Inspiration

I was reading this conversation on one of Adam Roberts' blogs. It inspired a number of insights into depression and had me struggling to compose a comment expressing them.

Specifically, I was thinking about a sense of self and how it relates to depression. (I wish they'd called it a model of self. I would have understood so much sooner.) That made me speculate about a future piece of software that we could install in our brains and would enhance our sense of self. I can see how it might be experienced.

So now I have another story that I absolutely must write. That makes two stories that are really pressing to be written. I was going to give myself the weekend off but I'm going to try and get one of them drafted.

Submission

So, this Sunday I submitted Stackspace, the story I read out at Lumb bank, to Strange Horizons. I know I said I'd submit three stories at once but it felt like the right thing to do so I did it. (It's also much easier to submit fiction through a web form than bother with some arcane system involving sticking pieces of paper together and handing them to a network of angry men in strange livery. You don't even have to get dressed!)

This week I have been working on a new story about telepathy. I had a breakthough last night when I had a vision of telepathy programmed in a web-like manner*. Following through the consequences of this is going to take a while. The piece is growing rather quickly in my head. I can currently see it coming in at seven to ten thousand words which will be something of a record for me.

Other than that, I have another short piece which I will polish up and try to find a home for this weekend. Hopefully, this will redress the shocking lack of stories where the narrative is driven by JavaScript.

* That's a RESTful architectural style for all you techies out there. In telepathy, application state must be stored by the client. I just can't see it working otherwise.

Finished!

Robot Blood Orgy is finally finished! I have even decided I like the title. I will be looking for readers soon and then submitting it to a magazine.

I will start working on another one of my in progress stories tomorrow. I still haven't decided which one. At the moment I am leaning towards the story I read out on the Friday night at Lumb Bank.

I have decided to get three stories ready for publication and then submit them all at once to different magazines and websites. This is partly to spread the emotional risk involved and partly to minimize trips to the Post Office.

I have a bunch of ideas and characters which I see as forming part of a novel. After I have sent some stories to publishers I think I may start working on it.

Acceptance

Ok, I give up! I'm going to be editing this damn story until in twenty years time it is a three million world nonology and absolutely perfect.

Free wine is not good for writing

Not much progress in the last couple of days. Did some editing of "Robot Blood Orgy" this evening. Hopefully I will finish it over the weekend.

Something Different

Tonight I started drafting a story I'd started a few times before but never really got going with. I think I now have a narrative that works and shows most things I'd like to show. Now all I need to do is finish it...

I decided to take a break from "Robot Blood Orgy" for a day or so as a couple of the ideas need to develop a little further and I want to get a bit of distance before I review the latest draft.

Progress continues

Still making reasonable progress. Just one more draft and then we're onto final polishing and then it'll be ready for other people to read. I still don't have a title. "Robot Blood Orgy" is a good title but for a different story. "The Bateman Virus" seems a bit weak.

Great success!

Yesterday I wrote about finding writing very draining. Today I wrote for an hour without this problem.

I think that what I was doing wrong was trying to keep everything about the story I was writing in my head at the same time - straining to keep everything in focus at once. In a way this is possible but it takes a lot of energy and is not really necessary. Today I refused to let myself enter that state but was still able to write and achieved plenty. I found myself using verbal, logical thinking to establish the scope of the passage I was working on at any given time rather than attempting to hold onto a spatial grasp of the entire story at once.

The concept of scope in computer programming seems relevant here: a complex piece of software will thousands of variables, each of which can contain one of a set of values. The human brain can typically hold seven pieces of information at any one time. Attempting to contemplate the interaction of a thousand variables is beyond most humans. Therefore most programming languages will let the programmer split things up in such a way that she only has to deal with a limited number of variables at any one time: the rest of them are not visible, they are out of scope.

When working on a story there are a lot of things to consider. A lot of decisions to make. A lot of variables. Too much to hold in my tiny little mind at once.

So (I tell myself) chill out. Let the unnecessary stuff fall out of scope - it'll still be there when you return - concentrate on the passage, the moment.

Vampiric process

The problem: I'm finding writing an exceptionally draining process. When I sit down to write, I feel my power levels declining at an alarming rate. I suspect this is because I am doing it wrong. My theory is that I'm using too many parts of my brain at the same time. Tomorrow, I will sit down to write and be mindful of this - try to write without constant mental strain.

Slow progress

Today I made very slow progress rewriting my "Robot blood orgy" story. (One of the things that needs rewriting is the title.) Most of the problems have been resolved. I think I may try to speed the process up a little tomorrow by writing as much of it as I can in fifteen minutes. That kind of challenge sometimes gets my adrenaline up and my fingers moving.

Why this blog?

This blog is intended for links and reviews broadly related to science fiction as well as general blathering about the mysterious and interminable writing process.