I’ve been reading a lot of ‘ how-to ’ books on writing novels recently, the majority of them talk about creating an outline even before writing the first draft. For those of us who have attempted this sort of thing it does make sense. Step 1: Create and outline of your story, know where and when everything will happen. Step 2: Write your first draft, don’t worry about spelling mistakes or typo’s just let your creative voice have free reign so you can get the story out there. As Joanna Penn says ‘ splurge on words and ideas ’ in this first draft. Step 3: Spent time editing. That is using your critical voice, correcting the spelling mistakes and typo’s, rewriting and polishing the story. The problem is that we spend a lot of time on step 1 and never seem to be able to finish.

The three  Shadow World  short stories have proven to be quite popular on this blog and I thank you for your interest. I have moved this series of short stories to my  Wattpad  profile. You can read them   HERE . I would really appreciate if you would ' vote ' on each chapter. To do this just tap or click on the star icon. Doing this will support my work by getting it out to more people. If you never heard of  Wattpad  before, don't worry you can read my stories on the same device you are currently viewing my website.   Wattpad  it is community for readers. It also helps writers to publish stories in so many different genres. It aims to create social communities around stories for both amateur and established writers. When I was younger I tried my hand at writing short stories, but gave up before turning 20. You can find a shorten version of why in this article . I thought I had lost all of this work until rece...

Welcome to the weekend, first up a question, what are you currently reading? Let me know in the comments below or on my Facebook page,  The BistroMath , I'm interested in knowing. I'm just about to finish off Legacy (First Colony Book 3) by Ken Lozito , which has been an interesting military science fiction series, I've really enjoyed it. I have a classic The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett   lined up next and am slowly working my way through another classic The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis . In the article first up this week, Nature asked six prominent sci-fi writers to reflect on what the genre has to offer at the end of an extraordinary year (2017). It's an interesting read. We also look at the possibility of getting a Star Trek replicator, or at least it's forerunner, in the near future plus some more book, movie and space related stuff. So when it's time to relax this weekend, grab your favourite beverage and have a read of the following artic...

Welcome once again, this week there are two articles on writing science fiction. Both Angus McIntyre (author of The Warrior Within ) and Richard Morgan (author of Altered Carbon ) share where they got inspiration for their stories. There's also an update on a real life space station nation in the making and some discussion about e-Readers and Amazon reviews. Some interesting sfuff if you're interested in reading. So when it's time to relax this weekend, grab your favourite beverage and have a read of the following articles.

An Old Story Set a thousand years into the future, Issac Asimov imagines an overcrowded Earth where humanity is packed like sardines into large domed mega-cities with a ridged social structures. The huge population has created a strain on Earths remaining resources and in order to allievate that we set out to colonize the galaxy but this only created a bigger problem. Humanity has now split into two factions, those who stayed behind, Earthmen, and those who ventured out into the galaxy, Spacers. Spacers have what Earthmen need, resources and Earthmen have what Spacers need, a large population needed for a work force. After utilising the positronic brain to create Robots and fulfil the need for a larger workforce, Spacers believe themselves to be far superior to the timid stay-at-home Earthmen. When Spacers return to Earth, 'take control' and release Robots into Earths workforce their already strained relations fray even further. Robots are cheap labour and are taking ...

If you heard about a movie so good that no other entertainment could compete with it, would you watch it? If you knew it would destroy your life because after watching it all you would want to do is watch it again repeatedly and if not watching it talk only about it... would you still watch it? That's the topic our first article explores, it's a difficult one to answer. Next up there are two articles, each to balance the other, they discuss opposing viewpoints of whether to be pro-library or anti-library, both have some good points of view and need to be considered. And there's more, so when you've found a quite time this weekend, grab your favourite beverage and enjoy reading more, and thinking more.

image source Several years ago when I heard Disney had acquired the Star Wars franchise and were planing on releasing a movie every year for the next 80 years (or so) I was excited. During the 70's, my formative years, there was plenty of science fiction franchises on TV which kept me going, like Blakes 7, Doctor Who, Logans Run and Battlestar Galactica but Star Wars: A New Hope was my absolute favourite movie, I couldn't get enough of it and all the merchandise. I still have my collection of figurines, minus the guns and plastic capes. It wasn't until I watched the remakequel, The Force Awakens that I realised nostalgia wasn't going to get me through the next 80 years of Disney's Star Wars. I felt a little deflated but still enjoyed the movie, even though the death of Han Solo still brings a tear to my eye. Rogue One turned up and I was expecting to be disappointed, but enjoyed the film, even though a lot of others didn't. Then came The Last Jedi...