Wednesday, 31 March 2010
Dr Horrible
I watched my recently downloaded copy of Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog last night. What a treat! The cast is delightful, and Whedon's wit is as evident as ever in both a tight and touching script and a whole bunch of fresh songs. It's as quirky and catchy as they come. This may very well be the future of short-form drama.
Saturday, 27 March 2010
Flatland 06
Being the sixth in a series charting the writing of a new fantasy detective story.
A quick entry, this one, just to log today's word count at 1700. Not bad for a Saturday. I'm still feeling my way into the story, establishing the PI's penchant for dimensions and introducing him to the femme fatale on the fourth floor. Their first meeting's the perfect opportunity to establish character, start a relationship building between them, lay out the case and give the PI his motivation to solve it. For reasons I won't go into here, the woman (whose name is Electra Bacall - not entirely sure about that but it'll do for this draft) is the one who hires him to find out why the city's been flattened.
I also now know whodunnit. But you don't think I'm going to reveal that just yet, do you?
A quick entry, this one, just to log today's word count at 1700. Not bad for a Saturday. I'm still feeling my way into the story, establishing the PI's penchant for dimensions and introducing him to the femme fatale on the fourth floor. Their first meeting's the perfect opportunity to establish character, start a relationship building between them, lay out the case and give the PI his motivation to solve it. For reasons I won't go into here, the woman (whose name is Electra Bacall - not entirely sure about that but it'll do for this draft) is the one who hires him to find out why the city's been flattened.
I also now know whodunnit. But you don't think I'm going to reveal that just yet, do you?
Flatland 05
Being the fifth in a series charting the writing of a new fantasy detective story.
Here are the first couple of paragraphs of the current work-in-progress. This is first draft, unedited.
I woke to find the city had been flattened. Literally.
I rubbed my eyes. Maybe this was the back end of a bad dream. I’d been having plenty of those lately. I wiped the window. I tried to see something that made sense. But it wasn’t there.
Usually, when I take in the view from my office, I see the rumpled tarmac of the same old street I’ve looked out on for the last ten years. I see the faded grey line that runs down the centre – I can’t remember the last time the municipals sent someone down here to paint it in white – and the gutters piled high with rats-nest newspapers and broken bottles. I see the low-rise buildings slumped opposite, the line of struggling businesseses that share this forsaken corner of town with mine: Diana’s Deli; Nimblequick the Tailor; the Marscapone Motel. Every day the same.
Not this day.
Everything was gone. The familiar city skyline had been replaced by a distant horizon so sharp I thought my eyes would bleed. Between me and that horizon was an infinite plain, a horizontal surface stretching in all directions like the biggest sheet of paper you ever saw. The whole world had emptied. The whole world had turned flat.
I should make it clear, if I haven't already, that I'm not planning to publish this story online. I'll publish extracts like the above to show progress, or illustrate a point, but I'm really here to discuss the writing process. So here goes.
As I suspected, I was wrong to get sidetracked into discussing why the PI sleeps in his office (see previous entry). Better to get straight in there and describe what he sees. The sleeping in the office thing will bear on his emotional state later in the story, but I should introduce it more naturally eg by having another character ask him about it - probably the femme fatale (need a good name for her) - rather than just having him reflect. Show don't tell.Notes to self on rereading the above:
1. Don't forget to mention our hero's a private investigator - it may be obvious to me and regular readers of the series, but it's helpful to spell it out early on.
2. Is this a funny story or not? The series as a whole has a fair streak of humour running through it. The last story I wrote (called Lifestrings of the Loving Couple, and so hot off the press that it's only just landed in the lap of my agent) wasn't very funny at all. I'll have to see how this one develops.
3. I need an underlying threat. It's all very well the city being flattened, but where's the immediate peril? I could introduce a ticking clock: "If we don't solve this by sundown something even worse will happen." Or the catastrophe triggers some other disaster: some kind of underlying dimensional instability that will only get worse. Or something more immediate, like Lovecraftian inter-dimensional predators either admitted or brought into being by these remarkable conditions.
