Lots Of Things, All At Once

I’ve been gone a while. I wonder if anyone noticed…?
I took a little holiday, but it wasn’t to a foreign country to escape from everyday life.
I was getting frustrated with myself and the process I’d locked myself in.
I was doing all the things I normally do eg. gaming, working, getting slightly drunk and listening to music late into the night. I did it to escape from the computer for a bit and, if that means not posting for 10 days, so be it. I posted a few updates (alright, one update) on my Facebook page to let people know I’m still alive, however I’m changing up my post schedule soon. More on that later.

In the meantime, I haven’t been shirking my creative writing. I went exploring! I found a park not far from where I live that I didn’t even know existed. Many hours were spent spread out in the long grass with a notebook and pen, scribbling down lots of great new developments.

I’m trying to develop my writing style. Although I haven’t asked anyone to give me an honest opinion about the way I write, I judge myself to be complicated verging on boring. The reason for this is that I tend to use long, complex sentences with lots of commas, which make perfect sense in my mind but lose a lot of their structure once they become translated into words. Ironically, that sentence is a perfect example.
To try to fix this, I’m trying to use shorter sentences more frequently. Take this link as a good example. Short sentences grab attention. Longer, complex sentences are used for important details, like plot points you’re trying to draw attention to, but are only useful once the reader’s attention has been grabbed. Varying the sentence length helps keep it interesting too.

I’ve developed a system for controlling my rampant nightly inspiration. This has been a real problem for me in the past. Long nights without sleep. Disturbed daily activity. Missed meetings. Studying the conditions under which they happen most has led me to notice some patterns.

1. Listening to music is always involved.
2. It always happens in bed, or a similar state of relaxation.
3. I’ve frequently been drinking beforehand, though not massively.

I’ve started recreating these conditions. On certain nights, when I don’t have to be up too early the next day, I’ll have a drink. I’ll take the iPod to bed with me and listen for an hour or two. The few times I tried this have all been successful. There’s a notepad by my bed now, ready to record the forging of new ideas.

Have I learned the secret to manufacturing my own eureka moments? Quite possibly! Only time will tell.

That being said, the RKDA story has been fleshed out beyond anything I had a week ago. It is more rounded, more mature and more confident in itself, if a story can be confident.

I will make another post this week, tackling a question at the very core of writing: the Pen or the Keyboard?

These words you are now reading, whose are they? Yours or mine? The point of writing is to take charge of the voice in someone else’s head

– AndroidBrotherHood, Imgur

Why don’t you leave a comment here. Yep, right here. I want to know what you think.
Is my writing style too convoluted? You may have to refer to previous posts for a better example.
Have you ever had to change the way you write? If so, how did you do it?
Do you have a particular method for attracting creative thoughts?
Follow me on Facebook! You’ll get regular updates on what I’m working on and when I post on my blog. Linky link!

The RKDA Project

I’m unbelievably nervous. I feel victimised by my nefarious past self, who promises things he knows he doesn’t have to deal with, all the while twirling a dastardly moustache between two fingers, laughing maniacally. Thus is regret.

I promised I would lay bare my main writing project, partly as a challenge to myself, to overcome my usual guarded shyness and partly out of curiosity, to see if any readers take any interest in it. I had intended to post this yesterday but found there was no time to do even half of the things I’d hoped.
Without any further delay, scroll down to read about this project I’ve been talking about for two weeks…

*Disclaimer: although the main plot is fairly fixed in my mind, details are almost certainly going to be rewritten several times over.

PREMISE
It begins with a man. Unconscious, alone, adrift in space. Nowhere near anywhere, no memory of how he came to be there, his fragile bubble of atmosphere and warmth almost depleted.
He awakens aboard a vessel which, through sheer luck, happens to be nearby. The ship’s captain, an enigmatic alien AI, is as perplexed as the man is at how a still-living carbon-based lifeform came to be hurtling through dead space, light years from the nearest habitable planet.
The AI-captain, known as the Custodian, treats the man, named Ranos, with friendly curiosity. It quickly becomes apparent that the ship, named RKDA in the rune-like alien language, is like no ship Ranos (or any human) has ever seen before. Resembling a colossal planet, the outside has been carefully terraformed into a beautiful garden world, teaming with life – while the ship’s inner workings are tucked away deep inside the core.
Although the alien race that RKDA was designed and built for are long dead, the Custodian continues his voyage through the stars, observing the slow march of evolution in the birds, beasts and other beings under his care.
With no way to leave, Ranos settles down on the world-ship. Suffering from loneliness, longing for his past life and all those he used to know, the Custodian offers the man access to the ship’s vast gene banks. He can use his own DNA, combined with that of many other species, to create some human company…

