I’ve tried and tried to blog — all week, I’ve tried — and I’ve got a bad case of Blank White Page syndrome. Just… IMPOSSIBLE… to get started. Or, once started, to finish. (There’s a draft of this post already; I’m starting from scratch.)

I read (and watch, and world-build and dream about) a LOT of fantasy. I also read and watch a lot of science fiction. I’ve always been a lover of fantasy — my childhood unicorn collection affirms this — but science fiction is a very long love with me. I’ve been planning all along to write the former, but not so much the latter. I’ve flat-out avoided sci-fi writing for the past few years, and attempts before that were mired down in details. I’ve been afraid to write it, I think.

Last Friday I was chatting with Lenneth about society conferences (what sort of papers get presented, how these differ from journal articles, benefits of each) and got myself worked up over memories of the Lunar and Planetary Science Conferences I attended (and presented at, once.) This sort of reverie leads inevitably to five years ago this winter, when I walked away from my career in the sciences and put roughly 3,000 miles between myself and it. I really don’t regret the decision; one of the consequences, however, is that I really don’t fit in anywhere to be attending LPSCs. I’m not a scientist, I’m not a journalist (that died with orbital-maneuvers.com), I’m not an engineer. I am an interested citizen. Fascinated citizen, I dare say, but still, citizen.

Can I still go? Of course! That’s only a financial barrier: airfare to Houston, lodging, a little food and some cheap beer. It’s more the question of what I’d put on my name-tag. Writer? Person? Taxpayer? It’s a psychological barrier I’ve set up myself. It’s me against science. I’ve already proven to myself that my former professors and friends still talk to me, still think I’m a decent human being and worth knowing. One of my best faculty-friends was decidedly intrigued when I told him a little about my story ideas. Who knows, he might even be a beta reader someday. My internship adviser wouldn’t say a word against my aspirations, he’s written a little sci-fi himself! No, no, this is a Danielle-problem, a mental issue.

How do you break down a wall of your own making? Does anyone here know? (This certainly isn’t the only wall, but that’s fodder for another post.)

Friday, Lenneth showed me that I just can’t walk away from my first love. I won’t be happy in life, ultimately, if I don’t incorporate some of my science-y, spacey interests into my career. I’ve been avoiding the issue for years. I’ve been trying to skirt around it by this scheme and that, and it just doesn’t go away.

I get burned out on the politics of spaceflight, as it is right now. (This is part of why CSpace is a bit of a photo blog at the moment.) I’m selling probably a third of my space books, stuff I know I’ll never read, because really, Danielle, HOW MANY Apollo/Cold War/Space Race books can you READ? (Just one more? I’ve stopped buying them; I need to burn through some of my existing library first.)

But still, still, every time I walk out under the stars and look up, in our streetlight-scarce neck of the woods, my heart leaps. I never get sick of space, never get sick of looking up. I could prop my eyelids open and look all night long, I think. And that love is never going to go away, and the sooner I accept that, the better.

And why not write about it? Why not take my words up into the stars and let them fly around a while? What possible harm could it do, other than my being afraid of what people will think? I have stories to tell and things to say. No amount of denial makes that any less true. I’m just being an idiot, and a coward, and timid, and that’s ALL. I can be confident if I want to. I just have to want to.

So I’m going back to science fiction. Work on Olivine will continue, but I’m going to start again, writing sci-fi in tandem with fantasy. My head is full of notions, both fantastic and futuristic. There’s no sense courting one and ignoring the other. Let them duke it out in my pen, instead.