Reflection Point 11/12

So, one year ends and another begins. A pragmatist might say it's just the changing of a digit on the calendar, or time to buy a new one I guess, but for the rest of us it is a good time to reflect and to plan - and in planning to hope.

This has been a good year for me, bought a townhouse with my wife - first calendar year of marriage too - started this website; met Neil Gaiman, Kevin Anderson and Marianne de Pierres; saw Muse, Amanda Palmer and Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen; discovered some great music and read some good books. Work was fine too, got to do some more writing there too which may not be my type of thing but it's experience and money. There were downsides too of course but I won't go into them here.

What this blog is really about is the position I'm in for the New Year. Managed to finish a rough draft of Prometheus Rebooted with hours to spare before 2011 bid farewell, which was a goal and gives me something to polish and try to bring to fruition later. It also frees me up to work on other first drafts.

Other plans for the year are to do Harlan 101 as a sort of writing course and to read 50 plays. What does that mean I don't actually here you ask but imagine you might think, well let me explain - it's not that much so I won't just sum up. Harlan 101 is a book of short stories and essays written by Harlan Ellison. I heard about it through Neil Gaiman who wrote the introduction; he reckons anyone who wants to be a writer should read it, so I bought it. From the introduction it seems Neil learnt some of his craft from Ellison and found a lot of inspiration in his stories too. So I'm going through the book and making notes and thinking about things. I've read the first two stories and yes, I think I'll learn stuff from this book and enjoy reading it as well - so if you want a good read look for some Ellison.

The 50 plays idea is similar in a way. The real aim is to read a play a week; I'm just allowing myself a couple of weeks leniency. I won't just read them either, I'll read them, then make some notes for myself - see what they do and how they work. It's based on what Timothy Daly, who taught me playwrighting in uni, said, that we should read a play a week and not just for the course but in general. It will help with experience, motivation, inspiration and general craft knowledge.

Before I go I'll just quickly tell you about an evening with Neil Gaiman - I know, I know, I keep mentioning him but he keeps popping up in my life, blame Twitter. Anyway, he did a show in Sydney which I went to with Samara and we had a ball. It opened with Fourplay, the string quartet, who played mostly original works but also their version of the Doctor Who theme and Rage Against the Machine's Killing in the Name of, which were brilliant. The viola played the vocals for the last one and it was hilarious hearing a classical stringed instrument swear.

Neil read a number of stories some of which I'd read before in Fragile Things and others which were new - one was new to everyone there, he wrote it as a Christmas gift for his youngest daughter and the only copy he had to read from was the email he'd sent it in. That one was creepy and funny, so were several others; he's very good at making you laugh one second then freaking you out the next. The stories worked so well aloud, and his sheer enthusiasm and joy in telling them was infectious and inspiring. If I do mention him a lot it's not a bad thing, he's a good role model and influence for one such as me - or anyone really.

Let me wish you a happy New Year full of fun, frivolity, creativity and dreams. Especially the latter; remember the philosophers of Led Zeppelin's words - “Dream until your dreams come true.”