you volunteered at the Goddard Space Center in Maryland?

Since I was a volunteer they moved me around in within the Special Payloads Divisions’ Attitude Control Branch. I worked on some launch window analysis tools where we would try and figure out based on sun angle requirements, orbital decay and other payload requirements when the optimum time to launch would be. I also wrote a GPS simulator ( I had to teach myself C++ with one of those learn to program in 21 days books) so we could test out search algorithms for a GPS unit we were building in house. I also worked on some of the Spartan payloads that the shuttle would carry in the payload bay and helped test out some other spacecraft.

6)      What led to being awarded the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal?

I was awarded the Exceptional Achievement Medal for my work at the Division Technical Assistant for Space Shuttle. As the technical assistant, I represented both my division and the Mission Operations Directorate(MOD) to the Orbiter Project Office (the guys who manage the shuttle vehicle hardware) and was responsible for coordinating and integrating all vehicle operations and anomalies across the disciplines within MOD.  Within the Space Transportation Vehicle Division, I had to coordinate and approve all Shuttle crew procedures, flight rules and more. I was also lead for development of the Division Certification of Flight Readiness (CoFR) for each mission — the single most important document held within the division that essentially serves as a final checklist before flight. I was totally caught off guard by the award since I was just doing the job as I understood it to the best of my abilities, but I guess my dedication and drive made me really stand out compared to previous folks who held the position.

Atlantis carried a crew of five and the spacecraft Galileo which was deployed on a six-year voyage to Jupiter. Photo credit: NASA/Daniel Brandenstein

7)      How did your job change when the shuttle Atlantis landed for the last time?

 I actually left the Space Shuttle Program before Atlantis landed.  I left the Division technical Assistant job in November of 2009 (After STS-129 landed) to become the chief of staff for the Orion Avionics, Software and Power office. I kind of wish I had stayed with the Shuttle Program until the end given the chaos of cancellation/uncancellation for Orion that followed the President’s February 1st 2010 NASA Budget rollout. I eventually left the Orion position in November of 2010 for my current position in ISRU because it just hadn’t worked out the way myself and the office chief had hoped given the upheaval of 2010. The In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU)  work has been very interesting because we are working on technologies that will help make a mission beyond low earth orbit more sustainable. If you can live off the land (Moon, Mars, Asteroid) it means you don’t have to worry so much about the next launch of supplies, plus if you have propellant, life support supplies made on site you have more flexibility in what you can do on the mission.

8)      What is the next advance in science necessary for our reach into space?

I think the Kepler Mission is already pushing the science of planetary discovery and finding more Earth like worlds orbiting in the “Goldilocks zone”. The more they can find then the more excited folks will be about exploring and pressing further out into the solar system. Public Enthusiasm and support is the biggest factor in helping push us out there. If Kepler and others can show there are other worlds to explore that might get folks excited assuming we can get there quickly.

9)      What is the next advance in engineering necessary for our reach into space?

Probably ion/solar electric propulsion for deep space travel. the faster humans can get to a planet the safer it is because you don’t have to take as much supplies and worry or mitigate solar/cosmic radiation as much if the trip takes 40 days to Mars instead of six months. The other big advance is lowering the launch costs to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). SpaceX and others are pushing the next generation of rockets so that it will be more affordable to get stuff into orbit. I was at a conference last fall and the speaker Paul Spudis I believe mentioned 90% of the energy you expend to get to the Moon from Earth is spent just to get to LEO so if you can combine lower cost to LEO plus ISRU propellant depots from Moon you can really open up the solar system. As cost comes down then maybe Virgin Galactic flights will be more affordable for the common man and I think once the average Joe can see for himself the beauty of the Earth from orbit then that will spark an excitement for a new age of exploration.

10)   What is the next advance or change in world governments necessary for our reach into space?

Internally we need relevancy, we need to show the public/tax payers what they get for their half a penny. We do a poor job marketing how spaceflight (human and robotic) impacts life on Earth. Most people just see us a money pit with nothing in return. We need to highlight and shout from every rooftop all the spinoffs from NASA that have impacted everyday life. Before the Superbowl this year there was an article mentioning 6 technologies for the big game from Space . We need to do more of that because I don’t think most people know about the Spinoff site (http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/) or care to read it. Maybe we need a little sticker or label on all the products that have come from the space program. Once folks realize that the Space program is the engine that drives technology development they will be more willing to fund the program and extend our reach.