Anyway, I've now got about 600 words in the bank. Our hero has woken to discover a strange and unsettling situation. In the couple of pages that follow the above extract (no, I'm not going to show you them!) I've described that situation in some detail, and our hero's reacted to it. Time for him to start investigating what's going on. He could just start to explore, but I'd prefer something more dramatic. Maybe he hears a scream ...
Here are the first couple of paragraphs of the current work-in-progress. This is first draft, unedited.
I woke to find the city had been flattened. Literally.
I rubbed my eyes. Maybe this was the back end of a bad dream. I’d been having plenty of those lately. I wiped the window. I tried to see something that made sense. But it wasn’t there.
Usually, when I take in the view from my office, I see the rumpled tarmac of the same old street I’ve looked out on for the last ten years. I see the faded grey line that runs down the centre – I can’t remember the last time the municipals sent someone down here to paint it in white – and the gutters piled high with rats-nest newspapers and broken bottles. I see the low-rise buildings slumped opposite, the line of struggling businesseses that share this forsaken corner of town with mine: Diana’s Deli; Nimblequick the Tailor; the Marscapone Motel. Every day the same.
Not this day.
Everything was gone. The familiar city skyline had been replaced by a distant horizon so sharp I thought my eyes would bleed. Between me and that horizon was an infinite plain, a horizontal surface stretching in all directions like the biggest sheet of paper you ever saw. The whole world had emptied. The whole world had turned flat.
I should make it clear, if I haven't already, that I'm not planning to publish this story online. I'll publish extracts like the above to show progress, or illustrate a point, but I'm really here to discuss the writing process. So here goes.
As I suspected, I was wrong to get sidetracked into discussing why the PI sleeps in his office (see previous entry). Better to get straight in there and describe what he sees. The sleeping in the office thing will bear on his emotional state later in the story, but I should introduce it more naturally eg by having another character ask him about it - probably the femme fatale (need a good name for her) - rather than just having him reflect. Show don't tell.Notes to self on rereading the above:
1. Don't forget to mention our hero's a private investigator - it may be obvious to me and regular readers of the series, but it's helpful to spell it out early on.
2. Is this a funny story or not? The series as a whole has a fair streak of humour running through it. The last story I wrote (called Lifestrings of the Loving Couple, and so hot off the press that it's only just landed in the lap of my agent) wasn't very funny at all. I'll have to see how this one develops.
3. I need an underlying threat. It's all very well the city being flattened, but where's the immediate peril? I could introduce a ticking clock: "If we don't solve this by sundown something even worse will happen." Or the catastrophe triggers some other disaster: some kind of underlying dimensional instability that will only get worse. Or something more immediate, like Lovecraftian inter-dimensional predators either admitted or brought into being by these remarkable conditions.
Anyway, I've now got about 600 words in the bank. Our hero has woken to discover a strange and unsettling situation. In the couple of pages that follow the above extract (no, I'm not going to show you them!) I've described that situation in some detail, and our hero's reacted to it. Time for him to start investigating what's going on. He could just start to explore, but I'd prefer something more dramatic. Maybe he hears a scream ...
Friday, 26 March 2010
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Flatland 04
Being the fourth in a series charting the writing of a new fantasy detective story.
I tried a first paragraph this morning:
I woke that morning to find the city had been flattened. Literally.
It wasn't the first time I'd slept at the office. The house got bigger when Laura died, you see. Too big for one old gumshoe to rattle around in. The work got bigger too. Big enough to live in.
Not bad. The first line was always in place, but the first thing that struck me after that was that I need to explain why my hero PI sleeps at his office. Now, this is an issue I've tackled previously in a novel-length manuscript, but that's as-yet unpublished. So I've got to touch on it here, without labouring the point. Although, the dead wife could be a good way to introduce the PI's loneliness and thus fuel his reactions to being thrown into an intense social situation (see previous Flatland blog entries).
