Delphi in Space

When reading and even when writing Science Fiction, we sometimes forget just how far apart things are. The fringe of our solar system is beyond Neptune, whose orbit is thirty AUs, thirty times farther from the sun than Earth.   Jupiter is only five times farther.     When writing book five, Delphi Alliance, I carefully calculated the distances and times.   In Delphi Federation, I used those numbers, but I glossed over the extra distance from forty-fifty AUs to sixty.   And in book seven, I used the numbers from Delphi Alliance.   Oops.   My wife mentioned to me that the travel times seemed short.     After assuring her that I had run the numbers multiple times, I thought, hey, why not.   I ran them again, and Oh shit, I was off by weeks.   I panicked.   Necessity being the mother of invention, I spent the day and night trying to come up with a way out of my problem without having to rewrite books seven and eight....

Check it out   EbookDaily Hey, i stay up late wrting:)

While lying in bed this morning, waiting on the heat, I was in that drowsy state between sleep and awake.  During this state the general outline for book seven crystalized.  YEAH!!! Now I have to go back and fix the roadblock I inadvertently put into book six, fortunately, I haven't sent it to my beta readers yet.  And I'll have to check book five as well.  I'm pretty sure it won't need changes; if it does, my copy editor (Wife) might beat me severely about the head and shoulders:). I always want a solid outline of the next book before I release the current one, preferably the next two.  It is amazing how you can inadvertently write yourself into a corner.  Read my post staying out of corners. But you are now assured that books 5 and 6 are on their way, and book 7 is starting to take shape.

I just typed the last line of the sixth book Delphi Federation.  Now I need to let it sit for a few days.  Then I'll reread it and fix up a few things, then I send it to my beta readers to be shredded :(  Hopefully, I won't have to start over.  I'm sure they'll love it.  Won't they? Now to the joy of working with my Editor to finalize book five, Delphi Alliance.  I keep hearing things like "WHAT!" so I'm afraid there's a lot of work to do to get it ready for release before the end of January. Maybe she'll let me spend some time plotting book seven.  One can hope.

Today I had to fix three typos and two formatting errors in Delphi Station.  One of my readers ratted me out to the Amazon police.  And I want to thank them so much.  It is amazing how many errors get through the copy editor, proofreader, and tools like Grammarly.  It is embarrassing, but I'm happy to be able to fix them so my future readers don't get confused. Jonny, I've got a $100 Amazon gift certificate for you if you want to claim it. Feel free to email any mistakes you find to me at  delphi.in.space@gmail.com. Thanks Bob

I find that when I'm working on a section that I know I'm going to have to come back and tighten up, it's hard to stay focused.  I guess I'm spoiled by the parts that I seem to just be able to write from memory, all those daydreams.  When I have to buckle down and write, knowing a major rewrite is in order, I look for other things to do.  Even editing is more attractive. Back to plowing through that chapter.  My beta readers are going to hate me.

All four books are in the top one hundred for science fiction.  WOW!!! I'm working hard on the next two.  My editor hasn't killed me yet for all the comma splices I leave in.  She's given up on getting me to spell things right:) Still shooting for late January for book five, she's editing away, but I make the job hard, or so she says. Book six is plotted, and I'm three-quarters complete with the first pass.  I'll have to have this one beta read a few times.  It's getting sticky to keep all the pieces moving in the same direction, to keep it interesting,  I hate a blah-blah-blah section in a book. If you want to connect, comment here, or email me at delphi.in.space@gmail.com. Keep on reading Bob