Shadows of Things to Come

While I'm waiting ( not terribly patiently ) for others to do their work preparing True Son for publication or critiquing Book 3: Ransom of Tartarus, I've already started jotting down notes for the second prequel to my Trilogy: namely, Hero of The Gorgonian Wars. I've actually written a "really rough" draft of a couple key scenes.

Although I don't always work in chronological order when I'm writing, I have a template in my head of where each scene fits and what must go before and after it. I find it a lot easier to do this with Books 4 and 5 than it was with Book 1 because most of my characters are already fully developed. I know very well what each of the familiar characters would say and how they'd act or react. New characters, not so much!

Seems as though I'm constantly creating stories or scenes from stories in my head, whether I'm thinking about them or not. Whenever a good idea pops into my head, I try to write it down as soon as possible. Then I let those ideas "marinate" for a time, sometimes for years! Of course, some ideas never pan out or for some reason hit a dead end. I suspect they fail to "connect" with something deep inside me. If they choose not to cooperate with me, I leave them be, see if something develops from them later. Hey, not all my ideas are great ones!

And I never know what's going to spark the next usable idea for a story---could be a piece of music, a song, a poem, a memory, artwork, etc. So I'll keep on scribbling down ideas for future stories, never knowing where they may take me.

All for now,

MRTighe

Sparks!

So what sparked my interest in science fiction? Well, I grew up watching old SF movie serials on TV--Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and the like. I also loved the old SF movies like Forbidden Planet, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and War of the Worlds. ( Not the new ones---the old, good ones! ) For TV shows I watched programs like The Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, Tom Corbett: Space Cadet, and so forth. From those I got into reading SF ( although there wasn't much geared to kids back in those days ) and Fantasy--of which there was a lot more!

From an early age then, I believed in the possibility of space-flight, and it fascinated me. I wanted to travel to the stars, land on other planets, and encounter alien beings---even though we were always being told they were dangerous! When man first landed on the moon, I remember my grandmother telling me, "We used to laugh at all that Buck Rogers stuff. Everyone knew it was impossible to land on the moon!"

If my brain had been wired differently, I might've wound up working for NASA---but instead I was blessed with "creative genes", so all my space adventures take place only in my head.

Hope you all had great holidays,

MRTighe

Recharging My Batteries

Hi, again!

As a writer I find I have to "recharge my batteries" from time to time. So I read books, magazines, etc., watch movies and TV shows, DVDs---anything that will help spark my imagination. But I do have to tread carefully. I don't want to inadvertently "borrow" anyone else's ideas, which can be really difficult. More than one person can come up with the same idea and recognize it as a darn good one!

How many times have you thought up an idea---only to have someone else get there first? It's happened to me on many occasions, unfortunately. I used to kick myself, but such frustration in life seems to be inevitable. Now I try to congratulate my competition---on recognizing the sheer brilliance of my ideas!

All for now,

MRTighe