<![CDATA[RockHill Publishing LLC - The RockHill Blog]]>Fri, 02 Feb 2024 23:36:33 -0500Weebly<![CDATA[Interview on the Mike Wagner]]>Sat, 22 Feb 2020 18:07:08 GMThttps://rockhillpublishing.com/the-rockhill-blog/interview-on-the-mike-wagner
]]><![CDATA[Different Strokes]]>Mon, 30 Sep 2019 02:46:52 GMThttps://rockhillpublishing.com/the-rockhill-blog/different-strokesBy James L Hill (aka J. L. Hill)

                I have said before that I like writing. I like the feeling I get from scribbling words on paper. But there is another reason to keep a pen and paper close by; I do all my preliminary work on paper. I write the outlines and characterizations by hand, it’s quicker.
                There are also parts or chapters that I hand-write. I can get my pure imagination out quicker. I feel closer to the story and the people when I manually write it down. It becomes a personal correspondence between me and my reader, a journal of events that is meant to be savored. I pour my heart and soul out. The ink becomes my blood, the words the essence of consciousness, freely flowing across the page in squiggles and symbols. It doesn’t matter if the words are spelled correctly or even legibly formed. They transform pictures and sounds from the ethereal to the here and now. Turning vague misty visions into concrete reality. Emotions to flesh.
                I save the computer and its keyboard for the impersonal business of producing copy. The tapping of keys is like playing music, the rhythm of writing is at its best. I am lost to the thoughts of words. I am in the typing groove, fingers magically dancing from letter to letter. Occasionally retracing and correcting what the computer balks at with harsh red underlines. This is mostly transcribing, but occasionally, it is auto-writing. When I know what to say so well, my fingers do the talking. The story is so well known I barely need to see what is inputted. The computer takes it in as fast as I can go no emotional blockades to overcome.
                The movie plays uninterrupted from my head through my fingers and onto the screen, breaking momentarily for popcorn and beer. It is efficient, effortless, and mechanical. No need to think, that has all been done. It is motion and rhythm made into words.
                It is three a.m. pacing the floor, a worried parent awaiting a defiant child. To and fro, up and down, back and forth the words are recorded in a jumble of mixed feelings and thoughts. The tiny micro recorder weights next to nothing, but it hold a ton. It sucks in the dreams and fears, the hopes and misgivings that ramble from a twisted and tormented mind. Yes, record the instance, capture the moment, and trap the thought in the little black box. Create sense out of chaos, turn nonsense into order. The recorder does not edit. The recorder does not refine. The recorder allows the reality to be etched in memorial, to be retrieved and rediscovered long after. The recorder is perfection. It creates an exact replica of time.
                It is a time not for now. It is a future that can only be viewed by looking back with the clarity of retrospection. The words resonate and finally hold meaning. Truths not known when uttered are undeniable in this future world. The recorder is a technological crystal ball, revealing past, present, and futures. It is powerful magic at three a.m.
                Many different strokes fill the writer’s canvas as he plies his craft. Some are powerful and broad leaving bold statements. Some are fine and sharp creating detail and definition. There are splotches and blotches that add background. All to create what the writer calls his masterpiece. His story.
]]><![CDATA[A Writer: An Unexpected Tale]]>Sun, 22 Sep 2019 18:33:29 GMThttps://rockhillpublishing.com/the-rockhill-blog/a-writer-an-unexpected-taleBy James L Hill (aka J. L. Hill)
                I was in between assignments from my BPJ (that’s Bill Paying Job), I thought this is a great opportunity to live the life of a fulltime writer. I would finish the next book in my Killer Series, Killer With Three Heads, after all I was already a couple of chapters in. I’d have it out before the end of the summer. That was the perception.
                Here is the deception. I still needed to promote the two books I have out. Okay, no problem, I’d make use of some time in the morning and post to that wonder of social media, Facebook.  I joined around 50 book promotion groups. I wrote a half dozen snappy and catchy ad post for each book.  I spent 2 hours a day on each book posting. That is four hours a day, I broke it up into 2 sessions, a morning and evening, that way I get maximum exposure. But no work was done on the next book, and no real sales to speak of either. But I did pick up followers and made many new friends. As a writer, learn to look on the bright side of life.
                I increased my exposure on LinkedIn. Joined far fewer groups, and started receiving a multitude of emails. Everyday I read through 20 to 50 messages, and respond to maybe 10 that I could relate to. This is keeping my in box full and taking up more time during the day, but it is okay, I do most of my writing at night. I made fewer contacts.
