Neil Gaiman interviewed Stephen King a couple of months back. You can – and absolutely should – read about it on Neil’s site here.
That’s all.
Author: Dan Harris
Writer of stories that haven't happened yet. 10% Sci, 90% Fi. Author of The Unity Sequence: ASCENSION POINT (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009TCE6G4) & VENUS RISING (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C9PF35G)
A Proud Day for Sailing the Void
Yesterday was indeed a banner day for this blog-o-mine.
STAT ATTACK:
- 110 views – new record!
- 11 new followers – new record! (Hi everyone!)
- 24 likes – new record!
Meanwhile, somewhere in Connecticut, Suzanne Collins’ deputy personal assistant is insulating her loft with this afternoon’s fan mail.
Aaaaaand . . . back down to earth.
From Hackery to Publication: Edit is Go
So my resolution to wait two months before editing lasted . . . 43 hours. Oh well.
First up was running through my scene synopses from start to finish, checking for flaws or holes in the main plot arc.
(A note on synopses: as I’ve been drafting, I’ve written a one-sentence summary of every scene as I finish it. The index cards on the Scrivener corkboard – see here for previous on this – make this an absolute doddle. But I digress.)
Link Dump: Resources
Time for another link dump, methinks. Lots to share.
- 49 Free Online Reference Tools for Freelance Writers
- 50 Free Resources That Will Improve Your Writing Skills
- 102 Resources for Fiction Writing
- 117 Most Beautiful Words in the English Language
- Things You Never Knew Had Names
- Proofreaders’ Marks
- Character Building Workshop
- Common Errors in English Usage
- EditMinion (thanks Miss Kitty Roads!)
And finally, for any newly-published authors saying goodbye to the day job:
Worlds Without End – Legends of SF
If you’ve not checked out Worlds Without End in my blogroll on the right, take a peek now. It’s OK, I’ll wait.
The site is an incredible resource, and ‘brings together the complete listings of novels, authors and publishers for 12 major awards in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror‘. I’ve mentioned ‘my inevitable Hugo Award’ enough times that you won’t be surprised that was the first place I went. And after spinning through the shortlists for the last 20 years I was awestruck by how many legendary names appear consistently, year on year.
Retro SF Movies that Everybody Should See
More retro-futurism stuff from io9 here.
There are some classics in here, and real favourites of mine. Moon was fantastic, minimalist and claustrophobic with a nice turn in growing tension. Dark City was brilliant as well, one of those cult classics that not enough people have seen.
I was a little surprised to see The Truman Show in the list, but it makes perfect sense – the combination of the cliché of suburban white picket fence America with Big Brother-style hi-tech surveillance absolutely makes it retro SF.
But I’m sorry – Flash Gordon was terrible, though.
The First of Many Awards? Versatile Blogger
I’ll be honest, at first I thought this was one of those annoying chain-letter-type things. You know, the sort you see on YouTube comment threads, where someone says ‘If you read this and don’t forward it to 50 people then your cat will die in a plane crash!’
But after a little bit of poking around, there seems to be no harm in it. No-one’s eventually being asked to forward their bank details to the Crown Prince of Nigeria, so setting cynicism firmly aside… Read more…
Achievement Unlocked: Write a Novel
Boom. And the first draft is complete.
A mere eleven months, 90,401 words and 383 pages of double-spaced size 12 Courier New later, I can now say:
“Why yes, I have written a novel. Thanks for asking. I’ll have a glass of the Malbec.”
Retro Futurism
Nice post on io9 here.
I’m drawn to the Anachronista category – the others don’t do a lot for me. I’m no good at history so hardly qualified to suggest alternates. Cheese is . . . well, cheesy. And I think there are enough people writing steampunk – the best example of it, China Mieville’s work, doesn’t even get called it because it’s so much more as well.
But anachronista, that I could do. The next book I’ve got planned is somewhat tinged with this – it’s a Chandler-style detective noir, but set in the same technologically advanced far-future universe of my current WIP.
It wouldn’t quite fit the anachronista mould the io9 article talks about, as it’ll be stylistically redolent of 1930s/40s/50s pulp crime lit, rather than actually containing any technology that you might have found back then. But still – that’s one of the things I love about SF, the scope to combine it with another genre entirely and come up with an interesting hybrid. I’m looking forward to writing it.
The Fickle Nature of Motivation
It makes no sense, sometimes. I work from home, nine to ten hours at the computer where once or twice every hour I’ll think ‘Man, I wish I was writing now. That would be awesome’. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy my job, but . . . well, it’s not my number one. Obviously!
Anyway. So all day long in the back of my mind I’m wishing I could write. And then I finish work for the day – and I can’t start. Fickle brain wanders off, excited by not having to do any more work today. And rather than getting writing straight away, I instead:
- Wash the dishes
- Check Twitter
- Read other people’s blogs
- Defrost some pork chops
- Watch trailers for The Dark Knight Rises
- Drink beer and consider opening my own microbrewery one day
- Write blog posts about the fickle nature of motivation
Not crazy productive. Though the last one is at least getting the fingers going, and fickle brain in the mood for cracking on with THE LAST CHAPTER.
(Or the epilogue. Yeah, I still don’t know.)
I’d love to hear your own procrastinatory stories in the comments. And it’ll save you from doing what you should be doing, too!
DAN HARRIS: 10% SCI, 90% FI 