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An interesting week...
Feb. 9th, 2006 04:06 pmIt's amazing how different you life can be in one week. Take the last seven days in my life. Last Friday, I spent the day cruising around the Southern Highlands taking photographs for Senior Lifestyle Magazine. The highlight was spending an hour chatting to Jonathan Hardy, who voiced Rygel in Farscape. It's so rare you come across someone who can chat sci fi with you, what's more can then reminisce on a Catholic upbringing.
Saturday morning, I spent seven hours on board HMAS Manoora, around 60 kilometres out to see, watching six Navy vessels and several Air Force fighters take part in a training exercise. There were machine guns popping, jets swooping past and I got to drive the ship for a while. Then I flew back to land in a helicopter.
Tuesday saw me hastily donning safety gear to cover some bushfires (luckily they were just little grass fires) and then reporting on a cyclist who had a tree fall on him.
Today, I was at a luncheon with all the big wigs of the Nowra community, congratulating our paper for winning one of the two big Country Press Association awards for 2005. I had to make small talk (which I hate), although since today is a day off, I was the only member of staff able to have a few drinks :)
One of the great things about writing is that these sorts of experiences are never really over. Everything is grist for the mill, something that is filed away and will no doubt come out at some point in the future. Which got me thinking about the things I would like to experience for current writing. For example, I have my characters trampling for days through bush, over a mountain range. But apart from the odd hour or so walk along a path through a National Park, I've never experienced this. So I'm left wondering whether I need to do it, try to scramble up the side of nearby mountains or something, to get an idea what it's really like so my writing will be more authentic. But there again, maybe in speculative fiction, where it's already accepted writers haven't been on a space station or met elves, that's not a problem.
So, two questions. 1: Have you ever done anything simply to inform your knowledge for you writing? 2: Do you think it's necessary in spec fic to have that sort of knowledge?
Oh, and in case you think my life is settling down some time soon, I'm probably spending at least part of Friday at the Nowra Show, and Sunday playing social croquet :)
Nicole
Saturday morning, I spent seven hours on board HMAS Manoora, around 60 kilometres out to see, watching six Navy vessels and several Air Force fighters take part in a training exercise. There were machine guns popping, jets swooping past and I got to drive the ship for a while. Then I flew back to land in a helicopter.
Tuesday saw me hastily donning safety gear to cover some bushfires (luckily they were just little grass fires) and then reporting on a cyclist who had a tree fall on him.
Today, I was at a luncheon with all the big wigs of the Nowra community, congratulating our paper for winning one of the two big Country Press Association awards for 2005. I had to make small talk (which I hate), although since today is a day off, I was the only member of staff able to have a few drinks :)
One of the great things about writing is that these sorts of experiences are never really over. Everything is grist for the mill, something that is filed away and will no doubt come out at some point in the future. Which got me thinking about the things I would like to experience for current writing. For example, I have my characters trampling for days through bush, over a mountain range. But apart from the odd hour or so walk along a path through a National Park, I've never experienced this. So I'm left wondering whether I need to do it, try to scramble up the side of nearby mountains or something, to get an idea what it's really like so my writing will be more authentic. But there again, maybe in speculative fiction, where it's already accepted writers haven't been on a space station or met elves, that's not a problem.
So, two questions. 1: Have you ever done anything simply to inform your knowledge for you writing? 2: Do you think it's necessary in spec fic to have that sort of knowledge?
Oh, and in case you think my life is settling down some time soon, I'm probably spending at least part of Friday at the Nowra Show, and Sunday playing social croquet :)
Nicole