Of course, it’s not really exactly 100 days until the Thing… I just happened to grab this picture at a totally opportune, totally not staged at all time.
2,400 hours to get my first novel ready for publishing. Wow, when you consider it like that, it’s quite an awesome, bone-rendering feat to even contemplate.
Luckily, since January, I’ve been making steady progress with Colonisation and am roughly halfway into the great edit. What’s propelling me so far is several things. First, I’m having a heck of a lot of fun getting into the sci-fi psyche, learning about my characters and giving them life in situations that aren’t always ideal. I also pretty much know exactly where Colonisation is headed, in terms of both plot and character development. Once I complete the first edit all the way through I’ll go through my notes and add in those interesting subplots and flesh everything out. I’ve got a plan!
My previous – and having-a-bit-of-a-rest book, The Last of the Steamers suffered an identity crisis quite early on in the edit. I had many ideas and I still intend to implement them, but I was letting it get out of hand as I plodded through. Totally, failing to chapterize as I wrote the first ever edit has, in the cold light of day, totally thrown me. Plus, the plot was liquid and not fully synthesised, and tidying it up to how I want is proving a challenge.
But you know what’s putting me off working on Steamers more? I don’t yet feel I’m of the writer-orial ability, almost, to do it justice. I want for Steamers to be an epic story about how the world almost ends and how one young man saves it, and finally accomplishes his personal dream in doing so. I want to be ready to step back into Toby’s shoes and do for him what I’m doing for Rad, Kyra and my other Colonisation characters.
Arguably, science fiction is proving easier to write than alt-historical fiction because I have a predilection, an aptitude for science fiction, and more importantly, I’m a guy who can spend hours on Wikipedia and such things learning how stuff works, and this helps me with writing a book set in space that ends up on Mars. But I want to re evaluate Steamers soon once the audio reading (read more later!) of Chapters 1-3 is out. And that’s a blog in itself.
But what are my plans for Colonisation? First, get the edit done; this is obviously the most important thing, first and foremost. I intend for Colonisation to be an electronic release; even I can see where the wind is blowing. However, I’m not really versed well in how the e-publishing racket works, and I can worry about this when the book is finished. What I intend to do is study how other writers, like Michael R Hicks (Author of a book I read on my Kindle that I really enjoyed; it’s free!) and my Twitter friend Sam Richards got used to, and are about to dip their toes into the eBook world. I’ll be watching his progress with his sci-fi short story compilation's journey on the Kindle platform for my own eventual release.
So, as I hit a milestone on my literary journey (lol who am I trying to kid?) I embrace the challenge, hope to successfully stave off writer’s block for 100 days and give you guys all something you enjoy. Because this writing thing isn’t really just a big ego trip for me (well maybe a little) but I want fellow friends and readers to enjoy what I have to say, and enjoy the story that I have to tell. I’m having fun, and when Colonisation is out there, I hope you will too.
I mean, I could just rant on about f**k knows what on my blog until the end of time?
I close today’s entry with an excerpt from Colonisation as it stands, from Chapter 4. Rad and his new friends Kyra and Stryker are settling in at the Academy of Cosmology before heading off to Mars:
In no time, we found ourselves back in the capsule, looking over those gloomy, dusky mountains. They were moody and dark, like black sentinels watching in. We'd all propped ourselves up on our beds, ready to doze off after that long, exciting day. The view screen on the wall came on by itself. Swirling colour filled the screen.
"Oh hi," I said to it, not expecting anything back.
"Hello, Rad." it said in a soothing but unnatural synthesised American female voice. I jumped a little. "Don't be afraid, I'm just your capsule's personal training assistant. Think of me as your helping hand through your colonist training."
"So, will I need to do any geology training? I'm still pretty good, I think."
"No, Rad. You, Kyra and Jonathon will be training for the harsh conditions on Mars. Experiments and further skill refinements in your respective fields will be performed by you on Mars itself. Goodnight."
The view screen turned itself off at that point. I looked to both Stryker and Kyra.
"Well, what do you make of that?"
"Let's see what happens tomorrow," Kyra yawned.
12th June 2012, here I come!
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