The third sentence seems to throw the story back towards the past too much though. And I'm not sure the work getting bigger line fits. Let's try:
I woke that morning to find the city had been flattened. Literally.
Mostly I sleep at the office. It's a bad habit, but it's served me well enough for the last ten years. When Laura died, the house got bigger. Too big for this old gumshoe.
Better. But according to the backstory, our hero didn't become a private detective until after his wife died. What I've written isn't exactly wrong chronologically, but it's not quite on the button either. It's also time to hard-boil it a little more. I always start these stories overwriting, then edit and rewrite in the usual way. Towards the end I'll do at least one 'hard-boil it' pass, to tighten things up and give it as much of a noir feel as possible.
Which turns my opening into this:
I woke that morning to find the city had been flattened. Literally.
Mostly I sleep at the office. A bad habit, but it's served me well enough for the last ten years. When Laura died, the house got bigger. Too big for one.
Well, that's 43 words down. To hit the optimum length that leaves just 9,957 to go. You'll forgive me if I don't chronicle the entire writing process like this! Oh, and there's every chance the final thing won't begin like this at all (although I do like that first line - if anything stays, that will). I'm already thinking I should use the second paragraph to set up the situation (the 2D city outside the window) and save the dead wife for later.
But that's editing. If I do too much of that now, I'll roadblock my first draft before it's even started. Onward!
I tried a first paragraph this morning:
I woke that morning to find the city had been flattened. Literally.
It wasn't the first time I'd slept at the office. The house got bigger when Laura died, you see. Too big for one old gumshoe to rattle around in. The work got bigger too. Big enough to live in.
Not bad. The first line was always in place, but the first thing that struck me after that was that I need to explain why my hero PI sleeps at his office. Now, this is an issue I've tackled previously in a novel-length manuscript, but that's as-yet unpublished. So I've got to touch on it here, without labouring the point. Although, the dead wife could be a good way to introduce the PI's loneliness and thus fuel his reactions to being thrown into an intense social situation (see previous Flatland blog entries).
The third sentence seems to throw the story back towards the past too much though. And I'm not sure the work getting bigger line fits. Let's try:
I woke that morning to find the city had been flattened. Literally.
Mostly I sleep at the office. It's a bad habit, but it's served me well enough for the last ten years. When Laura died, the house got bigger. Too big for this old gumshoe.
Better. But according to the backstory, our hero didn't become a private detective until after his wife died. What I've written isn't exactly wrong chronologically, but it's not quite on the button either. It's also time to hard-boil it a little more. I always start these stories overwriting, then edit and rewrite in the usual way. Towards the end I'll do at least one 'hard-boil it' pass, to tighten things up and give it as much of a noir feel as possible.
Which turns my opening into this:
I woke that morning to find the city had been flattened. Literally.
Mostly I sleep at the office. A bad habit, but it's served me well enough for the last ten years. When Laura died, the house got bigger. Too big for one.
Well, that's 43 words down. To hit the optimum length that leaves just 9,957 to go. You'll forgive me if I don't chronicle the entire writing process like this! Oh, and there's every chance the final thing won't begin like this at all (although I do like that first line - if anything stays, that will). I'm already thinking I should use the second paragraph to set up the situation (the 2D city outside the window) and save the dead wife for later.
But that's editing. If I do too much of that now, I'll roadblock my first draft before it's even started. Onward!
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Flatland 03
Being the third in a series charting the writing of a new fantasy detective story.
I need to consider what the city looks like when it's reduced to just two dimensions. What happens to all the people? What do they look like from my gumshoe hero's 3D perspective? Logically, a vast amount of information will have been lost. Maybe they look like MRI scans, just cross-sections. But of what part of the body? And how can they go on living in this state? If you tread on them, do they squeal?
So many questions!
