I did not set out to be a novelist. Writing first came into my life through work: years in high-tech companies and research meant reports, papers and technical documents, not stories. It was only after a change in my lifestyle gave me time that I started exploring areas I had never touched, and the first of them was poetry.

Starting with poetry

I began by reading the great poets: Wordsworth, Eliot, Dickinson. Then I tried writing my own on AllPoetry. I was hesitant about that first poem, but as the old saying goes, the first step is always the hardest. Within a month or two I had written around 200 poems, mostly free verse, with some in rhyme.

Poetry turned out to be the best training I could have had. A poem has no room to waste. Every line has to earn its place, every image has to land, and the ending has to feel like the poem was always heading there.

The story I had always wanted to tell

Science fiction had been with me since I was young, and there was one story I always felt compelled to write. That story became Blue the Ancient Rock.

It is the year 2186. The world detects a rock on the outskirts of our solar system, seventy times bigger than Halley's comet and heading straight for Earth. Two unmanned missions to deflect it have already failed. Now Dave Chalice, on board the starship Solo 59, sets out on the biggest mission of his life to take on the ancient rock they call Blue.

What poetry taught me about writing a novel

Moving from poems to a novel felt like a huge jump, but much of what I had learnt carried over:

  • Pace comes from what you leave out. A poem taught me to cut anything that does not move the reader forward, and the same rule keeps a long story moving.
  • Images matter more than explanations. A rock seventy times bigger than Halley's comet says more than a paragraph of numbers.
  • Endings must be earned. In a poem, the last line only works if everything before it builds towards it. The same is true for the end of a chapter.

My background in technology and the sciences gave the story its other half. I wanted the science to feel possible, even when the scale is cosmic.

Where the story went next

Blue the Ancient Rock grew into a whole series of stories, from Seracuse Island and the race to harness lightspeed, to Death of a Star, Planet Blue and Jupiter Earth. You can find them all on the Books page. The story is now also becoming an AI movie, chapter by chapter, on the Movie page.

If you want to write too

Start small. Write one poem. Then another. You may be surprised how quickly the short pieces teach you what a long one needs. If you would like help getting started, sign up on the Books page for free information on writing.