Aspiring.org goes international
Good day folks, or as they say where I am now dobry den (or ahoy).
I'm currently on holiday in in the beautiful city of Prague. Only been here a day, but the creative juices are flowing (get your mind out of the gutter I meant the intellectual ones). So far in MSC (Memoirs of a space corsair) we've not done much but there is our first proper space battle coming up, and some actual piracy - I'm going to base the world they go to fence.their ill gotten gains on the Czech capital I think. It makes sense, the more we leave where we came from, the more we try to capture the spirit of what we left... so in the future major colonies will be heavily influenced by their language/ethic groups in architecture and design. The architecture here is beautiful that it needs to be preserved in some fashion by the Czech speaking people 500 years from now.
I think it will be especially true of language/ethnic groups that lost much of their homes on Earth during the wars of 100 years from now. Well its war or catastrophic after affect of going over the green cliff (entirely depends how preachy I'm feeling when I write it).
Just need to break my current chapter and the show will really get going.
Here We Go Again…
I never meant for there to be so long between chapters, however, I kind of got stuck, so much going on in life. Of course work is the biggest drain on my creativity, but as I've mentioned before, it pays the bills, so has to come first.
However, there is a new first, and that is my beautiful niece Phoebe, born two weeks ago today. She's amazing - well amazing probably isn't the most accurate description so far she's learned to sleep, poop, and cry, but who knows what she'll be doing this time next week.
Also, I have a pretty significant problem which interferes with my ability to write for any length of time. I started with carpal tunnel syndrome a few weeks ago, it was, and still is, really bad in my left hand, however now my right hand has all the symptoms too. I know have tubigrip covering both my arms in an effort to find release.
Carpal tunnel snydrome kind of caught me by surprise, I never thought i'd feel pain like this - even know as I type everytime I stretch to hit a key the pain is there, but ther are times when its excrutiating, especially at night. I've known people that suffered, and heard of plenty more - but I always figured it was constant discomfort rather than pain.
It does mean the limited time, and energy I have in my life for writing his decreased considerably, because I can literally only write during times the pain isn't so bad.
I'm not giving in though, in a couple of chapters time, Memoirs of a Space Corsair is really going to take off, and get into the exciting adventures in space, and I fully intend to enjoy it.
Meanwhile, while the muse is with me, and I'm able to write I'm trying to get as much of chapter five done as I can, since its a day off work today, but back tomorrow.
Some site admin stuff…
Okay, I've been making some changes to the design of Aspiring.org. Its with good reason, I loved the last look - but it was getting a bit dull, worse it wasn't the most pleasant feed to read large bodies of text from. Fine for poetry, not for story telling.
I quite like the current theme, it seems a bit easier to read, but I will keep looking for that one pristine reading theme. I was tempted to find a plug in though, that allowed categories to have different themes set from the default. May be too messy for my liking though, I like a theme to run through, suits the Virgo in me.
Another change I've made is to install a plug-in that links a page to a category, and in a quick format lists all posts in said category. I figure this would be more helpful for storing the posts, plus I can build up the blurb (which I keep meaning to do), to help maybe get a hit or two off the search engines. You can see the one for Memoirs of a Space Corsair here. I'll hopefully be doing one for poetry too, just to make everything nice and accessible, and its listed in order of publishing (where as right now if you go to a category you see the most recent post - the two different views will hopefully suit new visitors, and returning visitors as they like).
Speaking of hits from search engines, most of my search engine traffic comes from people searching for 27th birthday poems, I wonder what they thought of mine when that turned up as the number six search result in Google. Actually my post is slipping a bit, it was third in the rankings, still it intrigues me though, and I'm wondering what will happen to my 28th birthday poem this September.
Anyway, just a quick admin message, hopefully a new chapter will be up tomorrow, if not then next Saturday. I was going to try and get loads written this weekend, however I was distracted by an amazing 24 Hours of Le Mans race, which I stayed up for and watched mostly from beginning to end (I think I clocked 20 hours, with two naps to see me through), and then of course an equally amazing (but thankfully shorter), formula one race from Canada. An absolutely fantastic weekend of sport, the only blip being a poor performance by England in the World Cup, but I'm not as into football, and not as excited as I usually am about the World Cup, so it didn't spoil anything. I'll also get some notes and thoughts about MSC written up - which I'm shaping into an authors commentary, over time.
