From Hub_134, February 2011.
Whenever I’m not thinking of them, an idea attacks. Usually it’s scratching and screaming, clawing at me in the middle of the night. Luckily I keep a notepad next to the bed because there’s nothing worse than lurching around the house, zombie-like, trying to find a pen that works and something to write on. You can only scrawl random text on walls so many times before folk get worried for you. Alright; nervous around you.
These buggers need to be caught sharpish before they scamper off, back into the ether from whence they came.
So, it’s 2011 already and I’ve still not got my jet-pack or rocket-cycle. Mind you, it’s only February. Maybe we’ll get them next month, in time for my birthday, but look at everything else we have: mobile phones can hold libraries of books as well as play videos, music and games. And make phone calls. There are dedicated e-readers that are getting more and more sophisticated and slowly slipping under the £100 price bracket and, of course, there is the Apple army of iPods, iPads and iEverything-else.
Then we have to find the money to pay for all this which is becoming increasingly difficult in today’s current climate with no light at the end of the tunnel for many. Of course, you lucky people, Hub will always be free to bring you quality fiction+ on a regular basis. But remember the powers that be can never take away our imaginations! OK, a bit OTT and Orwellian there but it’s true. A big chunk of the best speculative
fiction, no matter the sub-genre, has been borne of near soul crushing socio-political waves which, I think, we’re swimming against right now. Look at “1984” and “V for Vendetta” for example; extrapolations of the climates the authors were experiencing at their time of writing.
Everyone has at least one story in them, apparently, and that doesn’t mean it necessarily HAS to be an autobiography. Go wild! Write something now, you know you’ve always wanted to so why wait any longer? It’s probably been said by many people far more eloquent than I before now but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be said again. Keep a notebook with you at all times to catch those ideas when they strike. Write anything and then set it free! Distribution methods are quite possibly better now than they have
ever been, the next step is having information shot straight into our brains for digestion whilst asleep. Well, maybe not the ‘next’ step but it’s coming…