300 years later, humankind is flourishing in this distant corner of the universe. Tens of thousands of men and women forge lives for themselves in the idyllic surroundings of the land they know as Arcadia, building cities, tilling the earth, sailing far across the seas.
Ranos and a few select others are worshipped by the common folk as gods, boasting superhuman strength, knowledge and longevity as the result of their genetic enhancement.
The ship has given control of many of its technological marvels to Ranos which only increases the awe the common folk have for him.
Yet, even with the worship of so many and the marvels of science at his fingertips, Ranos cannot escape mortality. In his waning years, those he once treated as friends and fellow deities scheme to take power for themselves…

Well, there is! I got as much of the important detail in as I could, to ensure this reads as easily as possible.
I’m hoping for as much feedback as possible, even if you have nothing good to say at all, I still want to hear!
Thank you for reading down this far and I really hope you enjoy the attempt at fusing science fiction and ancient-times-fantasy.

Toby

A Link in the Chain

This is an unscheduled post.
I will not lie, Toby has been consuming alcohol. I suppress the urge to explain my actions, like a young man would to his mother. I have a right to do as I wish. If it pleases you, dear reader, you may consider this an experiment in inebriation, the quality of writing it produces, the effect epic music has upon the drunken mind and an examination of the inspiration created therein.

For those that know me and my post style, this will be  throwing all the typical styles out of the open window into the balmy night. It’s a raw, gritty account of a night where all rules are revoked.
Let me give some hint as to what’s going on. Currently in England, it is night time. It is past midnight. It is the hidden kingdom of the night, governed by silence and cats.

As well as drinking, I have been talking to a fellow writer (words hold a calmness and a stoicism like stone. I am not calm as my hands shaking on the keyboard can attest to that) and I feel as if I have  bonded with this person. It turns out that we both enjoy science fiction and, though I have large stockpiles of motivation, he has not been so lucky. My projects are coming on leaps and bounds, yet his have been abandoned after large tracts of time (and space).

My motivation is largely formed from these bonds. When I first decided to start this blog and begin writing the ideas that had been boiling over in my mind for almost a year, it was all because of the presence of one person. That person drew out my confidence and allowed me to reflect ideas off her. She was the first link in the chain. Tonight’s muse was my second link.

I am, pardon the slang, buzzing. I can’t keep my hands still. I’m rewriting sentences several times over because my usually impeccable spelling is so shaky. I’ve had the inspirational music playing almost all night. My body is brimming, not with ideas that need to be written down, but pure motivational force. I feel that I can simply focus my mind against an obstacle and it will fracture and disintegrate within seconds. I’ve become possessed of a sort of mania, attempting to vent this energy into any and all ventures. Unfortunate friends on certain social media sites have been bombarded with what I can only assume is Toby’s aggressive motive forces.
I can feel the time ticking by, minute by minute. I am acutely aware of the fact that I have to be awake and aware in less than 6 hours, yet I cannot care, I must vent. Minutes have passed like full hours since I sat at the computer tonight and I have enjoyed every moment

Although I have difficulty (due to certain physiological conditions) in becoming fully inebriated, I can suddenly understand the attraction many writers (and artists in general) have in it. I’ve never been one to take the stresses of daily life seriously, yet there is an unprecedented release, a kind of freedom to this state, as if the world could end right now and I’d be the first to stand at my window, admiring the once-in-a-lifetime view the burning horizon would offer as a global firestorm consumed us all.

As I sip the last of my whiskey, I plan on finishing this post. To end with, I have the following thoughts;
Don’t judge me too harshly, I was blindly exploring the hedonistic pleasures the world has to offer.
Don’t care too much about how others perceive you. I sure as hell won’t. 🙂
Don’t stop your music until you’ve found that perfect song to frame your mood. As you turn the computer off, you’ll smile at the parallels it throws on everything you’ve been thinking about. Drift off to sleep with the final chords echoing in your mind, your brainwaves fading to silence with the final note, a fire dying.