Lastly if you have any problems with the new layout let me know, unless its to say I've no sense of style and/or colour, I already know but you can say so anyway.
Writing Music Playlist Summer 2010
I'm a big fan of writing while listening to music, with the right music it can keep me going, and focused on the job. It was so effective last night I didn't stop writing until 4am, which was nice. Fortunately I'm on a week off, (yes, I know I had one of those this time last month as well, my colleague likes to tell me that I've got "More holidays than Judith Chalmers"), so I'm free to write at all the odd hours. Its quite liberating waking up at 2pm, and writing until 4am - or whatever other time feels right.
So, yes writing with music really does help me. Of course it has to be the right music, it can't be too exciting, or too catchy, and anything below three and a half minutes should be considered carefully - if the songs are changing too much you'll pay more attention to the change. Or I would anyway, but I am easily distrac...
Ooooh Diet Coke, thanks.
Where was I? Oh yes, I'm easily distracted. Back last year, I had planned to do monthly ten song playlists - but I got distracted, I also got writers block, so it never really happened. What I've done this time, now I'm writing again, is to make a longer playlist, and call it a seasonal writing playlist.
I've got quite a mix of music in my summer version, it’s mostly easy listening, rock, and alternative, with a touch of pop - it works well as background music, while still giving pace to help put fire into the writing process.
If you other suggestions for a playlist for writing music, long or short, feel free to add them to the comments.
Since I got Spotify, it allows me to share my playlist with people - so if you want to have a listen to my summer playlist, just click here.
Click more to see the playlist without Spotify
Just a Quickie
Just a quickie, its 4am, and I'm on a writing and editing binge. I've finished editing the second chapter of my grand space adventure, and I'm half through editing the first chapter (in reverse order because I wanted to add a few words to the second chapter, and that may have taken a few hours more than I expected once I got going).
All being well, I will be launching the first chapter this week, and the second chapter on Saturday. I'm excited to be unveiling this story, and introducing the characters, most of whom should (but I make no promises), be around for most of my protagonist's life.
And just to prove, I'm really not slacking, I've got a music post planned, and a couple of new poems - though I've yet to start work on an a poem that really means a lot to me. I've got a month to write something for the birth of my niece - and I want to pass on wise words, sage advice, and a bit of myself - I think I haven't started because I'm not sure I can live up to my own pressure. I'm excited to be an uncle, and of course I want to be the best uncle I can be (since I have no kids of my own, and no plans to the contrary), and I want to make sure my niece wants for nothing. Should anything ever happen to me, I want her to always have this.
So yes, welcome to my life with writers block thoroughly behind me, and a summer of writing ahead.
Aha! Found You!
My muses have elected to return to me it seems. I suddenly have the ability to write again, and am doing so with gusto working on a new project. I know, I have lots of unfinished projects I should be working on, but I'm just enjoying writing right now.
So the new project, it’s currently titled Journals of a Space Corsair, and is a sci-fi piece. Inspired by the concept of the Bio of a Space Tyrant novels by Piers Anthony, which I read recently, and once I finished reading those books, I also read Michael Crichton's Pirate Latitudes, between the two of them, this whole science fiction universe of mine was inspired and created in my mind. What’s more is I've been able to put it into words, something I’ve struggled to do for the past eighteen months.
It’s a nice feeling, not too many words just yet, but just passed the 20,000 mark in two weeks so that’s a comfort.
The way I'm doing this project is blog posts, it’s an auto-biography, so I'm going to write it as a series of confessionals, the man's story in his own words, detailing his good deeds, but mostly his crimes, the lifestyle he led, and the suffering he brought and received. The hardest part is not giving in to my tendency to make the character a flawed good guy, or to have the character swing from bad to good. I'm trying to write something that reflects a man, and not an archetype from a TV series. That isn't to say there isn't an arc, in fact there's a pretty big one, and my aim is the character goes from illegality to legitimacy, and then back to illegality. Times are turbulent, wars rise up and allegiances change.
I do feel the need to acknowledge Piers Anthony, and Michael Crichton, as their books are a massive influence on this story, it was their books that really lit my imagination on fire.
