A second placeholder (a little older than the last)

It’s been almost a year, and I confess, I haven’t visited my own website or blog in nearly 6 months… 

I realised last October, that unless I got back to writing, that would be it for me. The truth is, my day-job as “father,” “husband,” and “disability-do-gooder,” takes up 95% of my life right now. 

The writing really has taken a back seat and has been sacrificed whenever the day-job takes up 100% of my time. In recent months, I’ve clawed that back, ring-fenced it, but if I were to return to blogging, tweeting, Link’ding etc, it would come out of those 8 hours a week I put aside to write. So, that means the end of this blog, for a while at least, until I get one of these dozen projects finished and published. 

So then, this is an eternal placeholder, for those who have either:

1.    Strayed to this blog by mistake– this is the wrong “Matt Curran”, the basketball Matt is somewhere else; or

2.    You’re looking for news on my next release. Well, the news is that I’m writing again so hopefully in the next 18 months I can say I’m back as self-employed…

In the meantime, The Secret War is still available to buy as an ebook on Amazon (click here for UK, or here for US), and the other books are available too (click here for details on the website); or

3.    You want some writing advice… Well, I can’t give real-time advice these days as I won’t be visiting this “dusty blog-shack” on the shores of writing-social media for a while (and hell, it’s one big ocean these days). But what I can offer are 3 tips that have got me through writing so far, and probably for the foreseeable future too…

Matt’s 3 bits of writing advice:

·     Write from what you’re interested in– and ignore the mantra “write from what you know”, which was probably created with good intentions, but like Chinese Whispers, or a fable retold too many times, it’s become something else entirely. It’s become the shackles of good writing, and completely misunderstood, (and perhaps out of touch with modern writing, in a world where we can experience so much.)

For example, I know a lot about politics – it’s my job. But I won’t ever write a book about it. I mean, really? It’s dull. And while I’m old enough to have felt a vast range of emotions, does that mean young writers should only write about their limited emotional experiences? Can they not write about what it means to lose someone? Or have their hearts broken? I wrote about that very thing when I was 17 years old, ironically months before I had my heart broken, and my imagination was pretty close to the real deal. 

I know, if I’d followed that mantra “of write from what you know” from the beginning (when I knew precious little), I would never have become a writer. Not in a million years. The mantra is a fallacy and the antithesis of the imaginary muscle we all have inside ourselves. It is often spouted as the most truthful maxim about writing, from once-were/or would-be writers who have lost touch with the craft, if we’re honest. Good writing is so much more than that – and is far more complex to describe, than distilling it into five, banal words.

What good writing boils down to, is the freedom to mix the imagination with experiences. For example, most SF writers have never been into space, but they can imagine it. Sure, they’ve done their homework about zero-G and rocket propulsion, but that doesn’t make a good story. They have longed to go into space, and their imagination has propelled them there. They didn’t need to be on a NASA program to write about it. They worked their imagination hard, as they would as children. And if you wanna know how to use your imagination, just watch your kids, or you nieces and nephews play, how they can see things you can’t, as vividly as these words on your screen. And then teach yourself to grow back something that many of us discarded in our teens.

Because the imagination is everything. Without it, we don’t fly, we don’t cry, we don’t even wanna die. But our prose will. It will be as lifeless as something unearthed after a thousand years – perhaps something that has curiosity value at best.

Now if you need to, research stuff you don’t know that well. Because knowledge shouldn’t stop you from writing about a subject. And if you get bits wrong, then you get it wrong. I’ve read stuff from so called experts that get things wrong all day long, so don’t let it stop you.

And if you feel uneasy ditching that mantra completely, then think of “write from what you know” as “get out there, and experience life, for godsake!” Writers can shut themselves away from the world they want to portray to the detriment of their writing. 

Having a life ensures you can put something relevant on the page. There are plenty of distractions out there – more so now we have the internet – that makes you think you have a life, when in reality, it sucks the marrow from your bones! So, writers beware of the following bad practices…

·     Writing forums or writing blogs can be good, but can be bad too. A good blog or forum is the place where people encourage you when you doubt your abilities; that can give you a sense of direction, or offer those write-saving tricks that mean the difference between explosive and dull prose. But above all, a good community forum provides you with the company of like-minded people in a hobby/career that relies on solitude. 

And yet a bad blog or forum is the anathema of all that, with mods who are hypocritical, owners who have agendas, and bitter, snarky members who are probably suffering from writers block for the last few years, and wish the same on others. 

If you’re going to head for any online forum, (and even some local face to face ones), or engage with blogs, make sure you see the signs of what is good and what is bad, and leave the bad well alone as you would a dog with rabies. 

Above all, follow this cardinal rule: you owe nothing to writers’ social media – they owe you everything. 

Without members, their mods cease to have a platform to pontificate and their blog-owners cease to have a cash-cow. So allow yourself to cancel your membership or block their sites if you need to. 