                Pinterest was next. I heard somewhere that you had to be on Pinterest to sell books. I don’t know how this works, but why not. For what I can tell, Pinterest stands for People interested in a lot of pictures. I created 2 boards, one for each book. Wasn’t sure what I should put on the Killer With A Heart board, I ended up with pictures of me at a couple of book signings, and of course the cover and links to where it can be purchased. My Pegasus: A Journey To New Eden board dwarfs the other, of course there is the book cover, but I got all these pictures of nebulae and astrological things. The cover of Pegasus is courtesy of NASA/Hubble, it is the Heart and Soul nebula. Also, I’m a big science geek and love space stuff.
                During this time I started work on a short story called The Moth, which I posted on WattPad. Another site any serious writer should be on (or maybe not). This site actually helps with writing since you post stories long or short, even whole novels if you are so inclined. After posting part one of The Moth I went back to Pinterest and created a board for Butterflies and Moths where I could collect photos. After a couple of weeks I was able to find the right pictures to make the cover for the story. I opened the board to others so they could post pictures too. A lot more pictures and a lot less work.
                You’re asking, “What about Killer With Three Heads?”
                I’m getting there. But first, I landed a couple more interviews on radio and blogs, those are always fun. My wife decided we needed to move or at least she needed to move. So there was a list of home repairs that needed to be done, since I wasn’t working and had all this free time. She wanted to get into flipping. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, that is where you lose a lot of money in real estate. But she bought another house and now I have 2 houses that need work. And before I wind up with another BPJ, I must fix her new house first.
                During the last six months, I have been a publicity manager, photo editor, and a home repairman (that’s a usual job for me), oh yeah, and I wrote 6 chapters in Killer With Three Heads. I did most of the writing at night, which is my usual time for writing. I did decide somewhere during this time to write a couple of chapters in long hand (hiding in the bathroom to get some work in). Then I transcribed them at night.
                What did I learn about being a fulltime writer? You don’t get to write fulltime. You have more time to do the other stuff that was getting in the way of writing, but I wrote about the same amount as when I was doing it at night after my BPJ and the other things that keeps everyone else happy. The next time I decide I am going to be a fulltime writer (during my next Software Engineer in-between-time. If anyone is thinking of a career in the IT profession become a System Engineer or Database Administrator, less in-between-time), I am going to move to a mountain top, no emails and no internet, and take plenty of pens, pencils, and blank notebooks along.
Oh yeah, I finally finished that novel, Killer With Three Heads, years later. It is available at https://rockhillpublishing.com/the-bookstore.html#!/Killer-With-Three-Heads/c/29057155/ and everywhere great books are sold.
You can find me at these locations:
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jlhill57
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jamshi57
Website: http://www.jlhill-books.com
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuYxL9ab38g
And Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/author3356
]]><![CDATA[What Tomorrow May Bring]]>Tue, 13 Aug 2019 05:33:39 GMThttps://rockhillpublishing.com/the-rockhill-blog/what-tomorrow-may-bringBy James L Hill (aka J. L. Hill)

                 When I was a kid my dad took us fishing. I would try to cast my line as far from the shore as I could. I put as much weight as the line could bear, take a running start, and cast my line for the middle of the lake. I believed the deeper the water the bigger the fish. After an eternity of inactivity, I slowly reeled the line in. When it got within a couple of feet of the shore the fish would start biting, small fish and big ones. I learned the big fish come to shore to eat the little ones, most of the action happened close to shore.
                A lot of sci-fi writers cast their story lines deep into the future. They think the big story is hundreds of years away. They feel any major development takes hundred of years to come to pass. But like the big fish feeding on the little fish, major developments in science comes from minor discoveries, and take less time than you might imagine.
                People have dreamed of flying for millennia. Probably since watching how quickly birds got from one place to another. Leonardo da Vinci designed flying machines in the latter half of the 15th century. Four hundred years later the Wright brothers built a flying machine and flew 120 feet lasting 12 seconds. Less than seventy years later, man flew to the moon and back. Now some will say that man flew to the moon using a rocket which was invented in the 13th century (which is also disputed). But rocket power was never use for anything other than a weapon until manned flight became a reality. So this is a big event that was built from many smaller inventions, the last leap coming closely behind that first manned flight.