From Michael Crichton I tried to take a sense of how pirates actually operated, and in many ways how the new world worked, the trade routes between the colonial lands, the stopping off points like Jamaica, which I've tried to translate the spirit of into worlds and space stations.
From Piers Anthony, obviously I've tried to take the format, the fictional autobiography of a significant figure in future history, I'm also borrowing some of the technology he mentions in his books, the travelling via a beam of light, over massive distances, which is as reasonable a way to explain interstellar travel as any. Of course it is fraught with its own difficulties in a story that takes place in real time, with politics, wars, and tactics - I can't really afford it taking decades to travel from one planet to the other. Instead, I shall embellish the idea with faster than light energy - so it takes days and weeks to travel between the stars.
I think it is important to acknowledge where a story comes from - it is not my intention to plagiarise these amazing authors, but they have inspired within me a tale which I think is unique and distinct in its own right. Besides when it comes to science fiction, it’s never easy to come up with easy ideas for propulsion, and story telling in general tends to form into archetypes. I think that’s one of the advantages of writing an account of a self confessed bad guy, while not ground breaking or unique, it is a point of view that is carried far less often than that of a hero, heroically battling to save the world.
My intention is to post up a chapter (and if I write it right, it will be more of a self contained short story, which feeds into the overall tale), every fortnight, detailing a significant memory of this space corsair. I won't be launching it right away, as I want to build up four or five chapters ahead, this gives me a nice cushion with which to edit the stories (because while the muse does flow, it tends not to check the grammar for me, nor does it worry about the annoying inconsistencies of writing large pieces of work in small bits). Also, my sister's baby is due next month, I'm on holiday in Prague in August, and I'm off to the British Science Festival in Birmingham this September, so there’s plenty to interrupt my schedule.
Speaking of the British Science Festival, I’m really looking forward to it, it feeds a lot of knowledge in my science fiction, such as the power system for the ships in my story – I learned that from a presentation I went to on fusion energy, I always favoured the methodology employed in the tokamak fusion generators, rather than the method involving lasers, purely because it seems to me that once such devices as ITER are operational and producing massive quantities of energy, we would be able to learn from this and scale the process down to have a device that can sit aboard a starship and produce the kind of energy I need for propulsion, FTL (faster than light) travel, and of course the staple of most space based science fiction, the weapons.
I am genuinely excited to be writing again, and long may it continue. Nanowrimo is in November (it’s always in November, hardly a surprise there), and this year I'm going to ace it. Mark my words.
Being Creative Isn’t Easy…
Being creative isn't easy, writers block just won't let me go - I get a small amount of joy and then it is gone. Distractions do not help, so many things in my life deflect my attention to the important things. Unfortunately in life we must weigh up the importance, so work is rated higher than writing - because if I don't earn a living, I'll not be able to write anyway.
That said, I'm trying to reclaim some of my life, trying to close off massive projects at work, thus freeing up my time, and my mind outside of work, however as with all things in business, available resources are filled as immediately as they become available. A frustrating situation - however one that should not be moaned about truly, as I said I need to earn a living, and there are unfortunately many people far far worse (by a severe magnitude), than myself for whom lack of work is a significant part of their lives, and writing is far from their immediate concern.
We western writers have it so hard don't we?
An unfortunate thing about writing in the grand scheme of things its relatively worthless, compared with the realities of living. However, the worth of simple joy is not necessarily measured by normal merits of survival, but surely without joy, we may as well not bother to survive.
Its Been A While
Reports of my demise, well weren't really reported at all - but if they were, they weren't true. I'm still here, this heart of mine beats its strong baddum baddum.
It has been a while since I posted, and the last time I posted I admitted failure, I had lost NaNoWrimo09, however it wasn’t the end of the world. Unfortunately, the writers block didn’t stay long gone, and since then I’ve struggled to write again. Even the words for blogging just wouldn’t come. As I said though, its not the end of the world. It never really is, however depressing it feels. That said, I’m feeling ready to write again, a whole chasm of ideas has started to fill the void where inspiration had previously been lacking.
I also have a brand new toy to help with my writing. Since I switched to using the Nokia 5800, I’ve been struck by the lack of keyboard, and many key features of my beloved Nokia E71, so until I get another new phone that combines the great features of the E71, and the 5800 – I needed a filler, which was either going to be a carrying my laptop everywhere, or gadget time. The gadget in question is an electronic pen. I got the cheapest one I could – however it is incredibly amazing. Forget your iPads, and you tablets, the future is pen and paper!