The 2D people/buildings etc could just be placeholders, with the 3D information being stored elsewhere (ie by the villain). Or they could have all the 3D info mapped down into 2D. Sort of splurged out, or condensed.
In his novel Flatland, Edwin Abbott describes the arrival of a 3D observer (a Sphere) into the 2D world of his protagonist A. Square (all his characters are geometric shapes). The Sphere is able to look down on, and therefore see inside, the Square - all his internal organs are visible. Conversely, the Square perceives the Sphere only as a cross-section, one that appears constantly to change size as the Sphere descends through the 2D plane in which the Square lives. I love these opposing viewpoints. I'd like to bring something of them into my own Flatland.
This story is a good opportunity to really muck about with dimensions.
Enough thinking in isolation. The next job is to start writing - see what some words look like on the page, let the story take shape.
I need to consider what the city looks like when it's reduced to just two dimensions. What happens to all the people? What do they look like from my gumshoe hero's 3D perspective? Logically, a vast amount of information will have been lost. Maybe they look like MRI scans, just cross-sections. But of what part of the body? And how can they go on living in this state? If you tread on them, do they squeal?
So many questions!
The 2D people/buildings etc could just be placeholders, with the 3D information being stored elsewhere (ie by the villain). Or they could have all the 3D info mapped down into 2D. Sort of splurged out, or condensed.
In his novel Flatland, Edwin Abbott describes the arrival of a 3D observer (a Sphere) into the 2D world of his protagonist A. Square (all his characters are geometric shapes). The Sphere is able to look down on, and therefore see inside, the Square - all his internal organs are visible. Conversely, the Square perceives the Sphere only as a cross-section, one that appears constantly to change size as the Sphere descends through the 2D plane in which the Square lives. I love these opposing viewpoints. I'd like to bring something of them into my own Flatland.
This story is a good opportunity to really muck about with dimensions.
Enough thinking in isolation. The next job is to start writing - see what some words look like on the page, let the story take shape.
Sunday, 21 March 2010
New novel sample complete
A good weekend's work. I just finished rewriting a three-chapter sample for a fantasy novel, part of a larger pitch I'm putting together. Good to roll the sleeves up and micromanage the prose. And even better to email the finished thing off to my agent. Which means I can now hang out the washing (the sun's shining here in Nottingham) and treat myself to a large cup of coffee.
Saturday, 20 March 2010
Flatland - 02
Being the second in a series charting the writing of a new fantasy detective story.
If I'm setting this mostly in the PI's office building, it's about time I visualised the place a little better - it's not a location I've ever explored before, or even really imagined properly. There's just the office and the street, and the rest of the city beyond.
First thought is that it's a New York brownstone, maybe four floors. The PI's office is on the front. Alleys down both sides. Maybe a laundry at the back. Three floors of apartments above the commercial lets. So that could be anywhere from six to twelve apartments. That means when the building gets isolated there could be quite a few folk stuck inside - a bigger cast than I'd originally imagined.
Not that we have to meet everyone. But, since this is a detective story, everyone we do meet is a suspect. Plenty of characters means plenty of suspects, and plenty of opportunities for misdirection. Still, this is a short story, not a novel (actually these stories usually weigh in at around 10,000 words which technically makes them novelettes).
An early scene could be a kind of community meeting. Everyone in the block gets together to figure out what's going on. And the PI naturally takes charge. Actually no. Someone else. The mouthy guy from the second floor. Or the smooth-talker from the third. The PI's on the outside (figuratively) looking in. While the majority go off on the wrong tack, he and a small selection of others take the path less trod. Which leads them eventually to the solution.
PI in a community of people is interesting. The character's a loner, so what happens when he's forced into a dramatic social situation charged with emotion? He's forced to face his isolation and really connect with people for a while. He's no good at it of course.
