I'm the kind of person who likes to fill awkward silences... I know people who are completely comfortable (and actually thrive) on mute gaps in proceedings but I can jabber on for Queen and country with the best of them, normally talking about everything and nothing at the same time, just to avoid the dreaded lull in conversation... So when I suddenly found in May that I was by the end of the month being made redundant from my day job, I knew I'd have to use my new-found spare time constructively and fill the "space"...
Conveniently, I knew it was also time for a second update in my "2010 - an Odyssey in Space" year as I continue to attempt to create my 'Seal Your Own Fate' online gamebook (you can get the full lowdown on the evolution of this idea, incidentally, by going back to my Official Writing Homepage and clicking on a "suitably spacey object"), so as I also search for another way to pay the bills with a new day job, from the beginning of June, I've also decided to begin a "100 days of
writing" to finished the novella-sized "Simulacrum", which is the first of 3 "Moon Crater: Adventures" stories...I have to give credit where it's due to a friend and contemporary writer who got me onto this idea of a century of sunrise and sunsets. Adam Maxwell is a writer you should check out and is beginning his own 100 days journey towards the back cover of his next book too... (there'll be more new
s on Adam and his upcoming "Writing Prompts" book in a few posts' time when I report on a short story of mine that's appearing in that very publication!)The dual creation of the "Moon Crater: Adventures" between myself and artist Rich Windass continues apace on the sketchbook page as well as the PC screen where I tap away at my keyboard. Recently, Rich and myself took a research "field trip" to a museum near the coastline where we live to see a travelling roadshow of space adventures past... As anticipated, walking around the glass cases of old Lego spacemen and 50s tin robot toys was the perfect inspiration for us to get talking avidly again about what we want to achieve with this series of out-of-this-world tales. We've decided on a bold move with the eventual finished product, which I'll report properly on by the end of 2010, but we also discussed one of the key characters of the series, (another "redundant robot", if you will) called AIR. I can't say too much now, but will let it slip that
AIR might be now receiving a much-needed updgrade of a "hover conversion in the early 21st century"...Too many good sci-fi stories these days finish before they're meant to, (yes, I miss you, Defying Gravity!) and I'm determined to see this series of my own humble creation through to its end (3 books, and novellas at that, albeit a set of twisty, branching story online novellas, I grant you) and so in this year to end all years that I've set myself to finish the first story of the 'Seal Your Own Fate' series, the collapse of the day job has perhaps come at a fortuitous time to propel me into a writing marathon to at last see a project to its close that I've been scribbling away at for just over three years now...
If you do read this online journal of mine regularly
, you'll know that I have only recently passed 100 blog posts and so to suddenly find I’ve got the spare time to be able to institute 100 days of writing to get another book finished (although, as I've said above, it’ll probably be more of a novella size… and online, not in physical form) is great. So I guess, I better get on with things, right? But how will this work, you might well ask? Will I just aimlessly be taking a space walk for the sake of it, or will there be mission parameters to keep me on the right trajectory? Well, by Day 50 I'll probably make another 
update on the blog here to summarise in a bit more detail how it's all been going, but on a day-to-day basis I'll be using my Twitter page to mark up my progress - having only 140 characters to give a brief daily update will be the perfect way to stop me from provaricating about the bush and keep me on the important job of writing creatively in the pages of my intended novella (another compacted form of literature that I'm hoping will keep me scribbling concisely!)So here are my own personal 100 Days of Writing rules:
- 100 days - no more no less, no stopping, no braking at the lights...
- Write something for Simulacrum EVERY weekday - if possible, not just rough notes (although "doodling" is invaluable in plot development!) but also "hard copy" of the text itself.
- The minimum to write for is 2.6 hours (more, but never less, if the wind moves that way!) - 2.6 to reflect the amount of hours in a space-day - 26 hours, according to the science-fiction of my youth, which I'm trying to emulate!
- Twitter updates each and every weekday will inform readers of the book's progress - follow my Tweets either on the sidebar of this blog journal or by clicking on a red object you could wear on your head over at my Main Website.
- By Day 100, an update on this blog journal will give readers exclusive access to an extract of the finished tome...
0 comments:
Post a Comment