Saturday 5 January 2013

Content to craft?

If ever you grow good enough at something to feel like you've made it, think again. This is the sort of warning I hope you will echo back to me one day when I've reached a higher level of writing. I certainly have no room for complacency.

In fact, I've recently started a job in which I become a trainee, knowing very little, rubbing shoulders with the experts, spending most of my days nodding while others speak pearls of technical wisdom... feeling smaller than I'd like to. And this is at age 47. 

But that's fine. Computer Service Manager - in - training is a good place to be. It is a full-time job, though, so that my writing is reduced to a couple of hours every few evenings. This could discourage me, but I think that work is a great environment in which to gather more story material.


Have you found Randy Ingermanson's Advanced Fiction Writing site yet? It's not hard to find online. One beginner lesson of his that I read reduces the process of writing to this outline of a writer's prime requirements:


  1. Content
  2. Craft
  3. Connections.
At work I can soak up more Content: this is the life-lesson and real-life character material that you pick up by meeting people, doing new things, failing, labouring, making decisions, and so on. You know: real life. Then I aim to keep improving my Craft and Connections in my spare time.

But don't hold your breath waiting for my next book...

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