When in doubt ….

On Sept. 26, 1983, Soviet computers reported the launch of five Minuteman missiles, according to the New York Times. There were only minutes to counterattack before they would strike Soviet cities. The man who was in charge that day was skeptical, partly because the attack seemed too small. So he alerted his superiors to a false alarm. He later recalled it as a 50-50 decision.

He had made the right choice.  It would be discovered that a Soviet satellite had misinterpreted the sun’s reflection off clouds.

Read more about September 26 at When in doubt ….

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Why would anyone call a collection of books 46. Ascending?

I can tell you that I wrote these books filled with a sense of energy and purpose unlike anything I have ever experienced in my life. Many days, writing wasn’t just what I wanted to do, it was all I wanted to do. It was an addiction, an obsession, and a nepenthe against all the world’s ills. I let it consume me, and I enjoyed the ride.

Read more at Why would anyone call a collection of books 46. Ascending?

Coincidence? I think not.

“I don’t believe in coincidence.” Hard-boiled detectives say it, new age psychics say it, and conspiracy fans whisper it while glancing behind them. My own philosophy tends towards the interconnections of things, so I echo the thought too. No where in my life is the strange interrelationship of information more apparent than when I do research for my books.

Read the entire post on my d4 blog at Coincidence? I think not.

“Sense8” and “What’s Up?”

“You’ve got to watch this show. It’s just like your books!”

The first time this happened it was Heroes, which premiered in 2007, when the novel I had been toying with in my head for 20 years was starting to take shape. I’m the one who saw the loose connection with what I was trying to do as I watched this show about otherwise normal people with superpowers who were learning to cope with what they could do while learning to work together.

“Maybe I should give up now?“ I thought. “But no. The popularity of this show means people like this kind of stuff. Maybe it means I need to start writing.” So I did.

Read the full post on my x0 blog at “Sense8” and “What’s Up?”

 

d4: Seeing the Future

Ariel, the hero of d4, lived in my head for years and I knew what she could do. She could see into the future. It wasn’t until I began writing her story, however, that I realized how complicated the very idea of precognition is.

I’d already given serious thought to the pros and cons of a fixed future, and I’d thrown out the idea of a predestined universe.  Over my adult life I’ve heard compelling arguments that in a universe ruled by cause and effect, the future is as immutable as the past. Perhaps it is. But as long as I’m writing the book, there are going to be surprises and free will in the story, and any bits of prescience will work on the assumption that the future is a probability curve. Guess you could say I can’t write stories any other way.

But it turns out that there are many more vexing questions to consider.  How far into the future does she see? Why? How much does she understand about what she sees? Why doesn’t the whole process happen all the time and leave her overwhelmed and unable to function?

Read the rest of this post at Seeing the Future.

The day the music died ….. it didn’t.

Sometime in late 2010, my husband dropped his iPod in the toilet. It fell out of his pocket and I never asked for details because frankly I did not want to hear them.

Fall of 2010 wasn’t so great at our house. We also lost Pebble, our cockatiel who’d been with us for twelve years. Pebble used to walk around on my shoulder and sing along with my husband and between the two losses there was far less music in our home for awhile.

Read the entire post at The day the music died ….. it didn’t