I encountered the question while reading my latest acquisition of Writers of the Future in the L. Ron Hubbard portion of the book whereby he answers questions sent by readers/fictionists (would-be's and wannabe's) styled ala Letters to the Editor.
The question, more than Hubbard's answer, hit me. No, it floored me. No, even worse, it left me dumbstruck.
Why?
Because I'm quite the guilty one and altogether quite familiar with the aforementioned issue because it is a reason (or unseemingly it seems, an excuse) that I use to explain why up until now the fictionist in me is still fictional.
Sometimes, there really is not much time left to write. What with work piled up and you render more than 12 hours of work a day -- juggle that with the demands of family life and the need for rest and you are left with no time to pursue writing. Other times I admit, it's a convenient excuse and justification for procrastination.
So, to read about the matter from a reprinted letter reply from one of the more influential beings in the speculative fiction field is mind-blowing and has left me even more reflective as I've been thinking about writing and fantasy and sci-fi and comic books and boardgames and spec-fic quite a lot these past few weeks vis-a-vis the realities of family life and the need for sustenance and the bills to pay.
More food for thought here.
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Interesting article on the man behind the words of Barack Obama, president-elect of the US of A. The article is timely as the subject matter on hand in this blog post is about writing. In the case of Jon Favreau, it's speechwriting and his special relationship with the O-dude. Read it here.
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I think a scored a major find last night at Booksale with the purchase of a copy of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, an influential book in the cyberpunk or dystopia circles.This promises to be another adventure as I will delve into a new field -- cyber-punk -- something that I rarely encounter as books as I am more familiar with the genre as depicted on animation, in particular, Japanese anime or in something like ReBoot.
I already finished Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (Haruki Murakami) and now working on two books simultaneously -- the previously-mentioned Writers of the Future, and the second, the classic sword and sorcery epic by Fritz Leiber collected as Lankhmar. So, Snow Crash will have to seat itself somewhere and collect dust for a time until I get around to reading it.
How do I read the two books simultaneously, you ask?
Simple -- by their location. When I'm downstairs, the book available is Writers of the Future which I read when nothing interesting is on the tube or I'm in the throne room. In the bedroom (or upstairs for consistency's sake) it's Lankhmar I read before I go for my 40 winks.
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There's a new writing contest in town and the deadline is January 13, 2009. Egad!!!
It's being sponsored by HAI and the contest is entitled By Moon Alone Fantasy Fiction Contest.
Rules of the contest are quite simple and the price is enticing. Nothing monetary but something enriching, creatively-speaking. All you need to come up with is fantasy prose under 2,001 words and it has to have a character encounter a dragon. It's that simple.
Contest Rules here.
