Considering Phlebas and Other News

Finally exams are over, and I've settled back into University, so I can start having a life again! So this next week is hopefully going to be a very productive one as far as this project goes.

I've set myself a reasonable list of goals, and one of those is to finally publish the blog post regarding the storyline of my work. I'm looking forward to sharing that with everyone and see what people think, fingers crossed it'll go down OK!

In terms of actual progress on the project this week, I'm hoping to re-read the prologue that I had originally written over summer. I was pleased with it when I initially wrote it, but having read it a few times since, I've realised it's a bit clunky, and a bit too long-winded, so I'm hoping to make it flow much better and be more punchy and engaging.

It's funny, this is the same note I get on my essays for University, so actually, I should think that if I can change it in my writing for this, then it should have a positive effect on my uni work as well, which is never a bad thing.

I've also discovered that the best place for me to work on this is a little cafe in the Parkinson Building at Leeds University. I find that there I can really think about things, and most of the actual content and ideas that I've had, have been devised while I was there. And because my timetable is so lax this semester, I think i'll be able to spend quite a lot of time there and really progress with this.

Another thing I've managed to focus on since I've finished exams is reading: I spent an hour looking around Waterstones with a friend of mine this week, and since then I've been very excited to start reading again, The book I've decided to start reading is Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks.

This book has been on my shelf for quite a while now: I bought it around Christmas 2011 when I was working at Waterstones. I'd heard good things about the series, but after buying it, it took me a while to convince myself to read it because it's not my usual genre. I'm usually into Fantasy and Historical Fiction, so Sci-Fi is a bit out of my comfort zone, but I've heard that this book is more like an Epic Fantasy book set in a Sci-Fi context, rather than a Sci-Fi book with hints of adventure/fantasy.

After 60 pages or so I am enjoying it a lot. I'm still waiting a little bit for the main plot to kick in, but I'm being  drawn into the characters and setting. I also like that the book doesn't spoon-feed Sci-Fi ideas to the reader, but instead just casually explains them over the course of the book. So for example, the basics of space travel, and the effects of planetary gravity etc. are not overly explained at the expense of flow, but are rather gradually, and smoothly explained.

I'm hoping that I carry on enjoying it just as much, and I hope that the fact it'lll encourage me to work on my own writing, and hopefully let me pick up some good habits!

New Year Updates

I was hoping that this blog would work out a lot more regular than it is! But I thought that after the Christmas/New Year rush (and as some sneaky procrastination from revision for January exams) I'd post an update!

I've not been particularly focused on this over Christmas - I've tried to give myself a nice break from everything, and so this has taken a little of a backseat to sleeping, but I'm starting to get back into it now!

I've used Christmas as an opportunity to equip myself with anything that I think will help with motivating myself, and producing something half-decent, so as well as the obligatory posh notebooks and pens, I've had a few books that I'm hoping will get some creative juices flowing.

One that has been especially useful as nice little breaks from revision has been "The Five-Minute Writer", which does pretty much what it says on the tin. It's a book full of prompts and exercises, designed to last five-minutes, to try and get me writing. It's worked out well so far - I've had a few brainwaves while I've been doing some of the exercises - and I've not had to feel too guilty for taking 5 minutes out of work!

Another one, which is a bit more time-intensive, but is helping my actual writing technique more, is "101 Writing Prompts for Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers" which gives similar prompts but more extensive writing tasks. I've used one of the prompts and am about midway through writing a piece that I think is working out quite nicely. I'm hoping to publish the completed thing on here once I've finished - most likely in about 2 weeks (When I can finally forget about exams)!

I think it'll be useful to publish some of my writing online, and hopefully I can get some feedback on what I've written and I'm hoping that the whole process will just make me a better writer - and (hopefully) some positive feedback will be a good motivation as well!

Over the next month or so I'm also going to reveal a little bit about the plot. I've got the general idea sorted, but I'm just finalising how it's going to work at the minute, so as soon as it's pretty much decided I'll give a bit of an idea.

Another thing that I am going to consider over the next few months is about how I can make my book unique. My Dad mentioned this to me on Christmas Day, and it is something that I'd not necessarily thought about, but that could make a huge difference. I've got a few ideas about how it could work, and I'm gonna give it some more thought and discussion, but I'll write up a few of my ideas probably within the next week - just to test the water and see what people think!

I know this has been a bit of a mundane post, but my next few are definitely going to be a lot more interesting and forward-thinking - there's going to be some actual creative stuff going on!