Simplicity and Focus
Written: 3 pagesRead: 1. 4 chapters of Page After Page
2. 2 chapters of Time's Eye
3. 3 chapters of Sword Sword (a crit partner's work)
2 Things I'm endeavoring to accomplish in my writing life.
Even though I've had no or little sleep for 3 nights - thanks to dogs that are afraid of thunder and power outages and coyotes attacking our sheep and fowl - I actually accomplished 3 pages of writing today. Nothing overally wonderful but the skeleton is there.
I bought myself a present of sorts: Page After Page by Heather Sellers. The subtitle is: Discover the confidence & passion you need to start writing & keep writing (no matter what). I'm enjoying reading the book - there's something very gentle and soothing about her writing and how she discusses the struggles to fight the insidious DOUBT of writers. Something I have a chronic case of.
Her advice is practical (butt in seat is what its all about), her sympathies real (she’s suffered from the same inner conflicts and self-doubt that I do -- the key reason I picked this book up), and her attitude right on: writing is a love affair onto which we struggle, romance, hate and love ourselves.
I've been having difficulty focusing as of late - amazing what a little extreme fatigue will do - and so I haven't been much into reading. I absolutely HATE Clarke/Baxter's Time's Eye - and I should have known better than to put anything Baxter is involved in on my contract list. Afterall, I hated what he did to the Foundation series. Actually, I don't care for any of the B's - Binford, Baxter, Bear - all too cold and unpersonal. Too droll. There's no heroic journey, no delving into the deeper darkness of the id, just some fantastic science - wonderous as always, but you know what? I'm not a gasket, or a widget. I'm not an alien or a meteor. I'm a person - I want to be a better person. I NEED to experience, again and again, journeys through the process of humanity if I'm going to achieve my goals.I don't want to be a better widget.
Al at SHU turned me on to a semester long World Building course: http://curriculum.calstatela.edu/course
Incredible - a semester long course in building worlds - the astronomy, biology, ecology. All the scientific aspects of creating a strange new world.
Very tempting. It's a 5 credit course and costs $625. Happens January to end of March and I am seriously considering taking it. Science is my weakest link and once I'm done with Critical Past, the next book I have in mind is very other worldly and would very much benefit from taking this course.
More to come.
2 Comments:
I tried to get the link to come up and I just get a page with the basics, but no prices or further info. I don't think you need this course and it's WAY too expensive, IMO. I'm sending you a few books to flip through. The information is all available for much less than that, but you have to sift through to find what you need.
Yeah - I decided NOT to take the course. The materials are all available for free, as you say. :-)
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