Going back to the misdirection, the villain should probably be one of the small band he teams up with. The one you least expect, naturally. Unless I play the good old double bluff. My shortlist is the femme he falls for, the scuzzy cockroach, the janitor (where's Scooby Doo when you need him?) or the smart-alec who takes over proceedings in the meeting. I'm favouring the femme (when she betrays him it's a knife to the heart) but we'll see.
If I'm setting this mostly in the PI's office building, it's about time I visualised the place a little better - it's not a location I've ever explored before, or even really imagined properly. There's just the office and the street, and the rest of the city beyond.
First thought is that it's a New York brownstone, maybe four floors. The PI's office is on the front. Alleys down both sides. Maybe a laundry at the back. Three floors of apartments above the commercial lets. So that could be anywhere from six to twelve apartments. That means when the building gets isolated there could be quite a few folk stuck inside - a bigger cast than I'd originally imagined.
Not that we have to meet everyone. But, since this is a detective story, everyone we do meet is a suspect. Plenty of characters means plenty of suspects, and plenty of opportunities for misdirection. Still, this is a short story, not a novel (actually these stories usually weigh in at around 10,000 words which technically makes them novelettes).
An early scene could be a kind of community meeting. Everyone in the block gets together to figure out what's going on. And the PI naturally takes charge. Actually no. Someone else. The mouthy guy from the second floor. Or the smooth-talker from the third. The PI's on the outside (figuratively) looking in. While the majority go off on the wrong tack, he and a small selection of others take the path less trod. Which leads them eventually to the solution.
PI in a community of people is interesting. The character's a loner, so what happens when he's forced into a dramatic social situation charged with emotion? He's forced to face his isolation and really connect with people for a while. He's no good at it of course.
Going back to the misdirection, the villain should probably be one of the small band he teams up with. The one you least expect, naturally. Unless I play the good old double bluff. My shortlist is the femme he falls for, the scuzzy cockroach, the janitor (where's Scooby Doo when you need him?) or the smart-alec who takes over proceedings in the meeting. I'm favouring the femme (when she betrays him it's a knife to the heart) but we'll see.
Friday, 19 March 2010
Flatland - 01
Welcome to the first of a series of blog posts about a new story I'm writing. A sort of live 'making of. As the writing progresses, you'll be the first to know about developments. And if it dies in the cradle, you'll know that too. Because sometimes that happens.
It's another story about my dimension-dabbling private investigator. As always when I set out on one of these, I worry I've done the series to death. But the detective genre is exceptionally robust (and these are detective stories at heart, despite all the fantasy trappings) and as long as the ideas keep coming I'll keep writing them.
Enough waffle. What's the story about? Well, today is Ground Zero - the day I Had The Idea. I've got a first line in mind that sets it up pretty well:
I woke that morning to find the city had been flattened. Literally.
The idea is someone's stolen a whole heap of dimensions, leaving just two (in the PI's world there are eleven dimensions; some scientists think it's the same in our universe - Google it if you don't believe me). So everything's left flat and two-dimensional, except the apartment block where the PI keeps his office. The building's just stood there like a hotel on a Monopoly board.
That's the premise. It's a long way from being a story though. But I've got in mind that whoever committed this crime did so in order to expose something - or someone - that was using all eleven dimensions to hide in. So by stripping away the dimensions, that something gets revealed. Like pulling brushwood away from a hide. That may be a bit esoteric - if I run with it I'll need my gumshoe to explain it all in suitably pithy terms. But he's good at that. Anyway, this gives me an opportunity to give the perpetrator a sympathetic motive - maybe finding a lost love? Or they could be cynically uncovering a pile of swag stashed by a double-crossing partner. Not sure which route to go down yet, but I'm favouring the sympathetic crook.
Isolating the building means I've got to explain why it's isolated. Not too hard - I've already established that the dimensions go all wiggy around the PI's office. However I get round it, it'll need to be key to the plot. Perhaps even the reason for everything. Isolation also lets me explore the PI's building, which I've never done before. Who else lives there? Opportunity for a siege story perhaps. Something like Assault on Precinct 13?
