Monday 6^th July 2020

One of the things I’ve been very keen to do during Covid is expand my writing skills.

It’s not just been limited to novels, although I did do a lot of work on theme in April that feels I’m really benefiting from during these recent outlines. I’ve also looked at Script format and screenplays.

Timelines worked out a little too tight to be able to write a completed screenplay for an opportunity – and I do feel that doing something for the first time, it probably doesn’t need to be rushed – but it’s still something I intend to do for myself this year as a form of learning.

And then last night, I attended an online seminar on writing for games. I’ve done a bit of games writing in the past. The game never got published but it was fun to play with branching narrative for the first time since I wrote text adventures on my spectrum as a child.

Whilst I do have some professional experience, I’ve not been sure how to build on that and so taking 90 minutes out to watch a zoom seminar and learn was something that was worthwhile

Is it something I’m desperate to do right now? No, I’ve been working on this draft, getting another chapter done today. But what I would like is to be able to have multiple writing skills I can apply whenever needed. I think a writing career dictates being able to be flexible, so the more varied skills I can acquire the better.

I now have a good idea of how to expand my game writing portfolio. Again, like scripts, it’s not something I’m in a hurry to do – I need to take my time to really learn the craft first – but it’s something I can work on in the background. I’ve found that I struggle writing drafts of two different novels at the same time (it’s easier if they are in the same world) but that writing in different media can feel like a palate cleanser and get me into a mobius strip of productivity.

For now, the priority is this novel draft. It’s going well and still feels comparatively easy. That’s not saying I’m not angsting over every little change, but it feels like that angst is overcome a lot quicker. I feel like I should be angsting more. Perhaps I’ve grown as a writer to a stage where redrafting and / or editing has become more efficient and I have more confidence in knowing I’ll be able to overcome whatever problem or change I need to make in this next draft.

We’ll see, it’s still early days, but I think in years to come I’m going to look back at Lockdown and see it as a productive period, even if it didn’t feel like it at the time