I love to know what my characters listen to, to know a bit more about who they are and how they think. But that only works if I listen to different sorts of music as well. In Home for Christmas Layla was sad about the demise of the Rogue Traders and Tate was listening to Good Charlotte and while I edited I had those bands on repeat.
So to kickstart some creativity, here's the last albums I downloaded:
When I'm outlining, I always have my premise, my setting and my world building done long before I find my characters.
All year around I collect cuttings from magazines, most bought at second hand markets or stores - I use a variety of magazines, not the ones I tend to read. Nothing gets you into the head of a farmer better than reading Australian farmer. Both of these cuttings come from Runner's World. On the right, this lady was originally heading up an article about "Dressing up to Run". Focusing on the picture, I see a leader from a futuristic world who is determined to preserve her way of life. On the left, I'm more interested in the narrative and the background than the man in the picture. Astronauts on the international space station should exercise for 2 hours a day to preserve bone density and muscle mass. Without gravity, sweat pools on your skin and doesn't come off until you wipe it. The setting is the bonus here - its clinical, shiny, technology, crammed but not cramped. All useful to know when writing people in space. So, NaNoWriMo prep is done. Now its time to stop faffing and write the book. See you next week with an update... I love writing futuristic and sci-fi and one of the most important aspects to this is world building. How can you make the world you're describing futuristic enough to satisfy the reader without making it so incredibly complex, they are lost in the story.
Here's a couple of my techniques: 1. Photos out of context. These flowers (above) caught my eye in a decorative garden. If I'd zoomed out, the photo would have depicted a world renowned park in Melbourne. Zoomed in, three's a bit of an odd flora look to these guys. So, how could they be important to the story? Are they dangerous? Contain a cancer containing chemical? Do they only grow on a certain planet? Do they watch you??? The possibilities are endless. 2. Revised history. Everyone knows about the moon landing in the late 1960's. What would have happened if the astronauts had discovered something unexpected, or brought an infection back to earth with those moon rocks? What about if the US Prohibition had been on something other than alcohol? How would civilisation develop over the next 500 years, if cake, or technology, or cauliflowers had been banned. Thinking that through, its feasible that a cauliflower underground exists on future Earth, especially if future scientists discover some pharmaceutical in the leaves of the cauliflower, or the larvae of the moths that eat them. (I promise never to write the cauliflower underground but you know what I mean). 3. The Time Capsule This could be for a race, or a town or an individual. You open a package from the past and forever, your life is changed. The package arrives at your isolated space base and it tells you two things - the first is that your parent has died, the second is that in their bedside drawer filled with memorabilia there were two sets of booties, one pink, one blue, two birth certificates, obviously two children. But you're an only child. Where is your sibling? Fast forward 500 years and there are two races at war. What if those siblings, separated at birth, were the founders of those races? How would that differ from them being completely different peoples? As you can see, there's no shortage of ideas. I'll be writing futuristic for NaNoWriMo, so this is the kind of thing I'll be doing in October. Do you prep for NaNoWriMo? To NaNoWriMo or not?
Once upon a time I thought the concept of writing 50K in 30 days was nonsense and not something I could ever achieve. Then a really good friend introduced her novel to me in our critiquing sessions. While I was still working week to week for the critique group, she had an entire novel drafted to bring. She was working differently to me and I could see the potential. I tried NaNoWriMo, and now I'm hooked. Now, I'm an outliner - between a plotter and a pantser - I need to know where we are going and then my imagination just takes over. So I tend to spend October in NaNoWriMo prep as recommended by Alexandra Sokoloff but i also throw in some elements from Karen S. Wiesner's First Draft in 30 days. It's not just notebooks either - I wrote a futuristic prohibition society without colour or texture in its fabrics - the photo above is detail from the quilt I made in the October before writing that book. In the novel, the heroine has this quilt and in a pivotal scene, she and the military man sent to bring her in end up horizontal on this quilt. So, do you NaNoWriMo? I'm signed up for an online course on using Tarot for writing inspiration and I wanted to get my first set of Tarot cards.
Look what I found - Steampunk Tarot! The artwork is spectacular and already, after just one lesson I can see they are going to come in really handy. I've always been fascinated by the natural world and the influence it has on humans. Sunday was the Southern Hemisphere's longest night - the Winter Solstice, and yet it isn't that cold here yet. We've had a few grey days though and I'm missing the sunshine. This photo was taken on a walk through Brisbane's Southbank.