Other occupants: the femme fatale on the top floor; the janitor; the mutated cockroach in his scuzzy apartment in the basement. Title of the story: Flatland, after Edwin Abbott's sublime Victorian novel. Call one of the characters Edwin - the cockroach maybe.
Phew - I'll stop before this gets any more incoherent. All these pieces and more are gradually taking shape in my head (and my notebook). I scribbled some of it down this morning. Strike while the iron's hot. A word of warning though: these things can take a while; I'm not the fastest writer in the world.
Next step is working through the plot. The most important thing is to establish the perpetrator's motive, and determine the story's resolution. Working from the inside out. Also how the PI solves the case. If the detective elements are solid, everything else will hang off them nicely.
A final thought: Gaia as a character in one of these stories would be nice.
It's another story about my dimension-dabbling private investigator. As always when I set out on one of these, I worry I've done the series to death. But the detective genre is exceptionally robust (and these are detective stories at heart, despite all the fantasy trappings) and as long as the ideas keep coming I'll keep writing them.
Enough waffle. What's the story about? Well, today is Ground Zero - the day I Had The Idea. I've got a first line in mind that sets it up pretty well:
I woke that morning to find the city had been flattened. Literally.
The idea is someone's stolen a whole heap of dimensions, leaving just two (in the PI's world there are eleven dimensions; some scientists think it's the same in our universe - Google it if you don't believe me). So everything's left flat and two-dimensional, except the apartment block where the PI keeps his office. The building's just stood there like a hotel on a Monopoly board.
That's the premise. It's a long way from being a story though. But I've got in mind that whoever committed this crime did so in order to expose something - or someone - that was using all eleven dimensions to hide in. So by stripping away the dimensions, that something gets revealed. Like pulling brushwood away from a hide. That may be a bit esoteric - if I run with it I'll need my gumshoe to explain it all in suitably pithy terms. But he's good at that. Anyway, this gives me an opportunity to give the perpetrator a sympathetic motive - maybe finding a lost love? Or they could be cynically uncovering a pile of swag stashed by a double-crossing partner. Not sure which route to go down yet, but I'm favouring the sympathetic crook.
Isolating the building means I've got to explain why it's isolated. Not too hard - I've already established that the dimensions go all wiggy around the PI's office. However I get round it, it'll need to be key to the plot. Perhaps even the reason for everything. Isolation also lets me explore the PI's building, which I've never done before. Who else lives there? Opportunity for a siege story perhaps. Something like Assault on Precinct 13?
Other occupants: the femme fatale on the top floor; the janitor; the mutated cockroach in his scuzzy apartment in the basement. Title of the story: Flatland, after Edwin Abbott's sublime Victorian novel. Call one of the characters Edwin - the cockroach maybe.
Phew - I'll stop before this gets any more incoherent. All these pieces and more are gradually taking shape in my head (and my notebook). I scribbled some of it down this morning. Strike while the iron's hot. A word of warning though: these things can take a while; I'm not the fastest writer in the world.
Next step is working through the plot. The most important thing is to establish the perpetrator's motive, and determine the story's resolution. Working from the inside out. Also how the PI solves the case. If the detective elements are solid, everything else will hang off them nicely.
A final thought: Gaia as a character in one of these stories would be nice.
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Ask the authors and artists
The British Fantasy Society have a section on their forum called Ask the Authors and Artists. The clue's in the title: authors and artists are invited to open a single thread under their own name, and fans are invited to post questions or comments under that thread. With luck, they'll get a response. So simple it's awesome!
Here's the link. What are you waiting for? And before you ask, yes, I've got a thread in there somewhere.
Here's the link. What are you waiting for? And before you ask, yes, I've got a thread in there somewhere.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
I'll name that suit in one
Hop over to the Guardian Books Blog for Imogen Russell Williams's thoughts on character names in SF and fantasy fiction. Seems like Imogen agrees with my thoughts here ie if you're going to invent names, don't get silly. And avoid apostrophes at all costs.
