Taking My Own Advice

TAKING MY OWN ADVICE Last Thursday was the final session in the summertime time period for my persevering with education class Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction at Bellevue College here in suburban Seattle (and now’s the time to register for the fall term!). I had a good time teaching this class and skim some wonderful work by a group of sensible, creative authors. The whole course of actually energized meâ€"much more that I’d hoped it will. At the same time, I’ve been getting very busy with work. I’ve taken on some new purchasers and a few massive new projects with my consulting business, had a busy summer season getting my daughter off to college and all the financial stuff that goes along with that, etc., and so on. etc. . . . the busy life of a busy professional and father of two. Unfortunately, what’s had to take a backseat during the previous few months has been my own writing. And that’s not okay, but then as I wrote about last week, it’s higher to be too busy than not busy suffici ent, and I’m doing work I actually take pleasure in across a very broad spectrum of projects, however still. I need to get writing again. I even have a pair short story tasks I’ve been pushing aside. I need to get on those, even if it seems as though considered one of them, for a deliberate new pulp anthology, seems to have sort of drifted away. I want to touch base with the editor and make sure that’s nonetheless a going concern. But I need a bigger project, too, a brand new novel, and I had the Big Idea, which I’ve written about right hereâ€"it was my unsuccessful NaNoWriMo project from last 12 monthsâ€"and I love that concept and will write it, but then . . . There it came, from the Outer Darkness, from the Wellspring of Creativity, from the tortured musings of a brain slogging via a certain part of an otherwise fun project that required a certain amount of repetitious work . . . The New Idea. No idea feels higher than the New Idea, and although I hope I’ve matured enou gh as a artistic professional to acknowledge that new does not always equal better, on this case, the New Idea is one thing I wish to get to work on. Right now. It’s a swell concept. But how do I get to work on it? Well, I did just end teaching a category on exactly that topic, based mostly on a book I wrote on, sure, you guessed it: precisely that subject. Secrets Revealed! That being the case, I’m going to start by taking my own recommendation. The plan: Start at the beginning of my own guide and work the method of creating compelling characters, constructing an attention-grabbing world, and so on. But why stop there? After all, I’ve also suggested aspiring authors to hunt out advice and inspiration from a number of channels. I’ll return through Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel, for instance. And I’ll begin researching: reading up on sure topics to lend the guide an air of credibility. I’m going backwards and forwards on whether or not I ought to share that process right here. It’s not paranoia, actually. It’s not that I think the New Idea is so awesome y’all are going to set your own New Ideas apart and steal mine. But despite all my writing here and in the e-book, and speaking at conventions, and this class I’m educating, there’s still a part of me that sees that side of it, no less than, as personal, particular . . . secret. Right now the New Idea is mine and mine alone. But then what’s the point of all this if I can’t present a real-life instance of How I Do It? I don’t know, what do you assume I should do? â€"Philip Athans PS: Join me this weekend right here in Seattle at PAX Primeâ€"just in case you missed that hyperlink! About Philip Athans I suppose you must write about it. PR, man!