                Consider this, Marie Curie discovered radioactivity, a term she coined in 1898 that revolutionized the way the atom was viewed. During World War I she developed portable X-ray machines for doctors on the front lines. Before the middle of the same century this power ended the Empire of Japan ushering in a new age, the Atomic Age.
                In science fiction it is safer to cast our stories far off in the future; we can create any invention or event without having to support how they came to pass. People will assume the small steps were taken long ago and not want to be bogged down with the details. I sometimes like to cast my line closer to the here and now. I like to take a look at those little inventions and discoveries to see what will become of them tomorrow, or next year, or in a decade. Could you imagine what the reaction would have been if the Wright brothers announced after 12 seconds in the air we should shoot for the moon?
                Engineers and scientists are working on a true automobile, one that can drive itself. They are testing the technology today. I envision a whole new system of public transportation. A future where people will not own cars, there will be no need for buses or trains, people will walk out their doors flag down a passing automobile and tell it where they want to go. And the car will take us there at 80, 90, 100 miles per hour without a single accident on the way. Think for a minute, the car you own spends most of its time parked somewhere, in your garage, outside your job, in a mall parking lot while you shop, dine, or see a movie. We can reduce the number of cars on the road (good for the environment), save a fortune (in insurance alone), and save lives (by removing the most dangerous part from the vehicle – the driver).
                This change will come soon, as soon as automobiles can be programmed to act in unisons with each other and with pedestrians. As for pedestrians I suggest elevated crosswalks. The electric racetracks we played with as kids will become the layout for the cities of the future. That future may be close, as close as tomorrow.
]]><![CDATA[Perils of Self Publishing]]>Sun, 04 Aug 2019 22:09:22 GMThttps://rockhillpublishing.com/the-rockhill-blog/perils-of-self-publishingBy James L Hill (aka J. L. Hill)
​
                Publishing companies take care of the editing, cover design, printing, marketing and distribution of books. It is all necessary to put out a good quality book. When you self publish all those jobs go to you. It might seem glamorous or a power rush to have total control, but in reality it’s a lot of work, and it gets in the way of your real job – writing.
                Rarely is anything perfect the first time around. Even if you are an English Major Graduate you should still get an editor. The fact is it is easier to find other’s errors than it is to find your own. I edited my book four times before it went to print; I still found some errors. A few bad errors can turn a great book into a mediocre piece of writing.
                Cover design can make or break a book. It has to convey what the book is about and make you want to read it over the hundreds of other books on the shelves. In a word, it has to captivate. I submitted a cover photo for Killer With A Heart. It is a young black man hugging a topless blonde girl while holding two pistols behind her. This gives you a good idea of what the book is about. My graphic designers added a smoky bedroom background. Together it gives the cover a mysterious atmosphere which intrigues and grabs attention.
                Pegasus: A Journey To New Eden cover is a straight forward picture from NASA’s website. If anyone is wondering, it is the Heart and Soul Nebula, which I felt was befitting the story inside. I’m sure only an astronomy geek like myself, who spends hours studying Hubble’s photos would recognize it. I think it’s cool.
                Printing is the easiest part of self publishing. There are several desktop publishing programs on the market to format your manuscript. They are simple and easy to use. The trick is finding someone to print it at a reasonable cost. There is, of course, the eBook option. Do take advantage of it. I do, but there is no greater feeling of accomplishment than holding a copy of your book in your hands, or the real satisfaction of autographing a copy for an appreciative reader. EBooks can’t compare with that.
                That brings me to marketing and distribution. You can write an amazing story, wrap it in an eye-popping cover, have a million copies printed and boxed, but unless your brother-in-law owns a bookstore – on a very busy street – in a major city, your book isn’t going anywhere.
                Major publishing houses employ an army of marketing people to write ads for newspapers, radio, and TV. They have the money to afford to run those ads. Newspaper ads cost about two thousand dollars for an inch of space in a national paper. That’s two thousand dollars for one inch for one day that is expensive real estate to be sure. You cannot accomplish anything running one ad; try a week, maybe a month to see results. Radio and TV isn’t any cheaper, especially when you factor in production cost.
                Getting your book reviewed in a major paper is tough. I have a good friend I approached at our local paper. He told me the paper only reviewed books from known publishers. Luckily there is the internet, and people willing to do reviews and interviews of self-published authors. Finding them is time consuming but worth it. That’s how I ended up here, writing this blog, trying to help you navigate the perils of self publishing.
