Wednesday
Warren Ellis is one of those writers who is quite happy to share the inner workings of his creative process and throw it out there to inform and inspire other creative people; I have seen several websites and ideas which owe their original genus and impetus to something which he posted in his community or on his website. I myself have been part of a couple of projects that started from suggestions made by Mr Ellis. We need more people who are willing to do this – who are not only interested in the creative life of themselves but want to help spur on and start up movements and ideas that give inspiration to others. This morning there was a post about Boiling Spacetime and if that doesn’t get the old mental machinery firing up then there has to be something wrong with you. Time does work differently in narratives, and the effects one can use are multifarious.
There have been a number of different mediums which I have found inspiring and wanted to try and replicate in written form. Kerouac gave me jazz as a template. Jeff Noon gave me music and remixes to play with. Ellis and Morrison gave me the fluidity of comics. Silent movies kick it through my thoughtspace sometimes as I write. The thumbnail sketch sometimes inspires me. Gestalt theory. All of these things are grist to the mill. There is never a shortage of inspiration.
I have been kicking at the unconscious bodies of some of my sleeping stories this week and getting them moving, and the different demands of the different kinds of stories get me flexing muscles that I don’t normally work out. It is fun to pick a different suit and wear it and mock up something totally alien to yourself and play that out in a universe of your own creation. I am never bored – bored people just need to find more to do.
I have some books to edit, but I sometimes find it hard to disengage from the act of writing long enough to do that. Still, it is something I must do, and having that product to share with you, the readers is something very worthwhile.
Intoviews will kick into gear again very soon – I have a whole bunch of exciting interviews ready to go up; I just have to sit down and plug them in. watch this space for news of other sites I am working on.