I’ve never been adverse to handwriting my fiction – in fact I find it far easier to transfer my thoughts to paper than to a screen, however I fail at typing up, and at some point I’m going to get stuck because my handwritten pages are hard to read, and get damaged, or go missing. There is no way I can type up thirty thousand words of my handwriting, especially not when most of my writing time comes while travelling. However, the digital pen comes with software to not only catalogue your written word into a database, but to also convert it into text.
Obviously the catch here is that the quality of your handwriting will affect how well your scribbles can be converted into text, the software can’t make miracles. I’ve found, though, that as long as it can hit 70%, you’re correcting, not rewriting whole sections. Which suits me, as it lets me slip a bit of editing in the process.
I bought the most basic one I could find, (by basic read cheap), and the look of the product does reflect this – however the actual quality is so much better.
It comes in two parts, the pen, and the sensor that does the recording. You clip your sensor to the top of the page, and then start writing. When you complete a page, you hit the button, and it starts a new one in memory. Best gadget buy of the year for me, its going to take a lot to top that. Here’s a link to the one I bought: http://bit.ly/bKV5OG
Hopefully that’s going to help me achieve some writing – but toys themselves aren’t whats necessary, I realise now I’ve been having real difficulties at focusing on the tasks I set myself. So I need to work on my habits – and this is a general life thing, rather than specifically a writing thing. So I’m going to introduce some new behaviours, such as going to a coffee shop once a week to chill out, and read or write. Getting back to going to the gym, get myself fit, doing more puzzles to get my brain engaged, rather than switching off the second my mind wanders. I should probably stop making lists of things I intend to do – but we all have our vices. There are never any promises with me, I get distracted far too easily to even promise myself something – but I’m going to try. Writing isn’t just about writing, its about making better worlds, and better people to me, especially a better me.
In the mean time, I think I'm going to spend this week writing a couple of three hundred word short stories, just to get myself warmed up for the rest of the year to come.
NaNoWriMo 2009 – The Conclusion
So NaNoWriMo 2009 has come and gone, with much heartache, sleepless nights, sore hands, etc, etc...
I have a confession to make - I didn't finish. This year was not mine for the sweet smell of success. I peaked at 25,000 words (a quarter of my original target). To say I'm disappointed in myself would be an understatement - but equally, I'm not ashamed. Indeed, in many ways I'm quite happy, and proud of myself, during the final weekend, I finally learned to accept I can't write all the time. I want to, don't get me wrong, but sometimes there is no way round the fact that without will, inspiration is relegated to frustration.
I really really don't like failing, but I could have pushed in that final weekend, and pushed, but I would never have hit even the modest target of 50,000, and even if I had. Instead I took a break, having accepted defeat, let go of the pressure - I felt wonderful. So immediately following my return home, I started writing again. Nice and smoothly, and without much effort. In fact I've had some late nights, because the writing has being going so well, and I wasn't aware of the time.
I'm not finishing off my NaNoWriMo project for now, I've put it to one side, as my imagination is caught with a sequel to my previous NaNoWriMo attempt (the one I won last year).
Just shows you, sometimes pressure helps, and other times it hinders - I think for me it's the accumalative pressures I found myself under with family life, work, money, and writing, it made for some unsurmountable obstacles. Until I let go, and found away to enjoy myself away from the pressure.
Annoying Writing Habits…
Doing NaNoWriMo in the company of others has shown me something - how many annoying habits I've built up
I'm not talking about actua writing issues, I'm talking behavourial one. The one I've noticed most often has to be the tapping of keyboards. Not the keys themselves, but the frame or rest area, when I'm trying to think around a problem, or plotting my next move.
I also seem to a very emphatic gesture when hitting the carriage return, it's like every new paragraph is a victory. Also, it seems full stops too.
The other one I've noticed, though I'm trying really hard not to do this in public, is the chewing of my tongue during tense, or really busy period.
There's a few more, but those are probably my biggest crimes against the people around me.
It has led me to wonder, what are your annoying writing habits? Answers on a post card - however since I'm not giving you my address, probably best to answer in a comment.
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