Because, if you don’t, well, I’m sure there are a fair few writers who’s confidence has been irreparably damaged by cliques and self-promoting semi-pros who believe they’re the internet’s-gift to writing. 

And that is my Writer, Beware, folks. And from experience too: I dodged the literary bullet a couple of years back when I left one of the biggest writing on-line forums at the time. It was the best move I ever made, and one I should’ve done earlier. If I’d only listen to several writing friends before, it would’ve saved me plenty of wasted time… and that leads me to the next point nicely…!

·     Don’t fall into the trap of just talking about writing– if online forums and speaking to other writers has taught me one thing, is that writers love to talk about writing, and sometimes enjoy it more than the writing itself. But if you’re only talking about writing, what are you? A dreamer, perhaps. But not a writer. We call out ourselves by the things we do. I could dream about being a singer, or an actor, but I am neither, because I don’t do it (other than the odd tune in the shower). 

But I do write, and that’s why this placeholder is here, because while you are reading this, I’m not writing about writing, I’m probably sat at my desk trying to finish the projects that have grown around me during my 2 year absence from the craft.

Sure, you can make money out of talking about writing, but most of those who do – those who pontificate on the internet, or publish book after book – haven’t really got the impressive publishing credentials that you would respect if it came down to it. Stephen King is perhaps the one writer – regardless of your thoughts about his writing – that regularly deserves the recognition. He gives his advice freely, generously, and – well, shit – he’s made it. He’s achieved what most writers can only imagine.

The rest of us? Well, if you’re navel-gazing or just talking about the craft, you can just keep on dreaming of success, whatever you deem that to be. You’ll never reach it.

You gotta get out there and write.

Just write.

Laterz

Taterz x

-->

MFWC

New focus... New Writing...

Call this a place holder...

Since the last blog entry here, there have been plenty of changes in my life, my writing amongst them.
It's true, I don't write so much now. I definitely don't blog so much either and I've neglected Twitter and closed my Facebook account. A few weeks back I began a social media purge, because honestly, we could all live without Facebook folks. And Twitter too really.

In fact, we could live without blogs, but... I'm not gonna cut my ties.

Without wishing to close this last thread of MFWC social media (there's plenty to be proud of in here) I'm instead changing it's direction to correlate with the transformation of my life.

It's no secret the writing has taken a professional sabbatical. It doesn't pay enough to keep it a priority. You'll be hard-pressed to find a writer who started out professionally in the last 15 years who will say otherwise. (Amazon is the haunt of all those published authors who found a modicum of success only to be self-publishing to keep aspirations afloat - tell me if I'm lying!)
You see, publishing isn't what it used to be. But writing is, and always will be. It's the purest's retreat, the reason most of us do that thing that we do.
We do it for kicks.

So my aspiration is to keep writing.
The day-job keeps me solvent, and my kids keep me busy.
But that doesn't mean I'll be neglecting readers.

On this here Apple Mac are around a dozen unfinished books (including 1 drafted Secret War book, and 2 that I've started). There's a shit-load of story that needs polishing, and while that might seem Herculean enough, I'll be posting the occasional short story here on this blog in the mean-time.
As well as going back to blogging.

And then there's my 'other distraction.' 

For the last 2 years, my eldest has been drawing me back into imaginative gaming. Into worlds of epic confrontations set in alternative victorian times, or fantastic realms. I have spent hours playing over vast oceans or volcanic wastelands. I've spent weeks painting steam powered dreadnoughts, ghastly spirit hosts and daemonic abominations.

Gaming will have its place here too, in the Realm of Muskets and Monsters, because really isn't that why we're here? To have our imaginations fuelled by adventure and the supernatural, no matter if they come from the page, the screen, or the tabletop?

I promise not to disappoint...

When your best advice is your worst



Francisco de Goya y Lucientes - Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos

"Like a dormant virus, an unwelcome relative, or the annual tax-bill, 'depression and the writer' is a subject that has reoccured over the last few years with uncomfortable regularity."

In the 'Other job', I’ve given advice to aspiring writers who are suffering with disability and/or mental illness. It didn't take me long to discover the primary barrier to creativity is motivation, the reason to sit down and write when all they can see is the reasons not to. That’s not so unusual, as when afflicted with ill-health, you will usually identify what you cannot do before what you can. Why would writing be any different?

Writer’s Block is a term I don’t encourage because it implies writers alone suffer creative malaise. I believe a person can have inspirational block, creative constipation or can feel the colour draining out of every endeavour, and I guess that’s not too dissimilar to depression if you speak to your local psychologist. True, a writer can feel a lack of confidence in their abilities, might feel each word is poorly connected to the last, when comparing themselves to their peers. But so does the footballer that cannot get into the first team. The corner-shop owner that cannot keep up with the local Tescos. The keen gardener whose plants keep dying while their neighbour’s flourish.

The term Writer’s Block feels like part of the problem, really. A self-diagnosis without looking at what is really going on. A matter to be had between the person and the local GP, or someone who is a good listener.