Externally we need Consistency, and leadership. NASA is at the whim of the budget ax every year the President proposes a budget and Congress does their sausage making. Big Plans are proposed whether it is the Space Station Alpha or Return to the Moon, but they end up being not much more than sound bites becomes when it comes down to the authorization bills folks look out for their constituents more than for the noble pursuit of space policy. NASA gets railed on for cost over runs, schedule slips and such but if the rug keeps getting pulled out from under us it is hard to get anything long term complete. For too long we have been a rudderless ship adrift in the shallow waters of Low Earth Orbit. Once in a while we get a plan from those in power, but they only fund us for a leaky dingy instead of the majestic clipper ship they proposed. It would be great if those in charge gave a clear goal and the collective parties involved (White House, Congress, International Partners) all were held accountable to the plan such that they couldn’t back out or change the direction mid travel. Short of allowing direct personal funding via Kickstarter or some other method I just don’t see how government will provide the bedrock foundation for us to go beyond LEO unless they think long term goals and not short term jobs. Private industry might consider it if the business case is there whether it is scientific, raw materials or tourism but with the cost to get out there it will be hard to find the return on investment.

11)   What’s the most common mistake movies, TV and other media make when portraying Mission Control and other aspects of NASA?

That as soon as the rocket takes off or lands we all break out into thunderous applause and celebration, heck even my mom believed that when I was working in the MCC. Spaceflight is very serious business and until the crew has gotten out and the vehicle is safed and turned over to the ground processing crew at Kennedy Post Landing the Steely Eyed Missile (wo)Man of Mission Ops don’t celebrate.

From Natalie Villalobos

12)   Are there any movies that have done exceptionally well showing what Mission Control actually looks like and functions?

Apollo 13 is the best example of how Mission Control looks and functions. Natalie Villalobos posted some pictures of the Apollo room  it may seem ancient by today’s computer standards, but those vacuum tubes and green CRTs got us to the Moon and back several times.

13)   Are there any SciFi movies or shows you really enjoy in spite of their science being less-than-plausible?

I Loved Firefly because it was probably more probable than most, no faster than light travel, and no sound in space. Star Wars, Stargate, Babylon Five and Star Trek were all enjoyable though I am not sure tech wise we will ever get there or there as fast as they lay out. I had some real issues with Space Cowboys being how ridiculous some of the shuttle operations were like fly by wire on entry due to a computer crash. The shuttle can not fly without the computers, but it makes for a dramatic scene for Clint.

14)   Do you self-identify as a geek or a nerd? But you still found a woman willing to marry you? 🙂

I would say even though I am a rocket scientist I am more Geek than Nerd since I am not the reclusive type that is the typical nerd. I collect comics, some Star Wars memorabilia, movie swords and such. Though my wife relegates all my space/scifi/movie ornaments to as she calls it “the Nerd tree” My wife was a teacher and not at all into science fiction yet she some how puts up with me and the fact that I have passed on my interests to my oldest son M4 and to a lesser extent my daughter. I used M4 as an excuse to buy the Tron: Legacy toys 🙂

15)   Do you or any of your colleagues identify with the characters on The Big Bang Theory?

Lots of fans of The Big Bang Theory at NASA ( I was disappointed in how underutilized Mike Massimino was after all the hype about his guest appearance) and sure we have some folks around that are definitely Sheldons, but at the same time at least in Flight Control we are more social and outgoing than those nerds 🙂 In theory since we are engineers we are more the Wolowitzs of the bunch.

16)   What effect does Science Fiction have on real science?

I think science fiction inspires real science. I have been watching the Science Channel Show “Prophets of Science Fiction” and it covers Verne, Asimov, Clarke, Dick, Heinlien, Shelly, Wells and Lucas showing how  their works and ideas are now influencing the technology folks are working on. Imagination is the most powerful tool to drive development and discovery and those creators touched on things years before folks realized it was possible. The science fiction stories of today become the technology of the next decade.

