Rocket Scientist

I do not and never really have written nonfiction. Oh, I’ve written technical papers and many a dull government report, but, for fun, it is rarely nonfiction. Actually, unless I’m studying something (and yes I do that for fun), I rarely read nonfiction.

So why write it? Well, I’m trying something different. I like to try something different. For instance, I was once challenged to write a story that followed a set theme in exactly 100 words. Now, I’m a wordy type and I routinely write sentences longer than that. I didn’t think I could do it, to be honest, but I decided to try.

You know what? It was easy. I did a number of them, got a first, a second and a third in weekly challenges and then, well, was done. I’d done what I’d set about doing. I learned something (which is always a cool thing) and then moved on.

Actually, much of my writing has been like that. When I was in high school, I wrote poetry. Oh, not greeting card ditties or the kind of deep poetry that gives most people a headache. I wrote long stories via poetry, poetry with meter and rhyme in an Alexander Pope or Edgar Poe kind of way. To my mind, poetry’s real purpose is to evoke emotion, so that’s what I was teaching myself, but I was also teaching myself to be very cognizant of sound and of choosing the right word. Those lessons have served me well. I read everything I write now, prose or otherwise, out loud. Things that aren’t quite right sound wrong.

Later on, when I had apparently learned all I wanted to from poetry, I stopped almost cold turkey and moved toward short stories. Unlike novels, short stories need to paint a picture, tell a story and bring a character to life with an economy of words. I learned about adding drama to my writing with short stories and how to make a reader identify with a character without making it obvious.

I wonder what I’ll be learning from this little excursion. If you think of it, do leave me a comment and let me know.

By the way, for those that love space imagery, NASA has consolidated their image archives and made them available on the net. They are generally not copyrighted, but you should read their terms and conditions before using them.

These and many other images can be found at the NASA Images Archives

Enjoy!

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