jimhines

My photos from the 2016 Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop are finally processed and posted over on Flickr.

It was a wonderful week, both for the amount of space-related knowledge we covered, and for the wonderful people I got to meet and hang out with. Special thanks to our instructors Mike Brotherton, Jim Verley, and Christian Ready. Thanks also to SFWA, who helped to fund this year’s workshop.

The only downside to the week-long workshop was that the rest of the universe kept on going, meaning there was a lot of stuff on the To Do List when I got back. In addition to unpacking and trying to catch up on sleep and all that, there was…

A short story due at the end of the month
Preparation for the MSU Young Author Conference this weekend, where I’m one of the writers in residenceX Shopping for a refrigerator, since ours died the day before I came home
X A radio interview in preparation for a writing workshop at Kazoo Books later this summer
A week’s worth of email to catch up on
Revising the middle grade novel
Finishing the first draft of the SF novel
Replacing the bedroom ceiling fan that died right before the workshop

So…yeah. Between all that, plus the obnoxious mood swing that always hits after a really good convention or event or vacation, I’m still working on stabilizing my reentry.

I’m sure I’ll have more to chat about soon, both about Launch Pad and about the world in general. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with the core theme of this year’s workshop:

“Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space.” -Douglas Adams

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

I got back from the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop at about 2 in the morning yesterday. (Huge thanks to my father for driving out to Detroit to pick me up after Delta stuck me with no less than four flight delays, effectively ruining any shot at my connecting flight.)

I’ve got a ton of pictures to process. Not to mention a ton of work to do, and a ton of sleep to catch up on … not necessarily in that order. But here’s one I’m particularly fond of. We were up at the observatory, and someone had an app telling you when the International Space Station would be passing overhead.

ISS over Laramie, Wyoming

That streak on the left is the ISS. It’s the first time I’ve seen it (at least that I’ve known what it was).

Another thing that happened while I was away was the release of The Usual Path, a collection of essays edited by Shannon Page, about how authors “broke in” to publication. You can pick it up at Amazon, B&N, Indiebound, and the rest of the usual suspects. My contribution is called “The Goblin’s Curse,” and talks about the rather messy process of selling Goblin Quest to a major publisher.

The Usual Path Cover