17)   Have we stopped dreaming?

. 

In reference to Neil deGrasse Tysons speech and the video going around, Yes we have. Lot of folks have taken a pretty myopic view of space. How can we spend billions on space when we have poverty, disease, infrastructure and education problems here on Earth. That view goes back to the relevancy issue I touched on because if you don’t understand that space travel drives technology development that impacts here on earth you fail to see the return on investment. All the problems at home can be lessened by dreaming big and going far in space. Space travel funnels back technology for clean water/recycling to impact arid and impoverish areas, or new materials that can withstand harsh conditions on other planets as well as in building materials here on earth or spacesuits technology that trickled down to help firefighters stay safe or biomedical advances from microgravity or long duration spaceflight. Going out into the solar system and understanding how life here can also begin out there is fundamental to our existence. We can not survive on this planet forever. To quote Commander Sinclair from Babylon 5 – ” Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics, and you’ll get ten different answers, but there’s one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won’t just take us. It’ll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-Tzu, and Einstein, and Morobuto, and Buddy Holly, and Aristophanes, and – all of this – all of this – was for nothing. Unless we go to the stars. “

18)   When did you write Pursuit? What do you hope to do with it?

Summer before Senior year at Michigan I took a creative writing course since I was one Humanities credit short and senior year was going to be packed with design projects and other engineering classes. When I got back to school I started brainstorming the story, but it wasn’t until I was working at Goddard that I finished the first draft of the movie script. I printed out a bunch of copies for friends and coworkers to read and fill out a survey on. Most were positive and helped with ways to make it better. One guy (more of a Sheldon) typed up 4 pages single spaced on issues and such. It was a little disheartening but in the end I think the next draft became much better for it. I have had delusions of grandeur of doing a Kickstarter campaign or teaming up with Dave School to somehow get it made as an animated feature, but so far I really haven’t done anything with it except for put it out in segments on Google Plus  (the conclusion with links to previous parts https://plus.google.com/116992234810067730471/posts/GbFeTpkRkSA) . I would love to work with an artist to maybe turn it into a graphic novel or maybe an art story book like Oblivion by  Joseph Kosinski  and Andree Wallin 

19)   If a position opened up on a Tau’ri battlecruiser with comparable pay and benefits, would you leave your job at NASA?

Yes because I would love to explore the solar system and galaxy even if it meant having to fight the Gouald. Seeing the images from Hubble, Cassini and others are cool, but to behold majesty of this vast Universe from the Horsehead Nebula or the rings of Saturn up close or the swirling storms of Jupiter is just something ingrained in our DNA. Exploration would be awesome even if it came at the risk of battle.

20)   Who shot first, Han or Greedo?

I am all for Han Shooting First, because it makes him a badass, but Lucas’ revision whimpifies him (no offense to George or my friends at Lucasfilm). Malcolm Reynolds would (and has had) no problem shooting first so why should Han, they are cut from the same noble scoundrel cloth. I am okay with George cleaning up some of the effects with CG (like the snowspeeder cockpit masking) but fundamental changes to a character while his right as the author/creator doesn’t mean we the fans have to agree with it or embrace it

The shortlink to this post is http://wp.me/p1qnT4-Ge

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One Year In

Posted on March 21, 2012 by AmyBeth Inverness

I honestly don’t remember the day, but I know it was March something…

My blog is one year old.

Maybe I should have some kind of celebration, but honestly, I feel more like my anniversary is in November. NaNoWriMo 2010 was the occasion on which I decided to pursue writing with the aim of being a published writer.

I’ve come a long way in the past sixteen months. I have a good internet presence, many friendly contacts in the writing community, a shortlist of agents who who might like what I write, a recognizable pseudonym, a regularly updated blog, several rough drafts ready for re-writes and edits, and my first story will be published in Felt Tips this winter.

I don’t feel too bad about not meeting my own goals for ROW80 this round. These past (almost) 80 days I’ve learned a lot about how writing works for me. I’m working towards treating writing like a job; making the time to accomplish not only the rough drafts, but also the social networking, establishing and growing a platform, and then doing the editing/polishing necessary.

