In 2020 my freelance consulting work crashed. Though none of my clients went out of business, many scaled back their operations and/or new software development dramatically in response to the pandemic. This, combined with a steady downward trend in the type of consulting work I’d been doing for many years, resulted in a very slow work year with far fewer billable hours than I needed to cover my expenses.
Category: Creative Work/Career Page 5 of 24
After revising the first draft of Saint Arcology, I decided to take a few weeks before starting my next project. But I didn’t want to stop writing entirely; I needed to keep my word brain active. I decided to go with some copy practice: copying the prose of some of my favorite authors.
I’d read about a particular method: reading a paragraph or two, then attempting to write out that section from memory. Then go back and notice how your prose decisions are different (and presumably worse, if you’ve picked someone good) than the writer you are copying.
I started with this method, but found it difficult and frustrating. I’m not great a memorization, and I was putting too much effort into trying to remember what I had just read, and not enough into noticing the author’s stylistic choices. So I switched to a simpler method: open a book at random, read a few paragraphs for enjoyment, then copy those paragraphs directly.
I started with Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. Gibson’s prose is information dense. He conveys a tremendous amount of meaning with a tight word budget. But on this read-through I was also struck by how vividly and precisely Gibson describes internal states. For example:
A few years ago, at a party, a fellow author asked me “So how do you promote your books?” I think I told her “gently.” That might have sounded glib, but it was the truth. I’m not the kind of person that can be constantly on, turning every conversation into an opportunity to promote my latest novel.
But that doesn’t mean I’m passive. If someone asks me what I do, I lead with science fiction author (even though there are many true answers to that question). And I always have a business card ready featuring the cover art and blurbs about The Sky Woman (Book 1 of Reclaimed Earth). As it turns out, people are curious, and almost always want to know what you do. So I get to hand out quite a few of those cards.
I’m in the final chapters of the first draft of Saint Arcology, a science fiction novel set in Mumbai involving a progressive pope, a Vatican plot, genetically engineered mollusks, a society of radicalized scientists, a blasphemous augmented reality game, a fake guru, and a solution to global poverty.
The main plot climax has already occurred, but I’m not the kind of author than can just fade to black. I feel as if I’ve made promises to potential readers of this story. My checklist for wrapping up a novel includes the following: