Writing groups

I have been thinking about the writing groups I belong to. Do they help? Why do I need them? What do they need from me?
The two groups I am most actively involved with are the Auckland branches of RWNZ and SpecFic NZ.
RWNZ is a well established organisation of romance writers, and one which has been the lucky recipient of much wondeful work by vigorous volunteers for over 20 years now. From small beginnings, it is now probably the most effective organisation promoting writing as a profession in NZ. Confined to romance writing, its ranks include a significant percentage of (primarily) women who work full or part time as  authors. They actually earn a living by writing fiction! Their conferences are professionally run, and filled with technical and commercial workshops aimed squarely at helping members to write and then sell their work. I have learned so much from them, though often feel inadequate compared to those who have actually sold. Who have had the magic Call. And even though my own work is now starting to move away from pure romance, I fully intend to keep attending their meetings and conferences. So much of what I have learned through them applies to any commercial fiction. By which I mean fiction that sells. For ultimately the final judge of your work is - will someone pay cold hard cash to read what you have to say? That is the rigor that drives the art, and without which the art is so much less.
My other organisation is SpecFic NZ  - for writers of scifi, fantasy, horror etc. And along with another Auckland writer, I have recently taken on the role of organiser of local face to face meetings. I'm still not too sure how to do that. Not being a naturally sociable person, how to entice and make meetings attractive and meaningful for the other Specfic writers in this, the most diverse of NZ cities? But is it important? My only answer so far is, yes, it is to me. This is a strange, isolated passion we writers of genre fiction share. Making up stories in the privacy of our heads and rooms, then thrusting them out to the glare of public scrutiny. Very scary, very marvellous. And very much needing support and reinforcement from others similarly afflicted. Specfic is a new organisation,barely a couple of years old. Yet already it has a vibrant and active web page  and over 100 members. Who knew there were so many of us? Plus it has become my major source of hints, news and other helpful info concerning spec fic writing, either through the web page, blogs of members or the chat at meetings.
Are these groups important? Yes. Do they help my writing. Depends - on the day, my mood, and how much I am prepared to put into them. Am I going to keep up my involvment. You bet.

More goodies - Carnelians by Catherine Asaro

This is turning out to be a weekend of rare pleasures. I managed to get my hands on a copy of Catherine Asaro's latest book in her Skolian series - "Carnelians". Beg, borrow, buy or steal a copy. It's great. I read it through in just a day and night, and will go back and re-read it. The only drawback of it is that it leaves you wanting so much more, right now.
      Don't  worry, the story does have a proper conclusion. But it's so enjoyable spending time with these characters and you invest so much in them emotionally, that you really need to know what happens next in their lives.
    Guess I'll just have to wait the year or so until she brings out another one - and if she doesn't , that will just be too cruel!  this series has not finished, Ms Asaro - please.

Falling skies

I have finally managed to see the first episode of the new SF series "Falling Skies", which I recorded when it first screened. It's very good, but the best part of it is the opening minutes. For a master class in how to set up a SF/fantasy world in just a few screen shots - watch the first minutes of Ep 1 of "Falling Skies" . Using a child's pictures, the voice over of a teacher, and a few outside action shots of other characters, the entire scenario of this dystopian earth soon after conquest by aliens is set out, with the resultant deaths of most humans and the desperate battle to survive of those left behind.  All this through a traumatised child's pictures and a brief action sequence of resistance fighters. So not only do you get the scenario set out, you are grabbed by the emotional heart of the story right from the beginning.  And that's before they even start rolling the opening credits. Absolutely brilliant.

Pre-New Year resolutions

This is the getting-ready-to-make-a-New-Year-Resolution post. See below for version 1 of this year's batch of promises I make to myself. Or in other words, how to spend time doing anything but editing my current WIP by philosophising over various matters.
    Anyway, current plan for next year is: Finish editing the Gorge Creek book (NZ historical romance). You have to do this Mary, damn it. Get it finished, get it sent off and enter into the RWNZ Clendon comp - then get on to the next project you really want to write.
     Currently this is a SF novel, with a broad climate change theme. There will probably be a romantic element, but it's not the main storyline. I've got a rough outline written - otherwise known as the cursed synopsis.  And both main characters, the general cultural background,  and the main conflict points  sketched out. Very prepared for me.  Usually I just write madly to find out who my characters are and what happens to them. But I need to do a lot of research on climate change and ecology to find out if my broad precept will work.
     OK so that's the writing schedule done. Now to just fit in real life (ie the paid work that feeds and clothes me, and the family that makes it all work) and a couple of uni papers. Yeah, chicken feed. Watch this space for versions x,y, z and so on to the nth degree.