I’m rethinking my goals for the next round. I still really want to break the #2k1hr barrier. I think I can do it, I just need to be writing every day. Being in the habit of writing every day is the only way to become that productive. I can’t sit down after not having written for a week and expect to produce even 1k in an hour, much less 2k.

The next round begins on April 2nd, which happens to be our 17th wedding anniversary. 🙂 Most importantly, the round ends in mid June, immediately before the Star Trek Phase II shoot. I’m going to be working with scripts and continuity this year, so for those two weeks all of my attention will be focused in Port Henry, NY. But even before the shoot, I will be getting ready, reading through the script and making sure I’m familiar with the software we’ll be using. So my goals for the next round will need to reflect that.

The shortlink for this post is http://wp.me/p1qnT4-Gh

Posted in Commentary & Musing, ROW80, Writing | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

SciFi Question of the Day: Those Aren’t Planets…

Posted on March 20, 2012 by AmyBeth Inverness

3 December 2009:In the night sky over ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) observatory at Cerro Paranal, Chile

SciFi Question of the day: OMG! NASA has just revealed that those brighter than usual lights we’ve been seeing in the night sky this month are NOT actually planets as we’d originally thought! So… what are they?

Facebook Answers:

  Eylat Poliner Aliens? Spaceships? If NASA cannot get it right, who can?

  Kirstie Hall seriously???? i was told they were planets but one of them looks like 2 stars so close together they almost touching but then could just b my shoddy eyesight lol

  AmyBeth Fredricksen Actualy Kirstie, it’s just a new kind of Christmas decoration your neighbors are trying out. Sure, it LOOKS like it’s way up in the sky, but it’s really just in the neighbor’s yard.

  Kirstie Hall if the numptys hadnt moved away i would have put that response in serious contention for a true answer pahahaha

Google Plus Answers:

Anthony Deaver's profile photo  Anthony Deaver  –  Aliens with tacos!

Harold Chester's profile photo  Harold Chester  –  DARPA testing FTL.

AmyBeth Inverness's profile photo  AmyBeth Inverness  –  It’s about time aliens brought tacos. The last visitors brought sushi, and the wasabi wasn’t even real wasabi, it green-tinted horseradish.

michael interbartolo's profile photo  michael interbartolo  –  The Tau’ri battlecruiser Prometheus fighting Anubus and the Goa’uld.

oh I have said too much.

AmyBeth Inverness's profile photo  AmyBeth Inverness  –  I’m working that one into your interview… 🙂

David Lee's profile photo  David Lee  –  +michael interbartolo Shol’va! Kree!

But in all seriousness…what lights?

Riki Ballantyne's profile photo  Riki Ballantyne  –  Own up, WHO has put their chrimbo lights up early? Or should I say WHO has put HIS Chrimbo Lights up early!

AmyBeth Inverness's profile photo  AmyBeth Inverness  –  +David Lee well, we thought that Venus and Jupiter finally came together in what astronomers call a planetary conjunction Tuesday.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46734632/ns/technology_and_science-space/#.T2D9uxES38c

But that Tau’ri battlecruiser explanation is much more probable.

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I would love to hear what you think! Even if you are reading this post a year or more after publishing, I hope you will leave a comment with your own ideas on this topic.

The previous SciFi Q of the Day is Play Dough

The shortlink for this post is http://wp.me/p1qnT4-G3

The next SciFi Q of the Day is From the Ocean to Space

Posted in SciFi Q of the Day | 2 Comments

Moving Up in the World

Posted on March 16, 2012 by AmyBeth Inverness

Last weekend, something very special arrived in the mail.

My first publishing contract!

Next winter, I will have a short story in Felt Tips, the world’s first ever office-supply themed anthology of erotica for charity. I’m still kind of floating in a haze… I’m so happy! And so much more determined to get a longer work ready to query an agent. Felt Tips will have a variety of stories from a number of writers, some like me for whom this is their first publication, and others who are already published with a large fan base. It is edited by Tiffany Reisz, author of 7 Day Loan, The Siren, and more.