Toby

Your dreams are the kindling to start the great fire of tomorrow…

Music: the Language of Inspiration

Today is the start of a new week, a week that I hope to be expanding my progress into. I’ve wanted to talk about music since the very start of this blog, as it is a major influence on my writing and my ideas, yet it hasn’t felt like the right time to broach the subject. I’ve felt like I didn’t have the right to speak of my music, like I didn’t know it well enough, until today.

Today, I started constructing a playlist for my main project. It’s a dangerous task for productivity. It’s like I’m testing how fast the water is flowing by throwing myself into the deepest part. I’m in danger of finding a song that perfectly describes a scene that’s been pestering me for ages and getting washed away in it’s imagery. Two hours will pass and not a word will be written.

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent”
― Victor Hugo

I like music that tells a story. As I grew up, I tended towards progressive rock, progressive metal and power metal genres and these have been an unexpected benefit in the creative process. Bands like Rush and Dream Theater that aren’t afraid to venture into the realm of fantasy in their songs, to Finnish power metal band Stratovarius whose music is almost entirely fantasy and sci-fi themed.

Another of my muses are soundtracks from some of my favourite films and games. I took my iPod with me to bed a few nights ago and had a good hour of relaxing with some of my favourite music.
Could I sleep afterwards? No. I can tell you exactly which song was the culprit.
It was ‘The White Tree’ from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack. Give it a listen. Go on, I’ll wait. 🙂
I had to get out of bed at 3am and start typing up ideas. Only then could I sleep. Music like this is a possessive, driving sort of force.

I wish I could talk more on the subject of music, I feel I’ve barely scratched the surface of what it can do for the creative process. I’d love to hear whether anyone likes the same sort of thing as me, or would like to introduce me to their own favourite inspirational music.
Either way, drop a comment!
I shall leave you with a Tolkien poem, since listening to The White Tree no less than 4 times whilst writing this has put me in a Lord of the Rings mood.
Toby

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Happy 10th Birthday, Toby!

Seems a bit pointless to be celebrating just 10 days of this blog’s existence but I feel I deserve it. If you don’t celebrate the small victories, how will you know how or when to celebrate the big ones?

This is only going to be a short post. I’m thinking of reducing how often I post to every other day. The reason for this is that I’m struggling to think of new and engaging ideas for blog posts every day. I could just talk about the everyday happenings of Toby but I can’t imagine how I can do this for months and months and be able to read each post I make and think “Yeah, that had a really good amount of deliberate thought go into it.”
On top of that, I’ve stepped up my writing so that it takes up a load more effort than I originally foresaw.

This is not admitting defeat. This is me simply saying “My original pace was great but has grown to be unrealistic”
It will still keep me accountable and I will still be posting very frequently.

Pace slowing. Steam escaping. Motivation… still there, just hiding for tonight.
I leave you all, dear reader(s) with a quote I’ve become quite attached to recently

“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”

–Khalil Gibran

 

 

Like a Bolt from the Blue

That phrase is a strange one, no?
It’s actually an old archery term, meaning that when a hail of arrows is heading your way, the one that’s going to hit you is the one you can’t see.
Hooray for facts!

This post is about inspiration. How do you get your ideas for the things you make? This is not just about writing. If you enjoy building something with your hands, or painting, or whatever.
Do you make it up as you go along?
Do you plan meticulously?
Do you wait and wait and then, one day, it just comes to you, all at once?

I’ve had each of these things happen to me. The latter had the most impact, I was trying to sleep at the time. In the daydreamy state before sleep proper sets in, I had a brainstorm for an entire series of books worth of ideas. It didn’t stop, either. It kept going and going until it was 4:30 am and I only fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.
The same thing happened the next night. And the next.
It was such a rush, imagining a distant future when other people could read what I was currently experiencing.

I enjoy looking at landscapes for inspiration. Listening to what I deem to be pretty epic music. Daydreaming when I should be doing something more productive. 😛

“Everything you can imagine is real.”
― Pablo Picasso

What do you do to attract inspiration?
Let me know by leaving a comment!