Thursday, January 31, 2013

Writing in the Air

Last week I visited my in-laws in New York.  It was great seeing them and we had a lot of fun visiting.  The Dwyers like to play parlour games, so we played things like Password and Reverse Charades and Uno and something kind of Risk-like involving trading sheep for timber.  I'm not sure which story will be talked about more, me miming a urinal while my sister-in-law Melissa mimed using it, or me miming a helicopter and almost decapitating her.  Or the misinterpretation by my nephew-in-law Mike of someone's miming of peep-hole.

Um, yes; there was tequila.

On the writing front, I (re)discovered that it's difficult to write on an iPad on an airplane:  I can't use a wireless keyboard in the air.  In some ways, it's simply faster to write longhand on paper than it is to use the touch-screen keyboard.  I'll have to get in touch with Blake again about the plastic keyboard overlay for the screen and give it a try.  I did manage to get some editing done while I was on the ground (my flights involved three airplanes).

I wanted to try writing a story during my travelling.  Mary Robinette Kowal wrote one in a moving van across the country, and during Writers of the Future we had to write a short story in 24 hours.  I got about as far as wanting to write a science fiction story and figuring out some things about the main character when I got a little stuck.  So I took a break with The New Yorker and read a review of a historical novel (about Nazis).  And I thought, "I'll go meta!"

Suddenly the words flowed.  I got about four page's worth. And some drawings of characters and the setting. Now I'll have to transcribe what I've written and see where to go next.

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