My writing

Since this is a writing blog, it seems only reasonable to add some of my own writing. Poetry is something I rarely attempt - but this one appealed to me. My apologies for those out there who are so much more proficient at this most difficult of writing forms than I am.

Listen to a Waterfall 

I sit silently on the bank

                                    To watch the water fall.

A cascade plummeting down the cliff

                                    And careering into the rocks

Protruding from each pillared

                                    Side and playful ledge.

I watch the light twist and tumble

                                    In a misty turmoil of

Fractured rainbows caught in a

                                    Cloud of watery chaos.

Surging down then swirling

                                    Up as the still heart of the fall

Becomes the roar of the pool

At the base and echoes back to me

In a rage of racked and pummelled

                                    Carnage rich with reverberant life

That drowns the meaningless tears

                                    That drew me here.

Screen writing as help to fiction writing

I finally got my final grade and markers comments for the short script I wrote as the final assignment for the Massey screen writing course I did. I got a pretty good mark for it, but more importantly, the markers comments were a very useful critique, and of the best kind. They said what the marker liked about the script and areas where it could be improved. And given that the marker was  NZ playwrite and professional script writer Stuart Hoar, he does know what he's talking about. Better still, he didn't just say what could work better, but how it could be made to work better. The old bugbear - rack up the conflict.
     He also couldn't understand the function of a particular character. I'd put this person, the protagonist's love interest, into the script as a proxy for how she feels about the bulk of the other characters, but hadn't really  thought about him fully as a person. How he would react to what happens and what are his motivations. In other words, he was just a cipher to me, and that's what came across.  It's amazing what comes through in your writing. If you as writer don't care about a character or don't know why he's there, then why should the reader.
    This course also introduced me to the wealth of screen writing books out there. Screen writing is so commercially focussed, which makes it very self-critical. Your story has to work to make it into production. So books on screen writing have the most brilliant tips and hints for any style of story writing.
    Plus they tend to be written in very easy to read formats. Screen writers are adept at using a minimum of words to put their story across, and this translates into their books on screen writing book techniques.  I've just bought one called "Save the Cat" by Blake Snyder, recommended by Katrina Bliss ( one of NZ's best romance writers).

Rugby over - now back to writing

We won - at least, the All Blacks did, after making an entire nation sit with their hearts in their mouths for rather too much of the final game. so now the Rugby World Cup (or RWC as our acronym mad newspapers keep shortening it to) is over, life can get back to normal.      That's the theory anyway, except that we have currently put the house on the market, so writing is having to take yet another back seat. Or is that just me procrastinating?
      What's happened recently? I finished the script for the screenwriting course I'm taking. A terrific exercise in terms of exploring story creation and how to cut stuff. I managed to get it down to exactly 35 pages - the maximum allowed, and had to concede that most cuts did improve it. But not all. It probably  needed to be about a 50 pg script - in other words, a 1 hr TV drama, rather than a half hour skit.
      It also got me looking at screenwriting books. And discover the terrific information in them. Most particularly, they include brilliant hints and tips to sharpen up the editing of any piece of writing. And writing a script forced me to more clearly visualise the scene I was writing, and to focus only on those details in a scene which work to move the story along.
     Now back to editing my 2nd NZ historical. Then I must get in to the new scifi novel I have preliminary notes for. I think that is going to be my forte - scifi with a romantic element.
      My scifi short stories are currently not getting much success - more rejections this month. Possibly because they are generally quite miserable and dark, emotionally. Maybe I need to vary the emotional tone of them - rescue my poor readers from the depths occasionally.
      But now back to 1862 Otago, New Zealand. And the music of Eric Church, my latest favourite discovery. A US country singer with decidedly un-PC lyrics. Such fun.  Of course, his CD's are not released here - typical. Thank the stars for the internet.