How hard can it be to create something? Oi. I know how hard it is.
With Her Demonic Majesty out of the way, I’ve started ripping into Diners at the Memory’s End. It’s my science fiction, and I’ll cry if I want to, let me tell you, because I don’t remember things being his hard when I first wrote this story.
One of the problems with science fiction comes from when you really start thinking about the future. Why would you have something in place? How would something work? Why not do something this way and not that? It can drive you a little nutty after a while, because, as any good writer will tell you, pretty soon the future catches up with you, and your ass is burned.
Think about the first line of Nuromancer: ”The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. ” Because of my age, I have a good idea what he’s talking about; the sky is gray and scrambled, looking like bad static. Today you may see that, but you might also see something like a hard blue, and I can just imagine someone like my daughter reading that and going, “The sky is bright blue?”
I finished Part Three after giving some detail about how Albert was tracked down by Meredith (hint: it was done with computer monitoring), and I started into Part Four.
And dammit all: sometimes I have the hardest time trying to describe something simple.
Like a library.
The college library where Part Four takes place is suppose to be a huge place. The reason being: it’s filled with books. Well, not exactly books, but books cartridges. Look like books, but more like . . . probably a stand alone ereader. Now, why would they be like that? Why wouldn’t they just get stuff off a server? Particularly when I mention that one of the reasons students come to the library is so they can have access to their enormously powerful computers that can be used for just about anything–which, in Albert and Meredith’s case, means modeling something really big.
You know what? It’s an alternate universe. And it’s the future. Maybe there are a lot of reasons why it’s that way–though I realize, while thinking about this, I have to revise the check-out process, it makes little sense.
Oi. Why do I get into these situations?
Last year, when I was writing, I could pretty much write with abandon and not worry about what came out. Now, it seems, when I write I’m finding myself getting hung up on things like my future library, and I’m not writing as quickly as I used to. Part of it is there are a lot more distractions than I used to have, and I should turn those distractions off when I’m working.
The other part is–I’m just more careful about how I write.
I’ve always been good with first drafts. I say what I want and that’s pretty much it. I don’t often write paragraph upon paragraph of crap, then go back and excise it from the story. But now, it seems I’ve grown extra careful about writing. Like I want to be sure that what comes out is really, really good.
I’ve been told this is not the way to create a story–my Muse has slapped at me a couple of times for doing this. But it’s me. I’m not the writer I was last year: I’m something different now.
By this time next year, I could be something different again.
I mean, if we don’t change with our stories, why bother moving forward?
