Ask the Author: Scott Michael Decker
Answered Questions (2)
Scott Michael Decker
Just write.
Be as the empty cup in the Zen Buddhist parable. Set aside any preconceived notions of how much, how often, how many words, how many pages.
A mountain looks taller when viewed from the base. A journey of a thousand pages begins with a single word.
Just start writing and don't stop.
Don't stop to edit, don't stop to show it to anyone, don't stop to type it (if you're writing by hand), don't stop for any reason, even writer's block.
The most successful way to address writer's block is simply to write, even if it seems a Sisyphean task, where the words want to roll right back over you from the high hills where you've pushed them.
If need be, write without thinking, and in the suspense of reason, the channel opens. Be the open channel and let the words spill forth. They know where they're supposed to be.
Just write, and the words will write themselves.
Be as the empty cup in the Zen Buddhist parable. Set aside any preconceived notions of how much, how often, how many words, how many pages.
A mountain looks taller when viewed from the base. A journey of a thousand pages begins with a single word.
Just start writing and don't stop.
Don't stop to edit, don't stop to show it to anyone, don't stop to type it (if you're writing by hand), don't stop for any reason, even writer's block.
The most successful way to address writer's block is simply to write, even if it seems a Sisyphean task, where the words want to roll right back over you from the high hills where you've pushed them.
If need be, write without thinking, and in the suspense of reason, the channel opens. Be the open channel and let the words spill forth. They know where they're supposed to be.
Just write, and the words will write themselves.
Scott Michael Decker
My WIP (writer-talk for Work In Progress) is "Edifice Abandoned," a science-fiction novel about the Great Zimbabwe and similar stone monuments on the planet Achernar Tertius. Cut off for a millennium by a collapse in interstellar travel, the Shona people revert to a pre-literate, Iron-Age society. They build massive cities of stone and then inexplicably abandon them.
The Blurb:
"Sci-fi: Inbound from space on an interstellar flight, Archeologist Nosuma Okande sees far more ancient sites on Achernar Tertius to excavate than the Institute has on record. Setting out to unearth these sites proves more of a challenge than she realizes, bringing her into conflict with local villages and ancient traditions, and with a shadowy force called the Madziva Mitupo, the Hippopotamus Totem."
The Blurb:
"Sci-fi: Inbound from space on an interstellar flight, Archeologist Nosuma Okande sees far more ancient sites on Achernar Tertius to excavate than the Institute has on record. Setting out to unearth these sites proves more of a challenge than she realizes, bringing her into conflict with local villages and ancient traditions, and with a shadowy force called the Madziva Mitupo, the Hippopotamus Totem."
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