Month: May 2016

The best way to write is to read and read a lot of the material written in the vein you wish to write. To that end I have been relentlessly hammering shut the holes in my sci-fi reading history. I’m currently reading Ernest Cline’s Ready, Player One which strikes me as a YA effort to recreate some of the fantastic writing generated by the cyberpunk movement and marry that to ideas about the decay of the world brought about by social media. I think Cline delivers his argument well, though he does drift off into introspection and description ad naseum. This is something I’ve found less troubling over the years. Don’t get me wrong, if one of my writers starts to wax philosophical straight into an infodump we are going to have words, but here I find it somewhat more acceptable. Maybe it’s the nostalgia of the 80’s that encourages me to just kick back and enjoy it.

That being said, I must admit that there are a lot of untapped ideas out there when it comes to sci fi. I’m a common culprit of the ‘every story has been written’ saying, but that is only partially true. The specific combination of ideas, characters, and dramatic situations leads to uncommon and often completely original stories all the time. Sure, it has elements of X,Y, Z, but that isn’t a problem—heck, that is the very definition of trope. The trick—the good writing, in fact—is to turn trope into terribly good writing and to keep your audience engaged throughout.

I fear grad school made me worry about producing the next great American novel when all I really ought to be doing is telling good stories. The rest will come, or it won’t.

Some Thoughts:

1. Obviously the blog is back up, but I am still pissed that it went down and my host provider has yet to do more than just apologize. Get it right, people. That was several days without publishing. Had this been a paid writing situation I’d be broke. And Jobless. And thus homeless. Which sucks even worse in the AZ summer…
2. I’m glad I have a job and a home and the bestie.
3. … and the kids. Talis love the kids.

I deeply considered dropping the ball on the blog tonight. It would have been so easy without the server. As it is, these late night posts are bunk. I’m drained and incapable of doing what I need to this day, but I am still here and hammering out the work that needs to get done.

 

My heart is set on developing a plan for the future—a plan to develop myself as a novelist and put out some more short stories outside of the Shadowrun realm. This of course, all adds up to me putting more focus into being a writer. This means finding a way to be more structured and responsible in all of those other areas of my life and consolidating some of the things I do. It also means cutting back to a certain extent.

 

Most of all it means taking advantage of my surroundings in terms of the people around me, home life, and the opportunities I’ve been presented as a writer to develop my name (which is a writer’s brand) and hone my skills to be better than I’ve been before and develop a production schedule that allows me to not only be good but to be regularly productive and proactive with due dates.

 

These are just words so far, and I’ve written a lot of them over the years. Time to move beyond the words and into action.

The talislegger blog died tonight on the heels of the NFL draft and the Maricopa Community College Adjunct Faculty Association Outstanding Faculty of the year awards. I mention those two occasions because they were the only things that mattered to me at the time. My bestie was awarded an Adjunct Faculty of the year award, and the Giants drafted some fool CB they didn’t need the same way the Cowboys drafted a third starting RB for their ‘empty’ backfield.

Once I realized what was going on, I decided that going to a save file and completing today’s blog was the best course of action. Still, I didn’t have anything to say. I don’t have anything to say. Perhaps the most damaging thing about writing at night is that by the time I sit down to do this at night I’m fresh out of ideas—another reason to reopen the archive.

So, I leave you with some thoughts and some more awareness of my limitations…

Some Thoughts:
1. No, they did not kill off Elizabeth Keane. She’s in hiding to escape Reddington. I say this without watching the latest ‘funeral’ episode, but there are things that just make sense as a writer and there are things that don’t. Her coming back makes sense.
2. Cheat day: went over around 500 calories on the diet. Still, it was entirely worth it. I had my first legit burger and fries since this ride started.