I’ve had people tell me for years now that I should write fiction. What they didn’t know is that secretly I have been, albeit casually until now. After tackling non-fiction with my wordsmith efforts for the last decade or two I’m finally dusting off a particularly long-thought manuscript idea for the unruly beast that is simple storytelling.
Oddly, I don’t read a lot myself. At least not mass-market fiction. Cookbooks, DIY, and technical manuals galore sure but my recreational reading time is usually spent in the traditionally narrower and much maligned escapism circles of sci-fi, fantasy, and dimension folding in general. I grew up on a steady whimsical diet of Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and Tom Robbins. Any fellow word nerds out there can use them in a somewhat futile attempt to peg me into a genre hole but it’s telling literary company that should give most anyone else reason to question whether I was dropped on my head in a bookstore as a child. Toss in a pile of the usual strange kid media like Tolkien, Red Dwarf, Roald Dahl, Doctor Who, C.S. Lewis, Hunter S. Thompson, and most anything with the word ‘Star’ in the title and you’ve got my self-inflicted and seriously disjointed genre in a nutshell.
So following the old wisdom of ‘write what you know’, that’s the path this manuscript takes. Namely right down the middle of my people, the geeks. I’ve learned from years of living amongst them that they’ve got a keen eye for words, appreciate a good dose of self-deprecating humour, and are loyal followers to the core. I love that about my tribe. I also love the fact that they’ll debate whether warp drive is really possible for hours on end right after waxing rhapsodic about the metallic Princess Leia bikini. These really are my people.
I’ve got a female protagonist and a hopefully memorable collection of supporting characters trotting through a plot that’s been playing on the inside of my head for more than a decade. It’s almost like I’ve already seen the movie to be honest. Sitting at five hundred pages on the screen behind this one it’s in first edit stage so hopefully I can get it ‘author finished’ by fall. Then of course the real editors hack at it for a while but hopefully that process isn’t longer than in my past book efforts. If you’re of a mind to look at the first blurb, you can sneak a peek at the book site here. Just remember that it’s really early days. Everything is in mock-up stage and even the title isn’t finalized. Of course the book cover is a horrible placeholder at this point too but still, you’ll get the idea. Tell all your geek friends!
p.s. My favourite quote about writing comes from the late great Douglas Adams who famously said about his own word wrangling and his long suffering publishers;
“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly past your head.”
– Douglas Adams
You’ve been warned.
