Monday's Food for Thought

So this 2012 apocalypse talk isn't just about the whole Mayan countdown thing. There's scientific projection that we (as a planet) are going to be passing through solar flares next year. What will this do? Well, some speculate that it will interfere with our radio waves and electricity. It's happened before, but perhaps this time the fear is that it will occur on a grand scale.

So of course, that got me thinking. WHAT IF the solar flares wiped out all of Earth's electrical... everything? Technology. Computers. Radios. Internet. There are plenty of dystopian books written about things like this... but really. What if it actually happened?

You wouldn't have any idea that the rest of the country was experiencing such difficulties, let alone the rest of the planet. World politicians wouldn't be able to contact each other to find out what was going on. No one would be able to drive very far before petrol ran out.

How would you react to something on such a grand scale? Would you be afraid? Would you mount a horse and gallop across the country to bring news to other people? How do you think the government would react? Would there ever be order?

And if we were never able to recover technology, do you think the world/humanity/individuals would be better off, or die out? Do you like the idea of this new world, like a modern middle ages?

Just a little something for your Monday mind to munch on...

ETA: A very interesting view on dystopian world-building taking trade, distribution of wealth, and feasibility into account can be found here.

Restarting After a Break

My aim for my summer WiP was to write one thousand words a day, not much less, not much more, either. (It helps keep the flow if you stop before you write yourself dry. That way you always know what you're going to write tomorrow, and the ideas can fester while you're doing other things, like work and all that jazz.)

However something horrific happened on Tuesday, and because of that I didn't get back into Scrivener until today.

Coming back to a first draft after a break can be HARD. It feels like every sentence, every turn of phrase, is a struggle, and you're constantly checking the word count to see if you can stop yet. It happened to me just a few hours ago.

The best thing to do in this instance is to Keep Moving Forward. With capitals. It DOES NOT MATTER how bad the writing is. If you have to type out the worst, most boring dialogue/description/action known to humankind, then do so. It can be fixed later.

I'll preach it again.

It can be fixed later.

The important thing is to keep at it. And you know what? Eventually the words will flow, and they'll come just as easy as Shiny New First Draft words are supposed to. It happened to me. It can happen to you.

Guys, slog through it. Visualise the end product. You can get there, I promise. All you have to do is...

Summer Writing (Yes, it's summer here in Australia)

After days of agonising and stressing over something to write these holidays (too many plot ideas combined with no real passion for anything), I've finally come up with a new project. Scrivener has been downloaded, a few notes have been tacked onto the corkboard, and some thousand words of story have been written.

This time, I'm working on a middle grade boy's fantasy. Here's hoping agents are still asking for it by the time I get around to querying!

A New Project

As the school year draws to a close and students and teachers alike can taste summer holidays in the hot desert air, my brain is juggling several potential new novel ideas.

I didn't participate in NaNo (congrats to those who did!), because my NaNo month seems to be in January, when I can laze about at home with the air conditioner chugging away.

But WHAT TO WRITE? A shiny new idea is what my mind and fingers need. I have a list of plenty of premises, except nothing's calling to me in that way I'm sure you all know well. It has to have a head-turning concept and hook, as I've realised over the past few months. I've entered too many contests and seen too many amazing ideas to be kidding myself about that now.

I'm also going to download a trial version of Scrivener to see what all the fuss is about. Whatever my new project is, it'll be part of my pioneer effort on a confangled new software.

So. What is everyone else working on during December/January? Anyone thinking of starting a new project?