Yes, my story is SciFi erotica!

Yesterday, I had my first guest blog post on another writer’s site. Elise Rome was a wonderful hostess, and as she already has several books out and an established fan base, a lot of new people got to see my name. I agonized over this post far more than necessary, but as it was the first time I was doing something for another writer’s blog, I wanted it to be as good as it could be.

I’m expanding my social media presence by joining LinkedIn, although I’m not fully utilizing it yet. I’m also way behind on my Goodreads updates. I give every book 4 stars, unless it is a great classic or one that was really unbelievable. As a writer, I won’t give another writer a bad review. Bad business practice. I’m not a reviewer; I’m a writer.

My main social media sites are still facebook, twitter, and Google Plus.

On facebook, I have 1,223 friends. Most of those are gaming connections, but I’ve found that people who play the same games as I do often have a similar taste in books. A lot of my facebook friends are SciFi fans.

On twitter, I follow 636 and 437 people follow me. My character Charity Kochsato follows 101, mostly the same people I do, and 48 people follow her. In several cases, fictional people are following each other lol!

Google Plus is huge, but as the influx of circlers boomed when it became open to everyone (I was in that initial group who made it in early) I suspect that a large number of people are only there to market themselves or a product to others. I’ve circled 1,178 people, many of whom are connected to the writing world in some way. 3,068 people have circled me.

And then there’s the blog. I don’t get a lot of hits, but what I get is fairly steady and of course it spikes when I post something that turns out to be popular. I’d rather have a steady growth of people who actually like visiting here than have too fast growth of people who expect more than I can currently provide.

Now, back to that publishing contract…

One thing I need to accomplish sooner rather than later is to provide a biographical blurb that follows these guidelines:

  • 150 words or fewer
  • Include my favorite office supply
  • obviously, it should be autobiographical

Here’s Tiffany’s:

Tiffany Reisz is the author of THE ORIGINAL SINNERS series from Mira Books (The Siren, July 2012). She lives in Lexington, Kentucky with a clinically depressed cat named Honeytoast. Her favorite office supply is her three-hole punch only because it sounds dirty.

That’s only 42 words. So I can triple that and still be OK.

Here’s some of my typical taglines:

  • A writer by birth, a redhead by choice, and an outcast of Colorado by temporary necessity.
  • A little science, a little fiction, a little romance, a little friction.
  • Purveyor of aluminum foil hats.

I shouldn’t mention any of my actual stories, since none of them are published yet.

Here are a few random things about me that can be thrown in:

  • I live in Vermont
  • I was born in Florida, but raised in Colorado
  • Been married for 17 years to a big Trekkie geek
  • I am a Trekkie geek
  • I teach computer skills to college freshmen (Excel and Access)
  • I have two kids, both girls
  • We have 5 cats and a dog
  • I did the 3 Day Novel challenge, writing a 23k novel over Labor Day weekend.
  • I’ve done NaNoWriMo twice
  • I write both SciFi and Romance, usually combined, although sometimes I do one or the other.

Here are a few blurbs I’ve come up with. I’m not happy with any of them, and I’d love some input! So… comments! Please! Pretty pretty please with sugar on top! Help me figure out the best blurb to use. (The number following each is the word count.)

  1. AmyBeth Inverness is a purveyor of aluminum foil hats and a writer of SciFi-Romance. Her favorite office supply is Post-it notes because as long as the nipples are covered, you don’t really need a shirt.  35
  2. AmyBeth Inverness is a purveyor of aluminum foil hats and writer of SciFi-Romance. From sweet to sensual, her stories explore love in all kinds of relationships. Her favorite office supply is aluminum foil for obvious reasons. (Yes, that’s an office supply. You can buy it at Staples.) 47
  3. AmyBeth Inverness is a purveyor of aluminum foil hats and writer of SciFi-Romance. Having been exiled from Colorado in 1989, she spends her days teaching computer skills to college Freshmen while raising a couple of kids and one husband. Her favorite office supply is aluminum foil for obvious reasons. (Yes, that’s an office supply. You can buy it at Staples.) 60
  4. AmyBeth Inverness is a purveyor of aluminum foil hats and writer of SciFi-Romance. She chooses to believe that aluminum foil is an office supply. A writer by birth, a redhead by choice, and an outcast of Colorado by temporary necessity…
  5. AmyBeth Inverness is a purveyor of aluminum foil hats. A writer by birth, a redhead by choice, and an outcast of Colorado by temporary necessity, her stories include a little science, a little fiction, and a little romance with a little friction. She currently resides in Northern New England in a home where the animals outnumber the humans two to one. 61
Posted in Commentary & Musing | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Interview with Karen Stivali

