Today I'm going to spend my time talking about myself. Not because I egotistically feel like doing so, but because I want to discuss one of my works, Adrift.
The link above will take you to the poem/story itself, which I recommend you follow as I'm particularly proud of the piece. The link then leads to other links which will take you to the places it has already been published. Now this isn't me standing here shouting to the heavens, "look at me, I've been published," just me wanting to talk about a piece of writing about space.
Firstly, I'd like to talk inspiration. This piece was written while I was on a 10 day writers retreat in Italy. For the sake of some more links, information on it can be found here. You can also see the ridiculous hair style I was sporting if you decide to check out the slide show of fantastic photographs. Now if you only read the piece you might wonder why I would write so sad a piece of writing if I was in such a beautiful place. Was I miserable the whole time?
Let me assure you, I was not.
However, in the chaos of an Italian vacation, amidst so many personalities all clashing, and I'm not going to lie, in an environment where wine was served with lunch, the mind goes to some strange places. This piece arose out of a writing prompt, which I encourage you to try out if you're an aspiring writer, which was to create an interesting lore piece. The lore of Adrift is, not surprisingly, space. How I managed to find so quiet a place within myself in the Umbrian foothills I'll probably never know, but let me now discuss how a piece on lore became a strange sort of love story.
For those of you keeping tabs, you'll also notice that for today I've adopted a different voice for this discussion. This is intentional.
When I got the idea to use my space lore for a story I didn't set out to write a story. I just sat down to write something that involved space. Dealing with a story that had no characters I realized I was going to have to make some. So I chose a galaxy. And from there the story wrote itself. I knew I was bound by the laws of the scene I was writing (space) and so there were very few stories that could actually be written using it. I chose to deal with galaxies colliding, and I honed in on what a difference in the vast emptiness of existence a galaxy would occupy collision would be.
Phew, hopefully that sentence made sense. It was a doozy.
Now I'm not giving you all of these details because I don't think you understand the piece, in fact quite the opposite. I never write to confuse my reader, and I do my best to trust that they get it. But I want to focus on the fact that all of that story in the piece is incidental. It's what had to happen when I set out to write a story about a galaxy in space.
You'll notice that the piece straddles the line between poem and prose. Also intentional and also something which couldn't have happened any other way. Similarly if I might turn back to talking about Hypothetically Speaking, it is a story which has to happen (for the most part) how it is happening and later in the story it is a topic which will be discussed while it is happening! That story gets more complicated by the second.
But I've gotten off topic which shows that I'm at a good place to finish. The point I set out in talking about here is that sometimes in writing things happen and they could happen no other way. Which is what makes truly great writing, to finish by actually utilizing something I learned at the workshop. A great story is a story which, at the end, you step back and think it could have happened no other way. Because of course, when writing, things can go any way! And with that contradiction I will jet off to my next adventure. Enjoy the story!
The link above will take you to the poem/story itself, which I recommend you follow as I'm particularly proud of the piece. The link then leads to other links which will take you to the places it has already been published. Now this isn't me standing here shouting to the heavens, "look at me, I've been published," just me wanting to talk about a piece of writing about space.
Firstly, I'd like to talk inspiration. This piece was written while I was on a 10 day writers retreat in Italy. For the sake of some more links, information on it can be found here. You can also see the ridiculous hair style I was sporting if you decide to check out the slide show of fantastic photographs. Now if you only read the piece you might wonder why I would write so sad a piece of writing if I was in such a beautiful place. Was I miserable the whole time?
Let me assure you, I was not.
However, in the chaos of an Italian vacation, amidst so many personalities all clashing, and I'm not going to lie, in an environment where wine was served with lunch, the mind goes to some strange places. This piece arose out of a writing prompt, which I encourage you to try out if you're an aspiring writer, which was to create an interesting lore piece. The lore of Adrift is, not surprisingly, space. How I managed to find so quiet a place within myself in the Umbrian foothills I'll probably never know, but let me now discuss how a piece on lore became a strange sort of love story.
For those of you keeping tabs, you'll also notice that for today I've adopted a different voice for this discussion. This is intentional.
When I got the idea to use my space lore for a story I didn't set out to write a story. I just sat down to write something that involved space. Dealing with a story that had no characters I realized I was going to have to make some. So I chose a galaxy. And from there the story wrote itself. I knew I was bound by the laws of the scene I was writing (space) and so there were very few stories that could actually be written using it. I chose to deal with galaxies colliding, and I honed in on what a difference in the vast emptiness of existence a galaxy would occupy collision would be.
Phew, hopefully that sentence made sense. It was a doozy.
Now I'm not giving you all of these details because I don't think you understand the piece, in fact quite the opposite. I never write to confuse my reader, and I do my best to trust that they get it. But I want to focus on the fact that all of that story in the piece is incidental. It's what had to happen when I set out to write a story about a galaxy in space.
You'll notice that the piece straddles the line between poem and prose. Also intentional and also something which couldn't have happened any other way. Similarly if I might turn back to talking about Hypothetically Speaking, it is a story which has to happen (for the most part) how it is happening and later in the story it is a topic which will be discussed while it is happening! That story gets more complicated by the second.
But I've gotten off topic which shows that I'm at a good place to finish. The point I set out in talking about here is that sometimes in writing things happen and they could happen no other way. Which is what makes truly great writing, to finish by actually utilizing something I learned at the workshop. A great story is a story which, at the end, you step back and think it could have happened no other way. Because of course, when writing, things can go any way! And with that contradiction I will jet off to my next adventure. Enjoy the story!
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