                Would I do it again? Yes. Would I do things differently? Of course, live and learn, try not to make the same mistakes twice. I thought it would be great to get a publisher, a nice advance, I spend my time writing. Now I want a publisher to handle all the other things without charging me, so I can spend my time writing.
]]><![CDATA[Mid-Book Crisis]]>Sun, 28 Jul 2019 20:36:08 GMThttps://rockhillpublishing.com/the-rockhill-blog/mid-book-crisisBy James L Hill (aka J. L. Hill)

                I didn’t think I’d live this long, so I had my mid-life crisis early – in my mid-teens. I questioned the choices I made, the people I called friends, even the reason for my existence. I had a full blown meltdown at the age of sixteen. If I had known I would survive my twenties, thirties, and forties, I might have waited until now for a bout of WTF.
                Here is something you may have figured out about me, I am a planner. Not a real good one, I often go off script, but I do consider my options before going through with whatever stupid idea that pops into my head. And regardless if the plan works out for the better, or the worst, I have no regrets.
                Writers have mid-book crisis. If you are a writing a book, you will undoubtedly come to a point when you ask yourself, “What The Fuck was I thinking?”
                Maybe some character has hijacked your story and taken your hero out of it. If you are a non-fiction person, maybe some minor fact had sidetracked you so far from your theme; it seems you are writing about a completely different subject. It happens. These are easy to fix, a couple of deletes, smack a few of your people around, and you are back on track.
                What is really terrifying is finding yourself in the middle of the book fifty, sixty, seventy thousand words deep and not knowing why. You are looking at your book and it is just getting bigger and bigger. Your story is growing exponentially. The more you write, the more it grows, the further away the end seems.  The full blown meltdown has begun. You question why you started this project. You question your characters ability to get their shit together. You even question if you are really a writer.
                Ok, take a deep breath, or a stiff drink if that helps, it does for me. You’re OK. You are just looking at this thing the wrong way. Instead of looking at this thing as writing a book, think of it as finishing the chapter. You finish one chapter, celebrate, and then start the next one.
                Make sure your people do what they are supposed to do in their chapter and move on. Let each chapter tell its part of the story fully and satisfactorily. Writing your book one chapter at a time removes the chance for regret. The chapter is over and you can move on with a clear mind. You’ll get the same sense of accomplishment whether you just finished chapter one or twenty-one. And when you are all done with your chapters you will have a completed book.
]]><![CDATA[ALF – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly]]>Sun, 21 Jul 2019 17:50:59 GMThttps://rockhillpublishing.com/the-rockhill-blog/alf-the-good-the-bad-and-the-uglyBy James L Hill (aka J. L. Hill)
​
                 Alf was a comedy about a cat chasing ant-eater like alien. His name was an acronym for Alien Life Form. Scientists are seriously searching for extraterrestrial life. For various reasons, we want to prove life exist elsewhere in the universe.
                Some scientists will be glad to discover any form of life from the microbiological slime to Mr. Spock. Other scientists, such as those working for the SETI project, will only be satisfied contacting a Vulcan, Romulan, or to a lesser degree - a Klingon. For those of us writing sci-fi, the form our aliens take depends on what we want our aliens to do, or what we plan to do to them.
                If our alien is the chasing, killing, world destroying type, any kind from the Blob to the multi-mandible acid blooded Alien would do. When the aliens are villains, the less humanoid they are, the better. For villains we want monsters, aliens or otherwise, we want hideous vile creatures. Dehumanizing something makes it easier to accept killing it, whether they are on our planet or we have invaded theirs (in the name of exploration, of course).
                When we want our aliens to be the protagonist, if they don’t look human, we imbue them with the best human qualities. ET had compassion. We also like to make our alien protagonist less threatening; ET was kid size. And we make them smart – too intelligent to want to do us harm. Realistically speaking, the more advance society will assimilate the lesser and their way of life will cease to exist. At least, that had been the case here on Earth.
                Sometimes our aliens are neither antagonist nor protagonist; they are a force of nature sent to teach humanity a lesson. In Night of the Comet, the Earth passes through the tail of a comet, an event that hasn’t happened in 65 million years. Sounds like trouble to me. But everyone is out to watch it happen. And everyone who is not inside a steel container is turned to red dust. And all those who have recently died and are not yet buried are turned to zombies. Then comes, the now the common, running from zombies and brain munching until rain washes everything away. Mother Nature has reset the clock and we began again, those that are left.
