A brief memoir about an (as yet) unfinished story.

This blog won’t come as a surprise for those of you that know me. I have been described as a polygamist with genres—well, I called myself that, so it’s more of a confession really—so I wanted to describe what happens when I come up with the seed of a story.

Like all writers, it begins with an idea. Stephen King describes the process well in On Writing, the section where he says “If you’re a plumber who enjoys science fiction, you might well consider a novel about a plumber aboard a starship or on an alien planet…”

What he’s talking about is taking two ideas and juxtaposing them to form a new one, although I suspect he might regret using plumbers and science fiction in that example if he ever read what I did with it in my short story Space Plumber.

I tend to trust my subconscious to do this work. When that process begins, I usually have an idea which lends itself to a certain style of story. I think it’s important to write any story how it will best play out, rather than trying to force it into a certain genre. Anyone who has read a few of my stories will know they have my particular style regardless of subject or genre.

Until recently, I didn’t know eco-fiction was a thing. I live in a country which prides itself on a clean, green reputation, but I had no idea environmentalism now had its own genre within fiction. It’s important to me that I leave this world knowing I’ve been a good caretaker for my patch of the planet, but I never imagined writing a story about it.

And so it goes that I have surprised myself with my latest story idea which, when finished, will probably be classified as eco-fiction. I’ll let you know what comes of it. Hopefully it won’t be rubbish, just about rubbish.

The story has its own (unfinished) soundtrack too. Feel free to make a song suggestion on my blog...