Novel research

So I’m restarting my efforts at writing my first novel and I’m pretty excited about it.  I’ve spend some of the last week doing some basic outlining.  Since it’s a hard science fiction novel, there’s a lot of research to do.  For anyone interested, here’s the initial list of books I’ll be reading in preparation [...]

A Reporter’s Life

I’ve taken a temporary break from The Lord of the Rings in order to read Walter Cronkite’s autobiography, A Reporter’s Life, which I am tearing through breathlessly.  Last week, I watched endless interviews with Cronkite (they were being replayed on various stations) and I realized how little I knew about him.  I was very impressed [...]

Plans for the weekend

Well, there’s a baby to take care of, naturally.  And the house is in a bit of disarray.  But setting those two things aside, here is my general plan for this weekend: Make some progress catching up on the 5 issues of NEW SCIENTIST and 2 issues of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN on which I am behind. [...]

Walter Cronkite

I just got word that Walter Cronkite passed away at the age of 92.  Monday is the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing, and there is a kind of bitter irony that Cronkite didn’t quite make it.  His is probably the biggest loss to broadcast news since Edward R. Murrow died in 1965. Originally [...]

Mathematica

So I’ve been playing around with Mathematica (home edition) and I really like it.  I like the concept of “Notebooks”, which are particularly useful for keeping a running log of calculations I make when writing s.f. stories (like relativistic calculation, for instance). It also ties in tightly with the processed data available on WolframAlpha.  I [...]

A productive day

Even though Zachary had a good night last night, I didn’t.  I couldn’t sleep for some reason, and every time I got close to getting some sleep, I knew Zach would be up soon and I’d have to feed him.  All of this resulted in me not really getting to sleep until about 4 am. [...]

A little bit of writing

I just finished up an hour of writing.  I added just over 500 words to my current work in progress, bringing the total to just over 3,700 words.  I spend the first part of the session reading through and tightening some things up.  I’m pleased with the tone, voice and pacing of the story so [...]

If you are planning on reading Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series…

I know that there is likely a long-running debate on the internets about the best order in which to read the books:  chronologically in order in which the events take place in the story or chronologically in the order in which the books and stories were written. And since I have been asked, and since [...]

These days are flying by

Man, it’s like the Beatles said: Wake up.  Get out of bed.  Draw a comb across my head. Well, maybe not the last part. But the days really are just flying by in a kind of cyclical way.  And I’m only working half-time right now.  I’ve been sleeping in late because the baby keeps us [...]

They’re taking a mulligan

When I got into the office today, I had in my mailbox a card from Microsoft.  The front of the card was printed on sandpaper and it read:  We’re taking a mulligan! Inside, it continues (with a golf course fairway pictured in the background): Yes, we’ve been in the sand lately.  But we’d love another [...]

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  • About Jamie Todd Rubin

    Science fiction writer, software developer, private pilot, Yankee fan, husband and father.

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