Friends ...

One of the most important resources a writer can have is friends. Friends are there when self-doubt creeps in - and it does with creative minds. Friends are there to say where you're going wrong - where that story needs tweaking - why the character you just spent a week creating, and think is brilliant, - isn't working. Friends look at your manuscript and tell you why a scene, which you absolutely love, doesn't move the story forward. 

Friends are there when you can't write, because life has just erupted, the car's just failed its MOT and you need to ferry the kids to dancing / judo / fencing / extra maths lessons - or your washing machine / freezer / central heating system has just gone down and it's Saturday night and no tradesman is going to call on a Sunday unless you raise a mortgage for the call-out charge. 

Friends are there when the people around you don't understand why you want to curl up in a ball and cover yourself with a duvet, because an agent has just told you that your story is not what he / she or anyone else in the western hemisphere is looking for. 

Friends are there when you see a TV mini-series which has the same storyline as the book you've been working on for the last three years - and it gets bad reviews. 

Friends bolster, boost, encourage, cajole, listen, but, above all, friends are people who tell you the truth, because they want you to be the very best writer you can be.

So near and yet ...

The last few months have been taken up with my edit / rewrite of The Paradigm Culture. Today I am at page 190 of 199 - so, close to the end. Once it is finished and I have read the hard copy a couple of times - then re-edited, I can hand out hard copies to the readers who have offered to provide critique on it. 

To a writer, those who provide critique are worth their weight in gold. Their feedback can make or break a story - or, indeed, alter it in a way that the author didn't see coming when it was written. Being close to the story can often be a double-edged sword for a writer. It can mean that we don't see the wood for the trees and the 'critique readers' can tell us that. 

The Paradigm Culture was a cathartic journey for me and one I will explain here when the book is finished. I will also post sample chapters in the same way that I have with The Messenger - here on this site.  

In the meantime I will leave you with this quote from a spokesperson for the alien race who created our universe as a sanctuary from war in their universe: "It was going to give us breathing space. Somewhere to rebuild, rearm … repopulate. We evacuated tribes to what we thought were viable planets, yours and others, but our people became ill and died very quickly. Your planet was the only one where they lived a little longer. So, we concentrated on it. We still lost people, but we realised that if we could create a new race using the planet’s animal life form we might have the means to build a new army."

So, no higher being - just an experiment in logistics.