Fire Star Press: research

Monday, February 3, 2020

Size Matters by Michael E. Gonzales

I’m doing research for a new novel. Of course, it’s a science fiction story. I predicate part of my story on what’s called the quilted multiverse. A theory that suggests that in the endless expanse of space there is more than one universe.

Interesting theory if you read into it but great fodder for a story!

The visible Universe

One of my many questions is… “How big is our universe?” I would use its size to extrapolate the size of others.

My web searches provided me with numbers, in miles, kilometers, astronomical units, light years, and parsecs. All so large that only a cosmologist could get his head around such numbers!

So…I got on line and asked an astronomer. Here is her response:

“The cosmic background radiation, in a synchronized map of the gravitational cosmic background radiation will give a good description.

“I would describe it according to the updated Hubble Equation. We can only see as far as the quarks condensate-plasma went before going into its reversibly mathematically state.”

Well, that certainly cleared up that question.

Continued research led me to a neophyte’s understanding. Our universe is huge beyond our puny mind’s ability to comprehend.

Nevertheless, I continued to gather information and plot my story.

I have tried to use language to describe the vastness of space, but I am not up to the task. Everything I write seems small in comparison.

I’ve read what other have written. Gallant efforts, but…no.

It is not really the size of the universe that impresses, but rather how infinitesimally small we are in it.

Take three minutes of your time, and watch this video. It will leave you with a gasping impression of our place in this unbelievable universe of ours, both above our heads…and beneath our feet!

https://youtu.be/QUWlmpNHq1s

Mike

Website - http://www.mikegonzalesauthor.com/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Gonzales/100010275572869

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/GONZOfiction/?pnref=lhc

Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Michael-E-Gonzales/e/B01CRR80RS

Publisher - http://prairierosepublications.com/authors_2/michael-e-gonzales/

Fire Star Press Blogspot - http://firestarpress.blogspot.com/

Monday, January 6, 2020

The WIP by Michael E. Gonzales

First and foremost, let me wish everyone a happy and prosperous NEW YEAR! This is a leap year so we each have 366 days to succeed!

___________

I am finding the research for my WIP very interesting.

I enjoy all the research I do for my stories, learning a lot with each keystroke.

Today I can discuss, intelligently, with any interested party, such topic as; faster than light travel, stellar radiation, the effects of red light on plant evolution, the history of dragons around the world, and metallurgy in medieval times.

I have always been eager to learn new things, particularly when it come to minutia that can be of little use in daily life.

The idea came over me one morning

as I drove to work to write an adventure/love story revolving around witches, covens, and a warlock.

By the time I pulled up to the office a rough concept of a plot had formed. Once home that evening I sat down and began to hammer out my idea.

You could have taken everything I knew about the subject and put it into a size 6 pointy hat. Like most I’ve seen the movies; Bell, Book and Candle, and of course the Harry Potter series. So, these were my starting points.

However, my research revealed and entirely different “magical world”, not one that fit into my adventure/love story, at all.

So, online I made contact with a young woman who is an actual practicing witch.

She was very helpful but only reaffirmed what my research had revealed.

This left me a bit despondent. What was I supposed to do with this new knowledge?

Then I looked up a laundry list of books about fictional witches. They have been depicted as comical, i.e., “Bewitched”, to very sinister, communing with Beelzebub himself.

Then an epiphany washed over me, like a beam of light through the clouds on an overcast day. I’m writing a fiction! My witches can be anything I wish! They can be from Mars if I so desire.

My story is set in contemporary times. My witches are all very young, in their early twenties,

with the exception of the “priestess” of each of the two covens who are, of course, older and wiser.

The warlock is a typical young man, who is oblivious of his “gift” with no concept how to call forth his powers nor how to control them if he could.

The two covens, a coven being a group of witches usually thirteen in number, are polar opposites of one another. They are at war for possession of the novice warlock. Their battle will take them all over the globe and eventually beyond it.

A great many emotions will be at play, jealousy, avarice, hate, but also devotion, generosity, and love.

As with all my stories, the plot never survives the first chapter, so this story will unfurl as a surprise, even to me in the first draft, and this, I feel, is how it should be. Then the draft will undergo a great many alterations, like clay on the potter’s wheel forming and reforming until it is the perfect vessel for the story I want to tell.

Research, it can make a fairie tale a believable story, one that I hope will cast a spell over my readers and bring them into the pages.