But regardless of however you define the problem, my solution has been, as with depression and its kin, to work the mind through it. In the case of writing, just keep plugging away, and look for the reason for the problem rather than a reaction to what is really happening. 

‘Write through it. You’ll get there.’

Like any advice, mine was subjective. But for me, at least, this solution worked and I was comforted by that. Maybe arrogantly so.

And yet, as a writer who has grown from the philopsophy of the Black and White, into shades of Grey and Revelation, I was unsurprised to see my solution failing me to some extent…

*

2016 was a shit year. Let’s be blunt about that. There was some sheer craziness about last year, and some unrelentingly bleak moments. Some personal, some worldly. I achieved a lot in some corners, achieved little or nothing in others, in the ones that mean the most to me. That has spurred me on for this year, and while not being a new year’s resolution, I will revise my priorities (the writing, for example, is getting a kick up the arse). But it’s the loss that had me navel gazing at the close of 2016: loss of faith in people; and a loss in the family.

It’s not unusual for the writing community to feel the last 12 months offers a bleak future at least in the short term. In 2004, I predicted the 2006 world financial crisis during a night out with friends, and was told I was being too bleak, and that it couldn’t happen (they wouldn’t let it happen, was the general response) and perhaps I should still buy the house we had our eyes on. I predicted 2006 because that’s what I do as a writer. I look into what might happen, and could happen, and I try to do it logically so the reader thinks it will happen without having to suspend disbelief.

That logical imagination is a wonderful gift when you’re trying to write compelling fiction (or you’re in risk management).

But it also gives you sleepless nights too.

For me, the financial crisis of 2006 was like a slow moving train crash on a level crossing. And I can see the UK leaving the EU being another slow-moving train-crash. Sure, nothing’s happened of note so far, but for rising inflation caused by the pound’s sinking-feeling, but it’s coming. And it’s coming for everyone as some kind of pain. From pensioners losing their Triple-Lock (where else will they find the money, folks?) to people losing their businesses and jobs, it’s coming, like a movie billboard advertising the next disaster. You don’t have to be a writer to imagine what the next few years will be like.

And then there’s Trump, your writer’s favourite subject, as he represents every villain in the ‘end-of-the-world’ books that you care to read. He is the Greg Stillson of the 21^st Century… And yet, he became president? That never happened in the Deadzone as I recall*.

(*And you know, I’ve often wondered if we live in an alternative The Man in the High Castle-reality, inexplicably torn from a true reality by some catastrophic event in 2016, where Trump won, the UK lost, and Leicester won the Premier League. As writers, we wouldn’t have dared dreamt this up–you’d have to suspend disbelief pretty far to conjure up 2016, wouldn’t you?)

As writers, as imaginers of what might happen rather than what has, we can see the train-crash in minute detail before it occurs. We know what will be lost, and how. We know the grief, the scars, and while we can see hope, we know how hard it will be to get through it. A reason why most writers of genre fiction are looking at 2016 as a horror year, the year where the nightmares they’ve put down on paper, or have considered writing, came true. It’s then that a writer’s imagination is not a gift, but a curse.

So as an antidote to Trump, and 2016, I wrote a new story, something that would write through my anxieties of this new reality we face; an attempt to ‘work my way through it’. After all, that has been my solution to everything.

And yet it was not a solution. The story I was writing made it worse. A story that was bleak, but offered hope, and yet bummed-me-out from the first word to the last, when I set down to write it recently. Did ‘working my way through it’ help? No, it made me feel much worse. To the point I’ve been through a short-lived spell of depression that has caused me to stop doing the thing I loved for a while, to force me into almost ostrich-like behaviour*.

(*I now believe that putting your head in the sand is Nature’s pause, allowing you to get mentally fit in order to deal with the stuff going on above ground, you know?)

You see, I can’t change the world. (Alas, I am an observer and commentator, little more.) I'm not arrogant enough to believe I'm bigger than that, and there lies salvation, because if you can't change the world, there is no burden to do so. 

But what I can do is hope. 
Yeah, I can do that too. There are other brighter souls who can change the world, I believe that. So there are reasons to be optimistic.
Reasons to keep going.
To keep writing.

*

I haven’t looked forward to 2017. I’ll be honest.

But I am glad to see the back of 2016.

The personal loss of a family member at the end of last year has put much into perspective. It has reminded me of my mortality, and I’ve asked myself the question of what is there after this, on more than one occasion. And while not a follower of religion, I do believe there is more, beyond natural self-preservation.

It’s this optimism that is the root of my solution, as it has been in the past. I write through problems because I believe beyond the problem is reward. I work through depression because I know there is something to hope for, to bring happiness. And I will write on through 2017 no matter what it brings because it is just another year. Whether 2017 turns into something from a Philip K. Dick story or not.

Because, what else should we be doing with the time that is given to us, but what we do best?