I Have Achieved Something Mind-blowing!
To me, anyway.
Roughly ten years on and off (Mostly off) of writing and I have accomplished to end of the first draft of my first book. It follows the life of a character I portrayed when I directed a group in a RenFaire for almost 19 years. As director, I required my actors to complete a series of questions that fleshed out the background of their characters. As a director, I felt I should set an example and went an extra mile, as it were, to show the possible depths one could plumb. It was likely that none of this background would come out during the days of interaction at the RenFaire, but knowing it, one could assume a character with ease and possibly react to certain situations with greater relish.
When I left directing and performing, one of my actors, a good person and friend, suggested the reason my character was leaving the group, based upon his background, and that was to recover his wife, taken from him 20 years earlier. As I hoped the group I had created would continue on without me, I thought this was a brilliant idea, and commenced to write a 3-part short story that sent him on his way. (Unrelated, my group ws given over to an incompetent director who had failed before, much of what the group had been for almost 2 decades was cut out by the faire board and my group was no more after one year.) it wasn’t too lang after I was done with the Faire that I began to wonder what happened to that fellow who lived in my head for so long?
So, I began to write.
A Book? You Think You Can Write A Book?
It was a daunting task that shouldn’t have been. I’ve written in these blogs before that I had been writing a lot up to that point, but things for the Faire, the handbook for my group at the Faire and lots of things for pencil and paper RPG games, but somehow the idea of writing a book of some two or three hundred pages? well, as the saying goes, the journey of a thousand mile begins with one step. Ironically, during the time of writing this (look back up at that first photo) page book I move almost 4300 miles across the USA! And yet, here we are, today, not an hour after I typed that last word as I write this, dome with the first draft!
For the nonce, I am not sure how I feel about it. Relieved, certainly. But knowing a lot of revision and editing is ahead, I know it’s not done done. But the story I wanted is on digital paper.
Why That Particular Mood For this Update?
I have ‘discovered’ a vast music genre called ‘trailer music’. When I began to write the book, I listened to the stuff as it helped me with my innate creativity. This piece, “Enchantress”, ignoring the title itself, had the sound of a journey, an adventure of different moods and it inspired me first to use as mood music as I began the journey of book writing. Since then, I have amassed some 240 (I think) pieces on an Amazon Music playlist that helped me on the small steps on that journey.
But Wait! There’s More…
At this point, even before revisions of Book Number One. I have plans for a sequel, a possible epic series, and an adaptation of a comedic space opera radio series my brother who passed did for his graduation project for his theater degree. So, I ain’t done writing just yet!
Be well, have a Merry Christmas and an amazing New Year all!
