Today at the Writers’ Gym, Dr Rachel Knightley is joined by multi-award-winning science fiction and fantasy author Adrian Tchaikovsky. Find out how early experience running Tabletop roleplaying games combine with Adrian’s childhood inspiration (mainly insectoid) and adult inspiration (including coffee) to create his career as an author and what a healthy, happy writing life means to him.
Adrian Tchaikovsky is a British science-fiction and fantasy writer known for a wide-variety of work including the Children of Time, Final Architecture, Dogs of War, Tyrant Philosophers and Shadows of the Apt series, as well as standalone books such as Elder Race, Doors of Eden, Spiderlight and many others. Children of Time and its series has won the Arthur C Clarke and BSFA awards, and his other works have won the British Fantasy, British Science Fiction and Sidewise Awards.
For a writing workout based on Adrian’s interview with Rachel, scroll down or visit WritersGym.com to download every Writing Workout in the series.
Find out more about Adrian at https://adriantchaikovsky.com
See him on tour: https://adriantchaikovsky.com/events.html
Join our mailing list at drrachelknightley.substack.com or get in touch at thewritersgym@rachelknightley.com
Writing Workout based on Adrian’s interview
Warm-up: Map of Me (or, in honour of Adrian, Spider of Me)
1. Write your name in the middle of a page. Circle it, andgive that circle as many legs as you like. At the end of each leg, write something you love. An interest, an activity, a band, a caffeinated beverage, anything. Spend 1-2 minutes filling the page. There’s no such thing as ‘random’ or ‘irrelevant’ or ‘wrong’. Just go for it.
2. Circle three things. Don’t think about why you’re picking them, just circle.
3. Select one of those three. Decide that whatever you write with that prompt, for fifteen minutes, is (the first draft of) something your dream publisher wants to publish.
4. Write exactly what comes to you, letting yourself have fun. Be curious. Remember there are no wrong answers. Write for fifteen minutes and see where you go.
Main exercise:
The First-Person Monty Python Helmet
Step into a character who loves one of those now. Consider what they see, hear, touch, taste and smell. What do they think in their minds, and feel in their bodies, as a response to their emotions?