All our myths are attempts to address three questions:

1. Where did we come from?
2. How do we behave now we’re here?
3. Where are we going?

Science fiction concerns itself mainly with the third question (and you could argue that the other two are the purview of religion and mainstream literature, respectively). Bearing all this in mind, here are seven things I’ve learned about writing:

1. Some days, writing is like scrabbling around in a dark pool looking for pretty stones.
2. If you want people to read your story, write about people.
3. You will be remembered for what you write, not what you fail to write.
4. If a reader has to put your book down and use a dictionary to look up the meaning of the clever word you’ve used, they may not come back.
5. Stuck for inspiration? Stop thinking about it. Have a bath. Go for a walk. Clean the car. Distract yourself and inspiration will strike.
6. Want to be a more productive writer? Give up caffiene and quit smoking. Seriously. Both are counter-productive distractions.
7. The only thing more terrifying than beginning to write, is not to write at all.

At the age of ten years old, I scribbled a story into the pages of three spiral-topped reporters’ notebooks. Covering both sides of each page, it must have totalled somewhere in the region of 30,000 words. Heavily influenced by Star Wars and Blake’s 7, the story recounted the adventures of a crew of intrepid space traders and their aged vessel, The Argo. As it was handwritten, there were no rewrites. The story progressed episodically, each new adventure or plot twist influenced by the latest book I’d borrowed from the local library, or the TV programmes I’d happened to watch the previous evening. Sadly, I’ve no idea what became of those notebooks. I can’t even remember the title of the story. The books went astray decades ago. I suppose they may be hidden away in a dusty corner of the attic, but I haven’t laid eyes on them for more than 25 years. Maybe they’ll show up one day – but on the whole, it’s probably for the best if they don’t.

One of the questions people often ask me is: “Where do you find the time to write?” When they ask this, I often think that what they really mean is: “Why can’t I find enough time to write?”

From personal experience, I know how difficult it can be to find the time and energy to be creative, especially if you have a full time day job, a mortgage to pay, and a family to look after, and I won’t pretend I have all the answers. But there are strategies you can use to increase the time you have available for writing. The three strategies listed below have worked for me, or for other writers I know personally:

Continue reading “3 Ways Of Finding More Time To Write”

Writing in the latest email newsletter from Tor/Forge Books, Cory Doctorow says:

“All creative endeavor begins with just fooling around, not doing much of anything, just noodling and letting the different parts of your mind talk to each other. Science and art and invention spring forth when we do the unexpected and so coax our brains into letting some imaginative combinations of ideas and concepts jangle together.”

This is so true. I find time off to be as important to the creative process as time spent in front of a keyboard. Reading novels, listening to the radio, watching TV – they all have their part to play in replenishing the imagination. The mind needs distractions in order to make connections. It’s like a muscle: after working hard, it needs time to recover and grow. The unconcious mind needs time to play with the pieces of information it collects, to turn them around and around in order to see how they fit together. This is why some of the best story ideas I’ve ever had are the ones that struck me while driving on the motorway or getting into the bath.

I have a number of reference books on the art of writing. Some are better than others, and some I dip into almost every day.

Take The Elements Of Style for example.  So far I’d have to say it’s been the most useful book I’ve found in terms of day-to-day writing.

First published in 1935 and since revised and updated, this handy pocket-sized book is a first rate field guide to punctuation, grammar, and sentence construction.

It has been criticised in some areas for its championing of the active voice over the passive, but this is a minor quibble, and I’ve personally found it an excellent reference for basic things, such as the correct punctuation of dialogue and the difference between commonly confused words, such as “alternate” and “alternative”.

If you want to find out why this little book has been praised and recommended by generations of authors and professional copywriters, you can pick it up relatively cheaply on Amazon.

A friend of mine lost an entire short story when his computer crashed. The story represented three months of hard work and in the blink of an eye, it was lost forever, along with all the accompanying notes. Can you imagine how frustrating that was? My friend was absolutely gutted. But it could easily have been worse. He could have lost everything he’d ever written, including the novel he’d been hammering away at for over five years. The reason he managed to salvage the majority of his work is that he had it backed-up onto disc. He just hadn’t got around to backing-up the story he was working on. Personally, I back-up everything I write. Whenever I close the document I’m working on, I make sure it’s been saved on the computer’s hard drive and copied onto the 2GB memory stick I carry around with me. If the house burns down or the computer catches a virus, I want to be sure I’ve saved all my work somewhere it can be recovered.

When I’m working on a new story, I have to believe that it’s the best thing I’ve ever written. I have to believe it’s better than the story that preceded it. I have to be excited about it. I have to feel it stretching me as a writer.

Otherwise, why write it?

Over the past 24 hours, I’ve pulled together and submitted a 30,000 word book manuscript. It’s a collection of articles (mainly advice for budding authors), interviews and other pieces of writing, some of which first appeared on this website. It’s rough at the moment and probably needs the attention of an editor, but I’m still proud that I’ve managed to pull it together in such a short time – and I’ll post further developments as they happen.

There’s no question about it: bringing up children is hard work. It takes love, devotion and lots and lots of time. As a writer, it can put a serious dent in the number of daily hours you have in which to write, and reduce your lifetime output from a hundred books to ten – especially if you also need a full-time day job in order to support your family.

But listen to this:

Before I became a father, I didn’t really understand what people meant when they talked of unconditional love. Now I know. Being a father’s changed everything. It’s made me vulnerable again. It’s given me moments of true happiness, fear, helplessness, and pride. It’s put me in touch with my emotions and given me new perspectives and empathy, and insights into my own childhood. And while it means I have to sacrifice sleep in order to find the time to write, it’s unquestionably been worth it.

Yes, parenting takes a lot of time and energy – but my life’s so much richer for it. And so is my writing.

Most writers need a day job to keep them financially afloat. But the advent of social media sites has changed the way we look for work. Below are a few things I have learned during my search for a new job:

1. Before a job interview, you can look your interviewer(s) up on LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook to get an idea of their professional background, their likes and dislikes, etc.
2. They’ll be checking you out too, so make sure you set your privacy settings on Facebook, so that only your friends can see your embarrassing pictures.
3. Unless you protect your feed, *anyone* can read what you write on Twitter. So use some common sense and don’t post anything that could offend or discourage a potential employer.
4. LinkedIn is very useful as an online CV but beware how much personal information you put there. Don’t make yourself vulnerable to identity thieves.
5. Beware when signing up to multiple email job alerts that the same vacancy may be advertised by several compteting agencies, and you may therefore end up unwittingly applying for the same role two or three times.

Are you an author with a day job? How do you balance work and writing? Do you take an undemanding job in order to save your energy for writing, or do you look for stimulating work to give you ideas and experiences to write about?