I’d talked about needing to simplify my life. The biggest optional time sink for me is the internet. There are a lot of things that I legitimately need to do online, so banning it doesn’t make sense. I’ve decided to try a very simple rule set.

1. I’m allowed one hour of internet time per day.
2. If I want more I have to “buy” it by doing an equal amount of time writing or editing first.
3. Time researching a story, if not knowing will stop me from writing, counts as neutral.

How’s it working? I finished a story today, which has been on my plate for the last month. I’ve got a story that I needed to revise open right now. I’ve already hit the sites that I normally read and still have twenty-five minutes of time allowed online. I’ll bank it rather than just aimlessly surfing.

I just finished a short story which I’d love having a reader or two look over. It is science-fiction horror, so don’t volunteer if you don’t like that sort of thing. It’s in a password protected post, but it’s the usual password. Don’t know what that is? Drop me a line and I’ll tell ya.

Here’s a teaser of Scenting the Dark

Lifting the stopper from the vial to his nose, Penn inhaled slowly. Against the neutral backdrop of his ship’s clean room, he picked out aromas of quince, elderberry, bright Martian soil that hinted of blood, with undercurrents of cinnamon and Zeta Epsilon’s fragrantly sweet longgrass. He sighed, blowing the scents out again. The perfume was still out of balance.

The door chime rang, letting him know that Madison had returned. The round tones resonated off the glass labware and sent vibrations across his scalp as it slowly, slowly faded. God, it was gorgeous — picking up the temple bell when they were on Mosholu had been one of his better choices. He’d eventually get the whole ship converted to real things instead of all the virtual hoo-ha it came with. Well, maybe not the whole ship; the skip drive had to exist in quantum state, but by God, the controls at least were made out of real ebony and brass.

He slid his left hand forward until he found the wire stand that held his work trials. His fingers followed the trail of braided metal up to the smooth glass vial. He slipped the stopper into it with practiced ease.

For a story I’m writing, I needed to know what kind of fire extinguisher would be on a space ship. Which lead to this NASA article about fires in space.

It’s chock-full of interesting things, such as:

In microgravity, there is no buoyancy, so instead of a tall yellow flame on a candle, for example, you’ll see a smaller, blue flame centered on the wick.

This makes me happy

Oregon becomes the ninth state to approve spousal rights in some form for gay couples, joining Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Maine, California, Washington and Hawaii. Massachusetts is the only state that allows gay couples to marry.