Writing is hard work. You would think that making stuff up as you lay on the beach with a mai tai in one hand and a cigar in the other, watching bikini-clad beauties frolic in the surf would be easy. I suppose it is if you write for the Sy FY Channel, where their concept of physics and common sense would make a small fry panelist on Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader pull out his/her hair. If you try to stay true to the writing craft, it gets difficult.
Get the facts straight; then make stuff up.
As a writer, have you ever had a Eureka moment when an idea comes to you out of the blue ether that ties your pseudo-science together or defines a character? It’s a sweet feeling to know that your subconscious has not only been keeping your moral compass pointed the right direction but has actually been working as an editor, for free! If you’re like me, little details sometimes bog you down. You write around them, hoping for just such a cosmological event to descend on you and guide your quill (Or Keyboard).
Beware! Your readers are smart. Probably smarter than you. You have to write better than a bad movie. You can always sell it as a screen play and let them butcher it for you. Having been both an avid reader as well as a dedicated couch potato, I find humor in the absurd in movies but disdain it in novels. I like for things to make sense in a senseless world. When I hid from life within the pages of a book, or my new Kindle Fire, I like to float along on a raft down the river with Tom Sawyer or fly with Icarus. I don’t like it when little nagging details take me back to reality. It sucks.
When you write, be true to your craft and your craft . . . Well, you know. Hope for that Eureka moment. Seek it out.
Keep writing. Keep reading.
