Page updated: September, 08
Writing
I've been writing most of my life. Even when I wasn't, I was thinking about it, or doing things that involved plot, narrative, and world building. It's always been for the same reasons: to explore the things that fascinate me, and to tell the stories that I would like to hear. It was true when I was young and my stories, which consisted mostly of pictures, were the adventures of a child remarkably similar to myself as he explored a mysterious land of mountains, caves and distant castles, and it's true now.
Also, it's a lot of fun.
What I'm writing now:
Short stories! What with the day job and other matters, my last novel took me three years to finish - a year longer than planned, but when I look back on those years it was a pretty good effort. Now I'm pimping it to the agents, keeping my fingers crossed and thinking about how to approach the next one. I'm not quite there yet, somehow the concepts need to ferment in that so useful, non-conscious bit of my brain where all the good ideas seem to come from.
So in the meantime I've returned to some short story ideas that I didn't want to interrupt the novel. One is finished and ready to submit asap - a tale of time-travel, discovery and a kind of redemption - the next is in progress, and the third is in the winds.
Hopefully by the time these are done I'll be back where I really want to be, writing novels again.
Fiction
To me, all fiction is just that, fiction. It can be strongly rooted in the contemporary world or the past, speculate about the future or the human condition, or be set in times and places with characters and situations that can never exist. You may have something to say, or simply wish to entertain, most likely a bit of both.
These day we like to pigeon-hole things, put them in boxes and put labels on the boxes. Then you don't need to think about what's on the box, just what's on the label. Films, music and books also suffer from it, and people do to. What we really should be paying attention to is is it any good. Don't read shite. Don't listen to it, watch it or eat it. You owe it to yourself not to. Life's too short.
Of course what is, and isn't, shite is up to you. You need to get your eye in. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's no good. Just because it's popular doesn't make it a masterpiece.