Editing the first draft of The Perihelix

Exciting times here, as I start to work on the first draft of The Perihelix to get it into shape for publication.  It’s my Camp NaNoWriMo project for July, to get it finished

It may seem a long time to leave a first draft, and I suspect the next book would only lie around for a few months waiting for further attention.  I like to be able to approach the story completely fresh to get a better view of what it is, and especially in this series, to make sure that the world-building is correct.

World-building?  Yes, well scifi to me needs not only to have interesting worlds but accurate ones.  So, I’ve been thinking about the concept of having two planets in more or less the same orbital path as each other – fairly common for star systems, so I’ve extrapolated it to planets – and also my idea that Sunset Strip has a 12-hour period of rotation.  If that was the case, then the speed of rotation of the planet could make it uninhabitable, at least at the equator, but then again, if it was a smaller planet, then the speed of rotation would not be such an issue. Imagine a tennis ball and a larger ball like a volleyball: if they both rotated the same number of spins per minute, the surface of the volleyball would travel faster in miles per hour than the tennis ball.  The reason speed of the surface matters is because of winds and surface stresses.  I’ve made Sunset Strip very earth-like apart from the two sunsets per standard day, so its size and rotation have to be such that it isn’t be ripped by megastorms (which is what happens in Jupiter’s atmosphere).

That’s a very rough guide to the things I’ve been worrying about in the science of my fiction, but I also want to make sure I’m consistent with my technology.  I’ve been considering why their technology may only be slightly in advance of ours in some ways. Even a year ago, tablets and thinkpads were much less common than they are now, so will they be ‘old’ in my world? How did my civilisation in the Viridian series get so much more  advanced in others (space travel).  And there’s a plot point where Dolores and the other girls get worried about having to refuel the ship.  The more I thought of refuelling, the more ridiculous it sounded, but I’ve got it worked out now, and the concept of refuelling stands, even though it isn’t a case of putting gas in the tank!

Part of the editing of the first draft will be devoted to these technicalities, then there is the attention to consistency: how they land at the Pleasant Valley space dock is treated two ways in the first draft! I also need to work on building the characters, tweaking the story, building tension and drama, and generally making it a Good Read!

When I’m happy with all that, I’ll do the grammar edit!  And then the typos that are still left…

And then I’ll send it to my beta-readers.  If you’d like to be one, leave a comment below.

Another flash fiction tale

With a visual prompt for this week’s flash fiction, I threw together another tale in the adventures of Pete and the Swede (and Maggie and Dolores) down the wormhole,

I’ve decided to devote July to revising and editing The Perihelix.  It can’t wait much longer, since the new flash fictions are going to start giving spoilers to the attentive reader,

You can read this week’s flash fiction here.

Pete and the Swede during the April A to Z Challenge

Jemima is definitely hooked on these characters: three out of four Flash Fiction Fridays during April have posts featuring Pete, Lars, Maggie and/or Dolores.

Jemima’s doing the April A to Z Challenge once more, and this year her theme is natural phenomena.  This lends itself to stories where our intrepid heroes are exploring space, or planets, or their own worlds.  The Friday features are:

C – The Coprolite Conundrum

O – Orogeny (Cross-purposes)

U – Upwelling

The other Friday (10th) features a seal and a polar bear.  Come to think of it, Lars could be the polar bear and Pete the seal!

An update from Jemima

One of my friends expressed doubt as to whether I’d get all the projects on my plate done this year.  She’s right to express doubt.  But I think the production of The Perihelix is ok for the autumn.  The schedule is only messed up because I devoted six weeks work writing the seventh Princelings book (well, the first third of it, anyway) and that won’t be out this year.  I’m a little concerned that the new editions of the first six might not get out in time, and they’ve already been postponed from last autumn.

But The Perihelix… that’s a commitment.  I promise.

And to help you keep interested – here’s another flash fiction with Pete and the Swede (and Dolores, still in pilot training mode).  It’s set after the Perihelix, just to confuse you.  And this time it’s on my blog… it’ll be linked here in the short stories section in due course.

Viridian series on Facebook

While we were having a few problems with WordPress and loading images, Jemima has set up the Facebook page for the series.  It’ll be mainly for news, of course – with updates from this website – but also discussions, and there are short stories in the Notes section.

Congratulations to Julie Grasso for being our first follower.  Why don’t you join her?

Click http://facebook.com/viridianseries or the Facebook icon top right – as long as you use Facebook, of course.

The other icons in the top right panel all take you to Jemima Pett’s sites on social media.