Some days, I wish I lived in a world less dependent on instant connectivity and more dependent on taking notice of what's happening outside. Imagine planning your year based on Solstices and Equinoxes, or your month based on the phases of the moon. Or even planning your day based on how many hours of sunlight you have. Most of my futuristic worlds have some element of natural timekeeping or navigation built in, irrespective of their technology. Your day and year length all depend on your position in relation to your sun and the size of your planet. The pattern of stars you see at night depend on your position in the universe. So on another planet, the star signs we know and love, aren't visible. It's on my writing "to do list" to put an Earth Astrologist onto a space ship to a far away planet and watch what happens when she has to try and interpret new constellations. I'd pair her with a scientific type, who didn't believe and see what happened. (Jots notes, puts in project folder...). So many ideas... So Little Time. If I had a signature dish, this slice would be it. I take it to every writing retreat, use it as my birthday cake at work and take it to most family functions. It comes from a 1980's Woman's Weekly Biscuit and Slice Book and its so simple.
Ingredients: 60 g butter 1 tablespoon Golden Syrup 1 cup self-raising flour 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of ginger (and I double this quantity compared to everything else for a gingery taste) 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup coconut 1 egg. Melt the butter and syrup on low heat. Combine sugar, coconut and lightly beaten egg and add this to the sifted flour and ginger. Pour in cooled butter and syrup mix. When combined, bake in a 28cm x 18cm slice pan at 180 degrees Celsius for 20-25mins. When cold, ice with lemon icing and cut into 24. Lemon Icing 1 cup icing sugar 30g butter 2 teaspoons lemon juice 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind 1 teaspoon hot water Mix room temperature butter into the icing sugar. Add lemon juice and rind and mix. Add hot water to get an icing consistency. Ice, and sprinkle with additional coconut. I generally double the quantities for a nice thick slice. The tin (pictured above) is the sole survivor of my biscuit/cake tin collection. It's the only one left because it fits this slice in exactly. What's your favourite recipe? Well, my NaNoWriMo draft is not going to plan. Instead of the start at the beginning, work to the end of last year, this story is revealing itself in bits and pieces from different point of views and my lack of progress is frustrating to say the least. It's a futuristic, involves a family business (which is an interactive show) under siege from an unknown person. The heroine is in the family, the hero is a new hire.
So this morning I've pulled out my trusted Once Upon a Time Storytelling Gard Game and Once Upon a Time Dark Tales Add on and randomly picked eight cards - five storytelling and three dark to help me out. The aim is to take inspiration on the story from the hints on the cards. Here's what I got (they're hard to read in the photo). 1. He lived the rest of his life as a beggar, which was perfectly just. 2. They ate it at the feast and it was delicious. 3. And he was reunited with his family. 4. Haunted. 5. Tiny. 6. (Interrupt) Troublemaker - I interpret this as unexpected troublemaker 7. Enemy 8. (Interrupt) Monster - interpreted as unexpected monster. I find it fascinating that of eight cards picked randomly from a deck that I have trouble fitting my hand round, six fit my story. The two that don't - Tiny and Monster. When I say they don't fit, they don't fit yet. Hopefully my subconscious will get to work over the next eleven days and give me the inspiration to include those elements in my story. Oh, and for anyone following the story of my Alphasmart Dana. Cost of repair $500 approx. Cost of replacement $250 approx (not exactly the same) or I could buy a wireless keypad for my iPad, buy a workprocessing package and use my iPad to write (approx $100). Needless to say, I'm going to be retiring my Dana... One of my ongoing projects each year is to focus on enhancing my creativity outside writing. I'm not naturally a visual person - I don't watch a lot of TV or movies and I never studied art as a student so I'm coming back to visual images later in life. Of course, whenever I want to learn a new skill, I look for a book - I love to read. The local library yielded a book on getting the most out of your photos using an iPhone and I devoured it, but wasn't able to practice everything before I had to take it back. Here is one of this month's photos taken just before sunset while waiting for the moon to break free of the cloud. |
Fiona Greene AuthorWhen you set out on a journey and night falls, that's when you will discover the stars." Archives
November 2022
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