Sunday, April 10, 2005

A further thought... and whinge?

I used to like writing science fiction and fantasy when I was a kid. It reflected the type of fiction that I most often read, escapist and in many ways indicative of things that were unobtainable. As I grew older my reading was tempered with “real literature” and then later more action-adventure and mystery-crime fiction. I grew from Feist, LeGuin, Donaldson, Asimov to Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Hawthorne, Welty, and finally to such modern genrists as Cussler, Clancy, Grafton and Ludlum. My reading tastes are now a hodgepodge of literary and genre, criticism and poetry.

It’s been a long while since I’ve written anything to completion, whether poem, short story, or that mountainous of all literary endeavours, a novel. I have completed numerous of the former two, but none of the latter, and it is the latter to which I now wish to strive. I am caught up in the indecision of what to write, where to focus, how much research and detail do I need to know before I begin, do I work with the novel beginnings already littering my hard drive?

I could make a novel of false starts and best intentions.

I recently read a blog by an old friend and fellow writer which reminded me of some of the lessons we learned in our writing workshops at Emerson. They’ve given me something more to think about – as if I didn’t have enough already. But perhaps this time I’ve also got some help, as they suggest I dump the above, forget the indecision, pick a point, and well, start writing. All of which puts me back to where I’ve been for the last 8 years since leaving Emerson – on the event horizon of a black-hole of uncertainty, inert and staring into a black abyss of nothingness.

To be continued?