Up, Up & Away

Luke Skywalker's lightsaber from Star Wars sold for $170,000 at auction. Sigh. I wish I had cash.

Looks like Discovery may need 'unprecedented' repairs after all. It's sad to realize, for a kid who stayed home mornings from school sometimes to watch it lift off, that in the end, it is a flawed machine. It's overbuilt, depends too much on chance, and aside from the many spectacular things it has accomplished (the ISS, Hubble, etc.), it has led NASA nowhere in terms of understanding space vehicle technology in the 25 years it's been in use.

I finished the first draft on the new short story tonight. I'm happy with it, and I feel like I'm getting better with each short story I write. I hope so, anyways. It ended up 30 pages, like I thought. Even though the upper limit of the short-story is considered 50 pages, I'm reluctant to let them go longer than 7,500 words, because I don't have the publishing credits to justify it yet, and the word limits for a lot of lit zines are restrictive. Not that long short stories interest me; the longer they are, the more you think, this could be a novel.

It's August now, and many lit zines are opening up, so once I hear back from a few places, I may have as many as five new stories to send out.

Research dump: Why aren't there green stars?

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