This week is SpecFic Blogging Week, and I thought what am I going to blog about. So I decided to write about my writing beginnings.
When I first started writing, it was to escape reality. I loved to lose myself in books, find myself wrapped up in another world and discover new places. I distinctly remember reading a science fiction book while on holiday down the Marlborough Sounds. I also remember catching the biggest snapper ever also, but most of my memory is this book about sponges that sucked the life out of people until they were just these strange dehydrated shells.
My first speculative fiction story was about a piece of rope that was kidnapped off a boat and used to hang one of the Maungatapu murderers – that was in Std 4 or year 5 or 6… one of them (see my interest in this story goes WAAAAAY back to primary school!) I got a Principal’s stamp for that story, and the teachers gave it a 1 (which was the highest score back in the dark ages!)
The next story I remember writing was at intermediate and *cringe* was about Simon Le Bon. I won’t go into details, because it truly is cringeworthy. It went on and on and on and on – it was a never ending story.
At college, I wrote Chrystias of Amasedon, and novella for my 6th form English class, and it got high marks. It was one of my proudest moments, and I have since revised it to be a 100k epic fantasy novel. It still needs lots of work.
I have always written on and off, generally in exercise books. One story in particular took over three books, but for the life of me I can’t recall what it was about. But there have been a murder mystery, a kidnapping drama involving a rockstar and one other… still can’t remember what it was!!!
Four years ago I discovered KiwiWriters and that was when I was revising Chrystias. I used SoCNoC to write a portion of it. Since then I have written during June and SoCNoC three other novels – a fantasy romance, a mythical story and this year I wrote a Science Fiction story.
My love affair with the written word has been a rough road, but it is one that I love and will not forget for as long as I live. If I never get published I will still be happy, because it gives me pleasure just to write the words and create the story.
I have been writing now, steadily for over a year. Before that, it was spasmodic to say the least. Most of what I have written has not fallen within the realm of mainstream genre. As I have said before, I use writing as escapism, it is a chance for me to get out of the mundane life. As a result, writing has opened up a whole new world of excitement. I can’t wait every morning to get up and start typing. Which is all well and good if I have a new project on the go. Otherwise I am editing, which is something I would happily forgo. I am not generally known as a finisher, but for once in my life, I am determined to get something completed. I am currently editing my first book, a fantasy trilogy, to as close to a perfect state before moving onto my next project (unfortunately that too is editing a novel I finished this year…)
Science fiction – In the future, what would NZ look like? Would New Zealanders be able to travel to space? Would we still be the clean green country we are trying to portray ourselves, or have we become the dump for the rest of the world.
Fantasy – What would happen if the Maori gods had a rebellion and decided to rise up against us mere mortals? 
Horror – a zombie serial killer is on the lose and ranging around the friendly country known as NZ, unfortunately the killer is indiscriminate, motiveless and grisly. Such violence in its attacks…
Steampunk – what if steam vehicles came to NZ before the trains did in 1850’s? What if NZ invented a steam aeroplane before the flying machines were even thought of? Would we have become a nation that developed a better technology using steampower than the rest of the world? Would we have invented the first computer before the rest of the world?
