My Humble Musings post-World Fantasy Con

I know it's been around 3 weeks since I went to World Fantasy Con in Brighton, but I'm still benefiting from its effects.
I'm not going to give you a run down of the Con itself, not the sessions I attended; my friend Selina has done an amazing job chronicling most of our adventures already.
I also won't comment here about the organisation of the event; this was my first big convention and so it's a shame to read reports about all the negative aspects of the event.
What I will share with you is what I learned from attending the event, one of the main inspirations to my sudden burst of writing drive.

1. Most people are lovely.

I think I can truthfully say that every person I spoke to was wonderfully welcoming and friendly to me. I went with the preconception that it might be a bit cliquey, especially as I'm new, but people were happy to engage in conversation, and even the famous authors I met were really generous with their time. I know this experience was not shared by all who attended the Con, and so I count myself lucky that I was surrounded by amazing people and didn't encounter and of the dross.

2.  No one knows shit about upcoming literary "trends"

This is something Neil Gaiman talked explicitly about at the World Fantasy Awards ceremony, but the theme was visible throughout the event. With medias changing and the "word of mouth" phenomenon growing (aided by the internet), no one can really predict what's going to take off in the next few years or even in what format or media it will appear. This hit home for me as I was reminded of about 4 years ago when I was told by an agent quite bluntly that girls don't read dystopian fiction and that no one would buy my book because there was no market for it, so why not try my hand at Steampunk instead?  Fast forward, post-The Hunger Games, and "dystopian SF" is the latest, hottest genre in the YA category. Don't get me wrong, in no way am I saying my novel would have been the next Hunger Games, but it did make me think: actually, people can be wrong, and that leads me into my next point...

3. Write what you love and write it well

This is advice I'd read or heard before, but after realisation number 2 above, it became much more apparent to me that now there is more of a free market, you should spend your time writing those stories that you love and with all the new publishing options out there, if it's good enough it will find its market. Be the trailblazer! Buck the trend! Create good art! That is the only way to combine creativity and personal happiness. Do what you love, and hopefully it should resonate with others who will love it too.

I was surprised by how happy I was at the convention - hungover, tired, yes, but happy - and rejoining the real world was a jolt. Attending the convention has strengthened my resolve from "wannabe" to "will be". I will finish Banshee and seek publication. It will be accepted and published and read. I will write a sequel, and a standalone, and another, and I will go to more conventions where I hope they will continue to inspire me and thousands of other "will be"s, way past the point where we become "I am"s.

Words of Wisdom

Have just been reading Neil Gaiman's latest blog post (http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/05/entitlement-issues.html) in which he says:

"Some writers need a while to charge their batteries, and then write their books very rapidly. Some writers write a page or so every day, rain or shine. Some writers run out of steam, and need to do whatever it is they happen to do until they're ready to write again. "

I'm really glad he addressed this in his post, from the point of view that you do only tend to hear about writers who work like machines, who write, say 5000 a day every day. In fact, I've just been reading Writing magazine (aimed at retiree writers by the looks of it) and all the interviews with authors in there are all "I write X number of words a day" etc and no one tells you how difficult it is sometimes, how your brain feels fried and you feel like what you've written is utter drivel and that you must have serious problems of self-delusion to think that you're ever going to get published...
So that's why it's nice for a 'proper' writer to recognise this fact that writers aren't robots. I should add that there is a distinction however between the words not coming and simply "putting it off", which is often hard to distinguish and both can be self-perpetulating.
I think I need a holiday.

A Whiney Rant

Well, Reading is over and done with. I'm so sick of travelling around now. I'm exhausted. And broke. Work will eventually repay all the money I've had to spend, but that doesn't solve the immediate problem of the current deficit of my bank account. I have a hundred and one things to do tomorrow that I will have to cram into about 3 hours before I go out again on Thursday. Work sucks.
I'm also of the opinion right now that my writing sucks too. I'm bored of the part I'm working on and want to fast forward to the good bit. Plus I've just finished reading Neverwhere and now I'm glum because ill never write anything that good, etc etc. Sigh. I'm even boring myself now. Will come back when I'm in a better mood.

Greetings from Havant

OK, so I'm trying to post this from my hotel room on my new phone, so you'll have to bear with me as I've still not got the hang of typing yet.
God, I'm bored.
I've finished reading American Gods, which was brilliant, and now I can't get it out of my head, so it's dangerous to write anything new as I'm sure it will just come out as a carbon copy. Urgh, can't work out how to move the cursor one space right to delete this annoying apostrophe so will say bye for now:'

A Wednesday Self-Centred Rant...