Posted on March 16, 2012 by AmyBeth Inverness

Karen Stivali is a prolific writer, compulsive baker and chocoholic with a penchant for books, movies and fictional British men. When she’s not writing, she can be found cooking extravagant meals and serving them to family and friends, who never seem to mind the excessive quantities she tends to prepare. She attributes her ability to multitask to the fact that she rarely sleeps, which gives her more hours every day. Prior to deciding to write full time Karen worked as a hand drawn animator, a clinical therapist, and held various food-related jobs ranging from waitress to specialty cake maker. Planning elaborate parties and fundraisers takes up what’s left of her time and sanity.

1.       Do you only love *fictional *British men, or are real ones just as tempting?

Real ones can be just as tempting. I freely admit I’m a sucker for the accent and I love the British sense of humor. I lived in England briefly as a kid and I picked up the accent immediately plus it sparked a love of British comedy.

2.       Have you ever inspired total strangers to sing along just by saying “Mah num a nuh” in a crowded elevator?

YES! I went to NYU and lived in a very large dormitory. My roommate and I would often say “Mahna mahna” in a crowded elevator and more often than not at least one person would pipe in with the rest of the song. If you haven’t done this, I highly recommend it. Works great in office building and hotel elevators too. Not that I’ve done that. (Okay, I have.)

3.       Do you really bribe your writing group with sex (scenes) and chocolate?

I don’t “bribe” them but I do freely provide both and they’re very thankful. I always, always, always bring chocolate to our meetings and I happen to be the only one who’s writing stories that contain sex. When I first joined the group I was very nervous about being the only person writing stories with intimate details because I wasn’t sure how the rest of the group would react. To say they took it well would be an  understatement. I started out slowly with some sexy scenes and before long they were actually saying things like “we want the climax, give us the climax”. That in itself was good, the fact that they would yell that at the library was sometimes not so good. Not sure we’re still welcome to meet there.

4.       What kind of work did you do as a hand drawn animator?

I interned and later did some freelance projects for an animation studio in NYC. I worked on a few animated TV commercials and on a few segments of the show PeeWee’s Playhouse (no, I never met PeeWee, but I did get to play with a lot of the stuff used on the show).

5.       Did your work as a clinical therapist help you to create what is in your characters’ heads?

I’ve always been fascinated by the way people think and how people interact, plus I’ve always been the kind of person people feel comfortable talking to, so it was very natural for me to become a therapist. It’s hard to say if having worked as a therapist helps me create what’s in my character’s heads or if I just treat my characters like I treat real people: I’m a good listener and I keep and open mind and try not to judge.

6.       Long-Distance Lovers, the erotic romance novel you co-wrote with Karen Booth, came out from Ellora’s Cave on March 9, 2012. How has this first week felt?

This is my second release and it’s no less stressful than the first. I get very nervous waiting to hear what people think.

7.       How did you meet Karen Booth?

Karen Booth and I met on Nathan Bransford’s forums. Karen B had posted a question asking about how you warn friends/beta readers that your novel contains sexual content. I answered her post because, as I said above, I’d had to deal with the issue in my writing group.  The conversation quickly turned into a PM discussion, and we discovered that we were both in the same place with our full length women’s fiction books—pretty much done,
but in need of line edits. We became critique partners and swapped manuscripts and wound up becoming very close friends. We have a scary-weird amount of stuff in common and we both work at the same uber-driven breakneck pace. We’re very compatible as critique partners and, in spite of our very different sleep schedules, we’re very good roommates too. We attended the Writer’s Digest Conference in NYC in January of 2011 (first time we met in person after 9 months of working
together) and we enjoyed a Girl’s Getaway weekend together this past Fall to celebrate signing our contracts.