Particularly refreshing then to pick up Joe Haldeman's The Forever War (one of those SF classics I never got round to reading, but which has been thoughtfully reprinted in the UK by those nice people at Gollancz). As well as enjoying Joe's clear, descriptive prose, I was delighted to discover that the name he'd decided on for the motion-amplifying fighting suits worn by his future army was ... fighting suits. Nice.
Particularly refreshing then to pick up Joe Haldeman's The Forever War (one of those SF classics I never got round to reading, but which has been thoughtfully reprinted in the UK by those nice people at Gollancz). As well as enjoying Joe's clear, descriptive prose, I was delighted to discover that the name he'd decided on for the motion-amplifying fighting suits worn by his future army was ... fighting suits. Nice.
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
In, out, shake it all about
Lots of things moving around here at the moment. Not necessarily getting anywhere, but moving at least. Just sent a short story manuscript out in the mail. Got a couple more drifting around in the electronic submissions ether. Fielded a rejection coming in from the opposite direction. Finally completed the new fantasy detective story I've been working on for a couple of weeks now - thanks, Dot, for making me rewrite the ending! And currently revising the first draft sample material for the new novel pitch (that's the 'shake it all about part' - don't thank me, thank the Department of Tortuous Blog Header Analogies).
Plus, it was warm enough in Nottingham this lunchtime for me to walk outside without the aid of winter garments!
Plus, it was warm enough in Nottingham this lunchtime for me to walk outside without the aid of winter garments!
Monday, 8 March 2010
A writer's playlist
I write in silence. Is that odd? I don't know. A lot of writers like noise, specifically music. Joe Hill has even published a playlist for his latest book Horns. It's a great list, actually, but it bemuses me how Joe manages to put his own words down while Mick Jagger's advising him to have sympathy for the devil.
Not that music's not an inspiration. According to Walter Pater: "All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music." So no wonder music feeds the written word. It's just that, for me, the listening has to be separate to the writing. Maybe I just have trouble multitasking.
Like Joe and many others, I do have a list of songs that have inspired me in my various projects. It's just never occured to me to keep notes on them. But I do recall playing an old Enya track over and over while puzzling over the plotting of Dragoncharm. I think it was called The Celts, and every time I heard it I saw wings. On another occasion I got obsessed with Blondie's Atomic, which was the perfect accompaniment to a scene in Stone and Sun in which Tom Coyote races a pyroclastic flow down the side of the erupting Mount St Helens. Right now, I'm listening to the London Philharmonic's recording of Holst's Planets Suite, but I'm not going to tell you why.
Not that music's not an inspiration. According to Walter Pater: "All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music." So no wonder music feeds the written word. It's just that, for me, the listening has to be separate to the writing. Maybe I just have trouble multitasking.
Like Joe and many others, I do have a list of songs that have inspired me in my various projects. It's just never occured to me to keep notes on them. But I do recall playing an old Enya track over and over while puzzling over the plotting of Dragoncharm. I think it was called The Celts, and every time I heard it I saw wings. On another occasion I got obsessed with Blondie's Atomic, which was the perfect accompaniment to a scene in Stone and Sun in which Tom Coyote races a pyroclastic flow down the side of the erupting Mount St Helens. Right now, I'm listening to the London Philharmonic's recording of Holst's Planets Suite, but I'm not going to tell you why.
Writing Industries Conference
Just a quick entry to say I had a great day at the Writing Industries Conference on Saturday. The event was organised by Writing East Midlands and The Literature Network and held at Loughborough University and, thanks to the fantastic efforts of Aly Stoneman, Damien Walter and all the rest of the team, ran like clockwork. Graham Joyce delivered a great keynote speech entitled The End of the Print Age, and the day was packed with panels and workshops. Hello again to everyone I met there!
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