Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
I encountered a friend last night. “How’s your writing going?” he asked. I’m paraphrasing the conversation.
As I’d been socializing more, I’d created an elevator answer for that question. “Great. Finished writing a series of five books last year, and then I edited and revised them, completing that at the end of the year, wrote a synopsis of the first novel, and compiled a list of agents for submission. Meanwhile, I’ve started writing a new novel.”
“You’re already writing another book? Don’t you need to take a break?”
“No. Writing is a pleasure. I didn’t need a break. Starting a new novel is always energizing.”
“How do you come up with ideas?”
“There are always ideas. Ideas come on from watching animals, the weather, people’s voices, expressions, and stories, newspaper articles, new inventions, dreams, reading, watching television, movies, music. Deciding which one to pursue is the challenge.”
“How do you decide?”
“It’s really about which one catches the wind and takes off. I don’t make a conscious decision about what to work on so much as I start writing. Then it comes out.”
Thinking about that today as I finish my day of writing like crazy, I reflect on all the story, novel, play, and musical ideas locked up in my mind, wondering which will ever be realized. I think if I physically could, I’d be writing twenty-four hours a day to satisfy my imagination and muses, and that still might not be enough.
Ironically, I dislike socializing. Socializing is an energy thief. It requires that I carve time out, set it aside, and focus on being polite, friendly, and speaking with others. All that is exhausting. Yet, inconveniently, socializing stimulates my writing ideas. Listening to people, watching them, and breaking out of my routines fire new ideas. There’s always a catch, isn’t there?
Now, sadly, time to stop once again. Bummer.
I sat down to write today after a pleasing session yesterday. The baristas had gifted me an extra espresso sized serving mocha in addition to my standard QSM. I sipped it down, delighting in the melange of mingling flavors, and I remembered —
A new character’s name is Ckyl. Came to me last night.
A scene I wrote in my head about the starship, River Styx, and its occupants and description.
And more details about tachyon syndrome.
Changes to Chor. I’d focused on sex and sexual preferences and choosing or accepting sexual identities, but I’d not considered some of the other matters available to my future people. So I’d overlooked that Chor is a cat person.
And Pram wonders why becoming a cat person is a popular choice. People don’t want to be dog or bird people, although he’d encountered some of them. He knew of a few who went the centaur route (with one also managing to incorporate a unicorn appearance). A small society of humans had transgened themselves into dinosaurs, and another group into dragons, and there are small knots of gnome, fairy, demon, and leprechaun peoples, but cat people were far the most popular and most frequently encountered. He was pleased, though, because he remained unique. There were a few Titans out there, and a cyclops, and a couple of Hercules pretenders, Minotaurs, Hulks, and Avatars, and super-heroes from ancient comic books, but he was the only Colossus, even after all these years.
Pram had not asked Chor about why she was a furry human Siamese with diamond blue eyes and a lazy, busy tail. Asking people about their choices is impolite.
Okay, now that I remember those things, my imagination is fired up. Time to write like crazy, one more time.
Michael Seidel, writer 