Aug 08, 2023 by Fat Fish Farmer
People ask, “Why did you start writing?”
Hubris, I suppose.
Some people love to hear themselves talk. Eheh.
Honestly, I always read. I always wrote. Forgive me. I spent the first five years of my life in a bookstore. Yeah. My father mostly wrote for a living. Maybe it makes sense.
In grade school I wanted to rewrite the Dick and Jane readers. I was bored. I tried to write a sequel to a Wrinkle in Time. Spatial topologies remain a thing. I focus and then get distracted.
He writes...
I drew comic books in middle school. My friends and I served detention a couple of times for drawing Spiderman and Doc Savage characters repeatedly on the school’s desks. I learned why janitors tossed around that weird green sawdust stuff. Janitors can be mean or wise or both.
I believe began my first sci-fi novel in high school. Some historical time travel muck. I submitted a couple of short stories to a sci-fy magazine back then. God forbid they were ever read. Any who it looked good on my college admission application as did being the editor of the school’s literary magazine. I learned that finding advertising sponsors sucked.
A Wee Bit of History
I had the privilege to interview Frank Herbert, the writer of Dune, live and in the flesh for a formal literary paper. This for me was an honor better than meeting Apollo astronauts or later in life building a pool house for George Lucus. Mr. Herbert and the kid mostly talked about subplot narrative themes and his use of obscure literary references.
From our visit I learned it was hard to get published and harder still to sell books. Worth the effort if that happens and you have the discipline to master the trade.
Shall It Be Prose or Poetry?
I was distracted by songwriting and poetry back them. Give me a break. Everyone wanted to be the songwriter, rock star. That later led to me composing wedding songs for a few couples which is another tale. Not too shabby for this tone deaf someone who’s singing voice makes Bob Dylan sound good. Eheh.
Back in the day, I finished 95% of a technothriller about robotic intelligence technology, a US military coup, and terrorist bombings. I threw the book away because it seemed to me that it was starting to come true.
We don’t want to give bad guys any ideas.
Kid you not. My wife can attest.
Only the other day I discovered buried in my garage the Corona manual typewriter I used to bang away on it.
This proves that people store dumb stuff when they have a garage.
Tell Someone About the Weight of Space
The trade paperback edition the Weight of Space will officially ship to customers on Aug 15, 2023.
The ebook (epub) format edition will also be available on Amazon on the same day. God willing.
I couldn’t resist the use of a souped-up version of the famous NASA Comet Tempel 1 Impactor mission photo on the book cover. Other versions of the pic are also employed elsewhere on this wosam dot com site. Imagine that.
Why? The photo and that turn of the century mission triggered my first glimmers of the BIG ideas behind the Weight of Space.
Read the Weight of Space