you know me too much to know me; or not at all

‘Do you think I am trying to make people accept me? No, God is the One I am trying to please. Am I trying to please people? If I still wanted to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ’

Galatians 1:10

I entered 2 writing contests this week. One is over at Novel Novice, to win a copy of Cassandra Clare’s new book. I have her Mortal Instruments series & they’re amazing. You just sit down and get lost in them. The other wasn’t really a contest if I’m honest. I’m reading Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’, which is quite possibly one of the best things I’ve ever read. Halfway through he gives a brilliant writing exercise that got me thinking. He subverts it & then asks the reader to write it, then email it to him at his website. So that’s what I’m going to do. He may or may not answer it, if he does I can promise there’ll be at least one moment of fangirling, but I’m really enjoying entering these different contests and writing as much as possible.

The contest over at NN asks you to write a steampunk short. I had no idea what the genre was but I thought it had a very cool sounding name. Wikipedia, who is responsible for most of my university work, gave me a definition and that was it, I was hooked. Steampunk is taken from the 1800’s or thereabouts, the age of steam. It asks you to either write from that era alone, or write from that era but subvert the technology. I’d subvert myself given half the chance so I thought – awesome! I started writing the short by accident. I had a tutorial where the tutor insisted we watch a video that made me want to emigrate, then proceeded to inform us we should all buy a socialist newspaper. Halfway through I realised if I didn’t occupy my hands I was apt to stab the woman in the eye with a pen. So I took out my notebook and started writing.

The result was Tick Tock, my steampunk short. I thought, while ignoring political anathema hurling its way against slothful students’ ears, that it would be a romance. Um, no. A little old man came into view, shuffling about. He’d spent 10 years on a great invention made of steam. A clockwork, steam powered man. A knock-off robot if you want. A shady character bent on stealing said robot entered and what followed was a neat little story I’m quite proud of. It ended in a murder, which left me wondering why violence shades all my work. Perhaps my muse is psychopathic. You can find Tick Tock attached to the bottom of this post, or on the right hand sidebar. Steampunk is most definetly my kind of genre and something I can see myself working in, in future.

The Stephen King short is a basic plot outlined in his text, which funnily enough, also involves a murder (see? It’s not just me). I’m still thinking about it, waiting for the characters to settle themselves in my mind – my writing is primarily character driven rather than plot driven. But I’m excited about that too. The male figure is pretty much already down and it’ll be interesting to write. Of course if King does reply and assuming it’s not – please stop clogging my inbox before I set the cops on you – then I probably won’t shut up for a long time.

I try to make time each day to spend with God, in prayer, reading my Bible. Tonight I was reading Galatians, which is amazing in itself. The above quote hit me right between the eyes and made me take another look at how I lived my life, about how and who I wrote for. But while I’m reading I kept thinking about Unction, then shaking my head and going back to the Bible. Surely it’s sacrilegious to drift off like that? Anyway, I was thinking about my two protagonists & where they were going. In true sledgehammer out of the blue moments style, another character appeared. He brought with him an entire plot. And I mean an entire one. Unction & Guardians was developing into a series anyway, but this bolt just explained the entire thing to me. It brought a whole other mythology I hadn’t planned on adding and I can’t wait to see how things unfold. Although I do feel I should apologise to God, because it wasn’t exactly the best time to get the muse sticking his head up.

I wonder if anyone ever heard from their muse at a funeral? Or halfway through a court case? Or any other inappropriate places?

& you’ll be happy to know the extended synopsis resolved itself. I’d say I can’t wait to write that either but there’s far too much excitement in this post already. It puts me in mind of a manic pup.