MATTHEW LOWES

Liz Engstrom’s science fiction story weekend at siltcoos station was a lot of fun and a real whirlwind of creativity. I met a bunch of fantastic writers, made new friends, and got to hear some great new stories.

I stayed up until 3am Friday night writing my story, “One Breath and the Deep.” At 3:30 I saw six meteors streak overhead and went out on the long dock in the dark, where something was splashing around in the water, probably fish, but kind of spooky in the mist and silence.

Saturday morning I took a long walk down the train tracks and saw the trestle bridge from the movie “Stand by Me.” I walked part of the way out onto it. Luckily a boat came instead of a train, but nevertheless it was time to head back. Breakfast sounded so much more appealing than finding a dead body.

I reviewed my story twice in the morning. In the afternoon I took a nap, made two illustrations, and fleshed out an idea for a horror story that’s been knocking around in the back of my mind. People worked all through the day and Saturday night we read the stories. What a treat! We heard a whole anthology of wonderful science fiction in one evening. It was such a joy to be around so many writers and hear what they had done in the last 24 hours, really great stuff.

I’m already looking forward to the next one.

I’ll soon be heading to a science fiction writing workshop on the coast with Elizabeth Engstrom, the author of When Darkness Loves Us and The Northwoods Chronicles. The pre-workshop meeting focused on conceptions of science fiction, ideas for world building, and meeting a great group of writers I’ll be spending the weekend with. We’ll all be drafting short stories in a 24 hour period.

At the meeting Engstrom emphasized Theodore Sturgeon’s definition of a good science fiction story as “a story about human beings, with a human problem, and a human solution, that would not have happened without its science content.” She also talked about two distinct strategies for world building, top-down and bottom-up. As you might imagine, a top-down approach starts with creating a general overall picture of a world, while a bottom-up approach starts with a focus on a few detailed elements needed for a story.

Autographed copies of Engstrom’s latest books are available on her website, as well as writing tips, upcoming seminars, and a link to her blog, “One Writer’s World.”

It’s almost time for my July writing intensive and I’m gearing up to get a big chunk of my new book written. Last summer I wrote 32,000 words in July and finished the first draft of Journey to Elara. This summer I will be pounding out a big part of book 2: Dark Mage of Midgard, with the goal of having a first draft by Christmas.

So far so good. I did 800 words on Thursday, a 1000 yesterday and today, and I’m looking forward to another good day tomorrow. The story is going great so far, so I’m looking forward to an exciting summer. Come July 1st I’ll really be pouring on the steam.

I do a fair amount of general research on all kinds of things from vulcanism to piano tuning, and I use the internet a lot. Google image search and Wikipedia are awesome for getting up to speed on all kind of topics. But the internet isn’t always everything it’s cracked up to be. Information on almost any subject can be found, but it’s not always easy to locate nor very well organized.

I recently spent a whole day researching 16th and 17th century sailing ships. There were a lot things I wanted, including exterior and interior photographs, layout diagrams, history, as well as technical details and terminology. I spent a lot of time searching all over the internet finding bits and pieces. At the end of the day I took a trip to the bookstore and bought a ten dollar coffee table book on ships that included almost everything I was looking for and was much more satisfying to page through.

The advantage of books are many. Primarily, somebody has already gone through all the trouble of gathering the information and photos, organizing it, and presenting it in a way that’s easy to digest. All this means one can spend more time absorbing information and less time looking for it. Don’t get me wrong, the internet is still cracked up to be a lot, and has its own advantages, like immediate accessability and searchability. For some obscure topics it’s indespensable. But there are times when a trip to the local bookstore or library may get more done with a less hassle.