                Yes ALF comes in many shapes and sizes. Sometimes they come for good, to show us the follies of our ways and help us take the next step on the evolutionary ladder. They come for our women, our water, our world; bent on destroying and devouring our life. And they come without rhythm or reason. It just the roll of the dice, call it the Hand of God, or a random act of fate, that we must rise to the challenge or be swept away like the dinosaurs. One day we will discover alien life forms, it may be life altering, or it may be some microbial organism that proves life itself is nothing special. Until then we will keep making up our own ALFs to suit whatever situation we desire.
]]><![CDATA[Characters and Characterizations]]>Sun, 14 Jul 2019 18:48:26 GMThttps://rockhillpublishing.com/the-rockhill-blog/characters-and-characterizationsBy James L Hill (aka J. L. Hill)

                 People ask is writing Sci-Fi harder than other genres. I have to say, “Yes,” sorry historians and romantics. In a romance you have few characters and you know what they are going to do, fall in love. In historical fictions the scene is set for you, your characters have a preset framework to act out your story. I’m not saying you don’t have your work cut out for you; you still have to write an interesting story with believable characters.
                However science fiction has no preset framework, your story can literally be about anything. Your characters can be tasked with a wide array of situations to overcome. Couple with the fact that your characters don’t have to be humans, or even living organisms, and you can see the complexity of sci-fi stories. And, of course, it still has to be interesting with believable characters, whatever they may be.
                Sometimes you have to characterize machines. Robots tend to be giving human characteristics. I make my robots non-human in function and design. The human body is great for us, but for many functions it is not the optimal design. For traveling two legs are good, four legs are better, and wheels are the best. Depending on the territory to traverse, more wheels will be better than fewer. So the characteristics of a robot meant to travel across different terrain would be more like a centipede then a humanoid.
                Some science fiction writers go to great lengths to characterize the simple. I do not appreciate reading a thousand words to tell me that yrneh jumped on an esroh and disappeared into the sunset. Just say, “Henry jumped on his horse and rode away.” On whatever planet Henry may live, a horse will still be a horse, or horse-like. If you are writing about something as simple as a horse then say so and move on with the story.
                Writers also love to amaze their readers with complex societies. But actually societies, no matter what they are made of, are basically the same. Whether they are a colony of ants, hive of bees, pack of wolves, pride of lions, or tribe of humans, they have the same social structure.
                Recently I was doing yard work and stepped on a hornets nest. I didn’t know hornets built underground nests. Some of the hornets started attacking me, others swarmed the entrance protecting it, while still a few more circled high overhead as lookouts. You find this defense technique spread across many species where there is a division of duties. We don’t need pages of descriptions of the society that make up life on some distant planet unless it goes against the norm.
                Lastly, don’t waste time describing a character that is never going to be mentioned again. One or two words descriptors will suffice quite well for minor characters. An ebony queen, a herculean warrior, or that wretched derelict paints a perfect picture that a five minute diatribe will never do any better.
                Science fiction may be complex, but writing sci-fi doesn’t have to be. Don’t make your story more complicated by long winded descriptions of the obvious. Short simple scenes we are all familiar with will move the story along nicely. You can use the extra verbiage to convey characters that truly only exist in your mind.
You can also find me on the world wide web (a long drawn out description) at these locations:
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jlhill57
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jamshi57
Website: https://www.jlhill-books.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnXvHY-BxKHzT4moEVAVYwg]]><![CDATA[How Smart is Your Smart Phone… Really?]]>Sun, 30 Jun 2019 17:35:09 GMThttps://rockhillpublishing.com/the-rockhill-blog/how-smart-is-your-smart-phone-reallyBy James L Hill (aka J. L. Hill)

                I have been working with computers for nearly 40 years. My day job, I’m a software engineer, my nights and weekends too quite often. And it never ceases to amaze me that people, otherwise very intelligent people, believe computers can think.
                Ever since HAL, in ‘2001 A Space Odyssey’, people have had the notion that computers actually have reasoning or intelligence. The fact that we now have “smart phones” which can talk to us reinforces the misconception. This is not a knock against the iPhone engineers, my hat is off to them, and I use my iPhone more than my desktop or laptop computers. The scientist working on AI (Artificial Intelligence) has come a helluva long way since 2001 A Space Odyssey. But we are not at HAL yet, and thank God not at Skynet - the master computer behind the Terminator.
