You read that right. I’ve got a bit of an update on the status for book 2. But first, I wanted to share a fun little picture I took:
Pretty cool, am I right? I decided (on a sudden whim, if I’m being completely honest) to try and format Enceladus and upload it to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing just to see what a printed book would look like. Obviously this is still only the second draft, the cover is a super temporary one, and I have some other formatting things I need to figure out, but it’s fun to see my name on a book on the shelf.
I also decided this would be a fun opportunity to re-read the book in this format and see what else I could pick out that needed to be revised. So, as blasphemous as it feels to me, I’ve started going through the physical copy with a red pen and marking it up with some edits I need to make.
Another quick update, I’ve sent out the first few chapters to a few beta readers. I haven’t gotten any feedback yet (June is a busy month for everyone, especially us in the Gluch house), but I’m hoping I’ll start to see some comments from people soon.
Now, on to book 2 updates. I’ve very nearly finalized the chapter outline for book 2. For those who haven’t read some of my previous posts, as a bit of background, I like to make a general outline for the direction of the book, then I like to break it down chapter by chapter to get an overall sense of what plot points and character beats should be covered in each chapter. This outline oftens fluctuates as I write, but I like to have a general idea so that I don’t get too far off on any tangents.
Anyway, once that’s done, I should be able to start the actual first draft of book 2. As I was writing up the chapter outline and after getting the physical paperback of Enceladus, I was getting more and more excited for where the story is going. I’m hoping to start the first draft of book 2 this month, but the summer is always so busy. We’ll just have to see what I have time for.
One last fun little tangent (and a peek into my research and writing process). As I was writing up the chapter outline, I needed a realistic timeframe for how long it might take a rocket to get from Saturn to Jupiter. They can be anywhere from roughly 655 million kilometers to 968 million kilometers apart (depending on the orbit), and I needed to know what was currently feasible as far as top speed for a space shuttle with our current technology. I found myself going down a massive rabbit hole on propulsion theories, historical records for spacecraft top speeds, and space travel. Long story short, I ended up trying to calculate the top speed and estimated timeframe it would take a spacecraft roughly 156,000 kg in weight (about double the size of NASA’s space shuttle) with roughly 3,000 kg of propellant to get to Jupiter using the theoretical antimatter-catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion system. You know, simple rocket science questions on your average Tuesday afternoon. (For those curious, I came up with roughly 13-14 days depending on various factors. It works for the story, so go with it.)
Anyway, that’s all for this month’s update. Keep an eye on the blog’s main page, and hopefully you’ll see a new little progress bar pop up on there this month. Fingers crossed.
Until next time!