State of the Blog – Planet Pailly

Hello, friends!

Once again, sorry for not blogging in a while. Today, I want to give you a quick update on what’s happening with me and my writing.

In October, some stressful things happened and derailed all my writing plans for the month. But even before October happened, I felt like I was stuck in a writing rut. I’d write hundreds of words per day, adding up to thousands of words per week, and yet I still felt like I was making absolutely no progress. So my muse and I have agreed that it’s time to take my writing in a new direction.

Some decisions have already been made regarding Tomorrow News Network and other projects that I’d previously been working on. Other decisions will be decided soon. But I do know that my research process is going to stay the same, and this blog will continue to play a key role in how my research process works.

The #1 best way to learn is to try to explain whatever you’re learning to other people. Doing that can reveal where your knowledge is strong and where it is still kind of hazy. The discussions we have in the comments sections of my blog posts have been invaluable to me. And also, I honestly do appreciate it when someone in the comments tells me that I’ve made a mistake. Those discussions are invaluable to me, too.

My blogging and social media presence will be somewhat sporadic for the remainder of 2022, but I expect things to get back to normal in January of 2023. Sciency Words will return on January 9th, and I hope to stick to a schedule of one to two posts per week after that. The new direction I’m taking with Tomorrow News Network has already led me to some surprising and new (or at least new to me) science facts, which should lead to some fun conversations in the months to come.

So thank you, friends, for reading, and I look forward to talking with you more very soon.

Hello, friends!

Many years ago, I was a naive young writer with aspirations of creating an epic science fiction universe. I thought writing Sci-Fi would be easy, because I thought Sci-Fi writers could just make all the sciency stuff up. My muse quickly disillusioned me of that idea.

That is, essentially, the origin story of this blog. I started this blog as a way to force myself to do the kind of research that I, as an aspiring Sci-Fi author, knew I ought to be doing. And it worked. I’m still no Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clark. I’m no Andy Weir or Cixin Liu. But I’ve learned a lot by writing and illustrating this blog, and I think my Sci-Fi storytelling has improved as a result.

However, for the last few months, I haven’t felt too happy with my blogging experience. This has nothing to do with you, dear readers. You’re the best, and I appreciate all the feedback and encouragement you’ve given me over the years. Just wanted to make that 100% clear!

At first, I assumed I was just bored. I’ve been blogging for a really long time, after all. Then I thought maybe I’d taken on too many writing projects. Between this blog and Tomorrow News Network, plus two other projects that I’m not at liberty to discuss right now, I wondered if I was pulling myself in too many directions at once.

But then I got sick. The nice thing about being sick is that it gives you plenty of time to stop and reflect on life—both the good stuff and the bad. And during my time being sick in quarantine, I had a realization: the problem isn’t my blogging or all my writing projects. It’s my research agenda. The research agenda I put together when I started this blog doesn’t really suit the needs of the various writing projects I’m working on now. As a result, this blog feels disconnected from my other writing, and putting together a blog post feels (to me) like a waste of time—time that could be better spent writing other things.

The solution is not to stop blogging, or scale back blogging, of change my blogging schedule in any way. No, the solution is to update my research agenda so that the topics I blog about relevant again to my other writing projects. And so today, I’d like to introduce my newly updated research agenda:

Outer Space: Obviously I’ll continue researching space exploration, especially planetary science and astrobiology.
Psychology: In my stories, I like digging into the psychology of my characters. Seems to me like learning more about psychology could help!
Journalism: In my day job, I work in the T.V. news business. Tomorrow News Network draws heavily on my own work experiences, but it couldn’t hurt to do more research on the field so that I can draw inspiration from other people’s perspectives and experiences, too.
Greek Mythology: This is mainly for one of those writing projects I can’t talk about, but Greek mythology (and other ancient mythologies) can be a great source of inspiration for science fiction.
The History of Science Fiction: And speaking of great sources of inspiration, learning more about the history of my chosen genre can help me become a better Sci-Fi writer, too.

I’m already moving forward with this new research agenda, but that doesn’t mean I’m planning to blog about everything I do research on. And so now, dear readers, I have a question: which parts of my new research agenda do you actually want to hear more about? Is there anything on the list above that you’re particularly excited about? Or is there anything you’re particularly unexcited about? Let me know in the comments!