It's my own fault really for agreeing to be in Jekyll and Hyde. I'm resenting the time it's draining from me already. My hair is getting skanky and I don't have time to wash it (eugh - too much detail!). I'm turning into a fifteen year old greaser all because I'm never at home. My flat is a tip. I have no food in the place, nor any clean cutlery. I won't have time to do a shop until Friday. So I'm annoyed right now. Wouldn't be feeling so peeved if I felt the rehearsals were worthwhile and the chorus was valued in the show. It's not. And all we get to do is sing this one song five times, and do choreographed head movements every two lines in a verse. And be there twice a week. Boring. Next!

I've been reading The Sandman graphic novels (I keep getting told off for calling them 'comics'), and have realised that I have a crush on Morpheus. Is this normal? Probably not!

Inter Vivos is all typed up and ready to go (to be made into a second draft). Need to print it out, but have forgotten my memory stick today so can't do it right now. My printer at home is out of ink, and I can only get a new cartridge from Dell, but they need you to actually physically take the parcel from the postie's hands, which means I can't order one as I'm never at home. Rah!

Hmm, am in a bit of a ranty mood today, and have only just noticed. Good job I don't have to talk to anyone right now, isn't it?!

Tremors!

I'm a little annoyed because the other night I managed to sleep through an earthquake, and only managed to wake up when it set off all the fire alarms in my building - and even then, once I realised that the sound eminated from my hallway and not my alarm clock, I went back to sleep. So I didn't have a cool "I survived the quake" story when I went to work the next day.

I have been working on Inter Vivos to try to move the story along (I felt like they've been having dinner for months now). I'm trying to figure out when and how to introduce an important character, and he's already tardy for dinner. I don't want it to be a big 'ta-da' moment, so may have him sneak in some time after they've all retired for cigars and brandy.

I've just ordered a load of books from amazon in the name of sci-fi/fantasy research, as recommended by the agent I spoke to a couple of weeks ago and by Damien. I included a couple by Neil Gaiman too, as I've just finished Stardust and really enjoyed it. I think it will take me a little time to read them all though, as I've still got books to read from Christmas (and Valentines Day), and Good Omens is next on my list.

In other news, on BBC4 last night was a programme which I think was the first in a series, entitled The Worlds of Fantasy. This week's episode was about the child hero/heroine in fantasy fiction, although I was a little disappointed that it seemed to be focused on children's fiction, and that the programme consisted almost entirely of the views of celebrities and other authors, rather than containing any academic criticism. Perhaps I expected a little too much from the Beeb. Anyhow, I shall watch again next week as they're doing a programme about the 'epic imagination', so maybe that will be better. Plus it slots in nicely between So You Think You Can Dance and the results show on Living TV!

No particular reason for the picture above, except I think she's pretty cool! We have a poster of her having tea with her cats in my office.

Author's Will

Just a quick link to Neil Gaiman's blog, who reminds us that all writers should create a will to protect their intellectual property in the event of being hit by a bus, and provides a pdf of an example will that you can use. Good idea, I think.
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2006/10/important-and-pass-it-on.html

Am feeling extremely hungover due to too much wine at a work do last night. My face and fingers are all tingly and I just want to go back to bed, rather than be here working. Going to go back to feeling sorry for myself now.

Wet!

At the moment, I have wet legs up to my knees thanks to the downpour outside; hard, icy rain that seemed to be impervious to my umbrella. Good old English weather!
I am currently working on rewriting the second chapter of Inter Vivos. It is not going very well. I know what I want to write, but I just don't seem to be very disciplined at the minute. It's the same old story with me, unfortunately. I am too easily distracted, or busy doing other things to give 100% of my time to it. Writing is hard work. Don't let anyone ever tell you any differently!
I haven't written any theatre for ages, and I'm thinking that I should start up again soon, especially if we want to get our Semper Festival project off the ground. I don't want to be distracted though by too many projects, so I think I'm going to just concentrate on IV now, and perhaps have another bash at Hoodies or Red in a couple of months.
Here is a link to a game I saw posted on Neil Gaiman's blog journal: http://www.freerice.com/index.php It improves your vocabulary and helps third world countries all at the same time. I am ashamedly poor at this quiz, though I'm hoping that if I do it every day, I will begin to educate myself (and feed starving folks around the world too!).