Its safe to say that I have had my most productive week to date, which on Sunday morning saw me write 1400 words to complete the first draft to a short story I had been working on last week.
Most writing manuals will advise writers to write every day and to read every day. Now I have had no issue with the reading every day. I get an hour lunch at work which is always spent reading. Writing though, thats a different ball game. I know this is very wrong of me, especially if I want to be serious about my writing and be taken seriously about my writing. Not making excuses, but fitting in my running, work, family time and writing can be tricky. But when I comes to my writing, I need to treat it like my running. Don’t put myself under pressure to do large amounts every day. Just be consistent.
I read an excellent blog by a guy who simply aimed to write 500 words a day. He may have the odd day where he didn’t make that target or even start it. But he knew there would be days where he would do much more than that target. So I followed suit and have found it works. My average is more than 500 words and I’m enjoying it.
This of course is also helped by the support I get by my wife. We are both spiritualists. Not trying to sell it as a religion/faith - its simply our belief. She went to a medium we go to who told her, my late dad said I need to have a kick up my ass and get writing. I’m good at it but have become lazy! So even the spirits are telling me off! My wife said, she will tell me every day to get writing. This gave me a huge lift.
The draft I completed is basically rubbish. Now to non writers this would seem a very pessimistic comment to make about one’s writing. But every writer creates a rubbish first draft. Its in every writing manual worth its salt. The good writing comes with the countless re-writes and editing that follows. I have a story, it even has some logical structure and I am optimistic there will be a very satisfactory story at the end of the process.
Although, whether it passes my late dad’s critique is another thing!
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Over the weekend I watched the first part to a brand new BBC TV series called ‘Tomorrows Worlds - The Unearthly History of Science Fiction’. Its a five part series with each episode a different part of the genre. Episode one covered space and science fictions relationship with it.
I was very wary of it, wondering if it would be just the usual popular culture bullshit that is viewed as SF. And by starting with Star Wars and Star Trek, my worries were confirmed. Nothing wrong with either, but to a non SF fan, this is what they believe the genre to be.
However during the episode, it started looking at the high concept of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, the non gender specific aliens of ‘Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin’ and the sociological politics of ‘The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson’.
This is a series of great promise, that realises the genre is so vast and every fan has their own view of it, that you simply can’t cover it all. So recognise the popular culture side of it but also pass tribute to the deeper more meaningful commentary of real life found in the genre.
Next week is all about alien invasion in SF.
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