Many years ago, I bought myself a couple of books on the subject of writing Science Fiction - one by Orson Scott Card, the other by Ben Bova - and didn't really get into them at the time.
I suspect I bought them because I had the tiny seed of a Sci-Fi story or two in my mind (one was actually for a videogame I was supposedly helping to design and/or doing graphic artwork for at the time), and wanted to see if I could flesh it out. I suspect it didn't work because the main idea wasn't so much a Sci-Fi story as a terribly clichéd romance with Sci-Fi trappings. Boy Meets Android, if you will.
As has been mentioned a couple of times previously in this Blog, I started reading them again recently. Card's book was interesting, informative, potentially useful... Bova's almost lost me because of an offhand comment about Alien (also mentioned previously), but managed to hold my attention because, in many instances where he writes about the problems writers encounter, he could so very easily be speaking directly to me.
So, here's the thing: Quoting someone else, he notes that fledgling writers really need to ask themselves "Do you want to be a writer, or do you want to write?"
It's an important difference to note. The title 'writer' or 'author' carries with it a certain image and glamour. Who wouldn't want to be the next JK Rowling? Who wouldn't want that kind of book deal? Who wouldn't want to see their book being read by young and old (particularly when we're not noted for our literacy these days)?
But put it into perspective: All that glitz, all those parties and public appearances, means you're not going to be getting a whole lot of writing done. Time away from the keyboard is time wasted. And how many people write well hung over?
A writer must write... it's a compulsion, as much as anything, but that doesn't mean it's easy.
I really want to write, but I consistently come up with excuses not to. I'm out of ideas, I want to rest or watch TV, I need to restock the fridge... Mundane lies, for the most part.
The real problem, I suspect, is that I'm afraid to finish anything. I've got so much 'in progress' or 'on the back burner' (something like 16 short-ish stories for one character, with the potential for another book for each of two other related characters, then the 'new' stuff I'm 'working' on, based around an idea I had 16 years ago for an adventure game), but rarely devote any quality time to them, let alone do so regularly... which is what a writer really needs to do. I don't even regularly devote time to this bloody blog, and setting up that sort of structure with my time would be hugely beneficial.
I've never been any good at finishing things, even things I know I could finish. But the fact is that I can finish things, and I do finish things... but I've spent so much time telling myself and others that I'm no good at finishing things that, on some level, that has become the truth.
Because, much as I want to write these 'new' stories, I'm terrified about what would happen if I actually finished one. I'd want to try to get it published, but that's soul-crushingly difficult these days, with so few publishers willing to take risks with new writers (or so the story goes). I could go the self-publishing route but, having looked into it, that seems awfully complicated. And, either way, if I finished and published one, I'd have no excuses to avoid working on the follow-ups I already have planned.
And I spend so much time complicating these things (the protagonist in one of my stories is an author - har har - struggling with the latest book in his successful series... and I've started putting as much thought into his novels as the story I want to write!) that it's very difficult for me to plan what I want to do.
But this is where Bova's book - particularly the chapters on writing novels rather than short stories - have been incredibly useful. It seems I've been going about things more or less the right way (though I could do with being a bit more careful with my noting of ideas), and I shouldn't expect it all to come together quickly, or to be perfect on the first draft. In the words of Ernest Hemingway, "The first draft of anything is shit."
What I need to do is list my characters and figure out who they are (mostly done), then work out a sort of timeline, to show what they're all up to at what point in the story, and how/where their paths cross.
Though I have to admit I'm still troubled by the possibility that it might work better as a game than as a book...
Over the last week, I've ordered five more writing books from Amazon - had to collect most of them from a depot in Wembley one cold Saturday morning, and the other arrived by post this week - but haven't started reading them yet. Three of them are specific to certain elements of writing (character, setting, etc.) while the other two are basically writing exercises designed to keep my nose at the grindstone.
I also have a friend who occasionally challenges me to write short stories... The latest of which is a Christmas story as an extra Christmas present for her. I currently have no idea what I'm going to do (it's rather a broad canvas, but it's tempting to write something autobiographical), but that's pretty much what happened with the story she asked for as a birthday present, and that turned out to be one of the finest things I've written (if I do say so myself).
And since I finish work for the year this coming Friday, I'll have plenty of time for writing... So the only challenge will be sitting myself down at the keyboard rather than in front of the TV, and writing rather than surfing the interwebs.
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