8.       Is there a lot of you in the character of Marienne and how she cooks?

Marienne is a very nurturing character so that’s why she cooks but the cooking scenes were easy for me to write in great detail because I do a ton of cooking. I get asked the question about whether or not my characters are based on real people and the answer is no, not at all. Just because they may share a trait or two with someone (or me) doesn’t mean they’re based on that person. I get to know my characters as unique individuals before I start writing their stories. It wouldn’t work for me
to ever put a lot of someone I know in real life into a particular
character. A lot of people tell me they see themselves in my characters, and I think that’s good, because it means they relate to the characters on a personal level, but make no mistake, they’re entirely fictional beings.

9.       What’s the most creative cake you’ve ever decorated?

The two most creative cakes I’ve ever decorated were for children’s birthday parties. One was for a jungle themed party and I made a volcano cake, complete with spewing lava made from melted Jolly Ranchers so that even the lava was edible. The other was a Hogwarts cake for  Harry Potter party. The turrets are made of Hershey bars and chocolate dipped ice cream cones and when it was time to serve the cake small glow sticks were placed in the turrets so light would glow from the windows.

10.   Some of your novels are labeled “erotic romance” and others “sexy women’s fiction.” Do you have rules for how sensual you write the sex scenes when you’re writing one or the other?

My first novel (Meant To Be, which is due out from Turquoise Morning Press in August) is sexy women’s fiction. It’s a novel about couples and the story, as I saw it, needed to have detailed sex scenes. I wasn’t writing it to fit into any genre, I just wrote the story that was in my head. Later, when it was done and I was trying to place it, I realized it was a little sexier than some women’s fiction tends to go. That’s just my writing style. I am not a fan of the fade to black sex scene and I also wholeheartedly believe that if it’s important to the character and it effects the character then the reader should know about it. In a book about relationships, this includes the sex. I describe the food in detail, I describe the emotions in detail and I describe the sex in detail. Those are my priorities.

I never set out to write erotic romance, but when I was on submission with Meant To Be my writing group was  complaining that they missed having me submit my steamy scenes. I wrote my first erotic romance novel for them, on a whim. I had no idea I’d wind up submitting that story and it would be the first thing I got published. Good thing my group demanded more sex scenes or I might still be unpublished!

11.   When did you get serious about writing and why?

I’ve always taken writing seriously and I’ve written all my life. I didn’t get serious about pursuing publication until I completed Meant To Be. It was a story I’d had in my head for so long (8 years) that when I finally started writing it I couldn’t stop until it was done. And then I couldn’t let it go until it found a home.

12.   What was your path to publication? What’s different about your
publishers?

My path to publication was an interesting one. I had submitted Meant To Be to numerous agents with a variety of results. I got a lot of requests for fulls and partials and a lot of positive feedback, but the conscensus was that it was going to be difficult to place. It’s a love story rather than a romance, it’s women’s fiction, but the main character is a man, and it’s
got a higher level of sexual content than your typical women’s fiction. It breaks a lot of rules. When I wrote the erotic romance for my group I had a writer friend convince me to send it to some epublishers and small presses. I wound up getting four offers on it, much to my shock. I accepted an offer from Ellora’s Cave. One of the other companies offered on it the day I’d decided to go with Ellora’s Cave so I told the acquisitions editor that I’d already accepted an offer but that I hoped I’d have the chance to work with her on another project. She asked if I
had anything else and I told her I had a completed novel, but that it was considerably over the word count limit for her company. She told me she liked my writing enough that she’d still be interested in taking a look. Six weeks later I signed a contract with her at Turquoise Morning Press and about a month later I signed with them for the sequel as well. So, had
I not written the erotic romance I might still be trying to place my women’s fiction piece. Everything happens for a reason. Or, as my friends always joke, “it was just Meant To Be.”