                We are still in the dark as to what is intelligence, artificial, animal, human, or Extra Terrestrial. For example, there are different ways to write a date, July 01, 2019; July 1st, 2019; 07-01-2019; 01-07-2019; 01JUL19; etc. When I ask someone, “What is today Date”? They could answer in any of the forms listed, and the only one that might make me wonder if the person just awoke from a coma is 01-07-2019. Then if I surmised, they are European or been in the military it makes perfect sense.
                For a computer to validate the answer is correct, there must be a complex set of condition checks and algorithm pre-existing in the computer’s memory, having nothing to do with the person’s background. And the truth is the computer’s logic and mine are no different. Both needs recognize the format given as Day-Month-Year. The difference comes, and this is the big one, if I did not know this was a proper format a simple explanation that this is how it is written in Europe would suffice. For a computer no such reasoning is possible. It will throw an error or do something even worst until a software engineer (me) adds the format to its memory. A computer cannot learn.
                I have sat in countless meetings with reasonably intelligent people trying to explain why the computer doesn’t know what you ‘mean’. It does not have deductive reasoning capabilities. In Sci-Fi to defeat the evil computer we hit it with a big dose of deductive reasoning. Or better yet, circular logic, the Kryptonite of the computer world. This is the same logic you can use on 6-year-olds for hours of fun. I call it the ‘You said, I said’ game.
                My Grandson would say, “You’re going to buy me ice cream.”
                And I respond with, “That’s nice you’re going to buy me ice cream.”
                He immediately responds, “No I said … YOU’RE going to buy me ice cream.”
                And of course, I come back with, “That’s what I said… you said YOU’RE going to buy ME ice cream.”
                He knows I am twisting his words around but can’t figure out how to get out of it and still get his ice cream. He almost got out of it when he replaced YOU with Grandpa, but then didn’t know he could replace ME with his name. Before the age of 6 they look at you with a blank stare and go ask someone else for ice cream. I employed this sort of circular reasoning in Pegasus: A Journey To New Eden, when Zack and Zuri must match wits with the ship’s computer to override its prime directive to protect the ship and its inhabitants, which includes them.
                Although we have made tremendous strides in the fields of computers, true AI remains the domain of Sci-Fi. But once we understand what intelligence is, or how learning works, maybe we can make a truly smart computer. God forbid. 
]]><![CDATA[Has Science Finally Pass Science Fiction?]]>Mon, 24 Jun 2019 22:38:25 GMThttps://rockhillpublishing.com/the-rockhill-blog/has-science-finally-pass-science-fictionBy James L Hill (aka JL Hill)

                Science fiction writers have always been out in front of the technology. But with new technologies and advances coming out almost daily we have to work really hard to just keep pace. We were writing about recumbent DNA, gene-manipulation, and cloning. Biologists have since cloned a sheep, combined the DNA for spider’s silk with goat’s milk, and perform testing for inherited diseases, parentage, and ancestry. What was a Brave New World is becoming just another day in the old laboratory.
 
                We have always been able to look to space and dream up some fantastic places. Astronomers have built satellites and the Kepler Space telescope to discover some 134 confirmed exoplanets in 76 stellar systems and over 3000 unconfirmed. And some of these planets are amazing even if they are uninhabitable like hot Jupiters. These are planets the size of Jupiter that orbit their star at a distance like Mercury. However astronomers estimate as many as 40 billion Earth-size planets in the habitable zones of sun-like stars exist in the Milky Way galaxy. We have our work cut out for us.
 
                We came up with rocket ships, submarines, and robots. Engineers built them. We thought up wireless communications and now there is blue tooth. Maybe science has caught up with us. Then again maybe it was never a race. When writers think of what is possible it inspires scientist to make it happen. And when scientists come up with exciting new discoveries, writers like to take it and push it to the next level. There are plenty of good ideas coming from both sides. Together we will work to come up with solutions energy problems, like solar towers or fusion power cells. Can you image a day when a watch-size battery using hydrogen fusion technology powers everything from your flying car to the cities you live in? Or pushing the boundaries of gene-splicing to give humans photosynthesis capabilities to end world hunger? Sure we may all turn a shade of green but scientist will probably figure out a way to make it work.
]]>