Ellora’s Cave and Turquoise Morning Press are very different companies. EC deals almost exclusively with erotic romances (they have one line that is non-erotic romance, but they’re best known for their Romantica) and, although they do some print books, they are largely an e-publisher. Turquoise Morning Press is a small press publisher. Any works over 40k are simultaneously released as both trade paperbacks and e-books and they publish a wide variety of genres (ranging from women’s fiction and romance to erotic romance to Young Adult). I’m very lucky to be working with both of these publishers because they’re extremely professional and they work very hard to put out good books.

13.   Were any changes suggested to you that you were reluctant to
make?

I’ve been extraordinarily lucky so far and have yet to have an editor suggest a change that I was at all hesitant to make. Very lucky. I’m knocking on wood right now.

14.   What is your favorite electronic or digital writing tool?

I would be lost without my laptop. Literally. I have no idea how to use my GPS so I still look up directions online.

15.   What is your favorite non-electronic writing tool?

I’m a lifelong pen enthusiast. I love a good pen. My favorite at the moment are the Sharpie fine line no-bleed pens. I like a nice smooth writing instrument and always use black ink.

16.   What is the most persistent distraction from writing?

Squirrel. Wait, that’s not me. Although a squirrel could easily distract me at times. When I have a story in my head I’m actually not very easily distracted. I’m more the type of person who is scribbling on the back of a receipt I dug out of my purse because I “saw” a scene while I was on line at the store and I’m afraid I’ll forget it if I don’t let it spill out immediately.

17.   What is your ideal writing environment? Have you ever been able to create it?

I don’t write stuff until I see it play out in my head and once that
happens my environment doesn’t matter at all. I’ve written in hotels, at other people’s houses, at the library, a café, in line at the bank, on toilet paper in the bathroom with eyeliner at 4am. I’m very easy to please, environment wise. The majority of my writing takes place at my tiny kitchen desk which is smack dab in the middle of my house. I don’t mind having stuff go on around me while I’m writing. Once I see it and I’m ready to write all I need is paper or my laptop and I’m set.

18.   Many writers go through a stage when they hate what they’re writing.  Do you ever feel this way?

I never go through that while I’m writing a particular story. If I’m not in love with my characters, I’m not writing their story. After I’m done, while I’m editing, hell yes I feel that way. When I’m editing there are days when literally every sentence looks wrong or I can think of 7 ways to rewrite it. Those are the days that I know I need to stop editing.

19.   What social media do you use?  Do you use them solely for   promotion, or do you have fun?

I use Facebook and Twitter. I prefer the chat room nature of Twitter so I’m much more active on there. Although I do some promotion I mainly do it because I have fun. I’ve met tons of people on Twitter who I never would have met any other way and I love that. I’m a very social person but writing is a very isolating profession. Twitter is my break room and my out for drinks with co-workers, not to mention my late-night friend who never sleeps.

20.   Who shot first, Han or Greedo?

Han! Without question. First off, it fit his character—you can be a good guy and a badass at the same time, if you’re Han.  And second, I don’t believe in changing stories after the fact. Like I said, I “see” stories play out before I write them and at that point what I saw is what happened. Period. What I write is a retelling of what I’ve seen. Han shot first. End of discussion. You can’t change history.

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One Week to Go

Posted on March 13, 2012 by AmyBeth Inverness

This Round is over in about 10 days. I definitely fell short of what I wanted to accomplish, but more importantly I learned a lot about myself and how I write. I also developed more as a writer, getting a little better at picking up those smaller bits of time, even though that’s still a weak point for me. Next week I’ll talk more about what I’m going to change for the next round.

The strong point with my OCD is that I keep the blog pretty up to date. It’s not the most scintillating content, but I have an interview every Friday, SciFi Question of the Day every Tuesday, and these updates on Wednesdays. In between I often post something random. On the fiction side, sometimes I do prompts with groups like Write on Edge, and every Monday I add a chapter of What Would Have Been.

I do have one extra special bit of news to share… this weekend I got my first ever publishing contract in the mail! It’s for an anthology of office-supply related erotica called Felt Tips. I feel so honored to be included… it’s for charity, so I’m not making money, but my story (Which is SciFi Erotica) will be alongside many other names of writers such as Tiffany Reisz whom I’ve come to know and respect. I’ll do a whole post about this later!

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