For days I've been wavering between the several different ideas I have for The Summer Of Fantasy. Surreal fantasy based on an island far removed from the normal laws of physics? 'Proper' fantasy with dwarf characters and a real world? But today I had a splendid idea. It's off the wall, wacky and so strange that it may just work. And it will be a blast writing it.
For 2007 NaNoWriMo I had already begun a novel but it wasn't setting me alight. It was tedious and self-important, no fun at all. With November almost half over and my wordcount sitting at 12k I did something radical, risky and worrying: I started over. With just 17 days to write 50k I was worried that I'd really done it and that 2007 was going to turn into another 2005 where I crashed and burned with very little to show for it. Instead I started a novel called 'The Haunting Of The Orc And Dragon'. It started with no plot and I threw everything I had into it. Wacky characters, jokes, a lot of banter. I crossed the finish line grinning. I hadn't written a novel in 30 days, I'd done it in 17. I felt fabulous.
It may have been written very speedily but HOTOAD (as it appears in my documents list) is probably my favourite work. I can reread it even now and find myself laughing (and correcting mistakes, it has never been properly edited). Bel, Figgis and Theresa are three creations that refuse to play nicely, I know that if I attempted to create another three for a light-hearted fantasy romp, the originals would take over. So why bother? In HOTOAD Figgis ran a gaming club, he and his friends would happily spend hours in the lands of fantasy, and the novel he wrote as part of the plot is exactly the sort of thing that I ought to be writing. So what if I steal his Lands Of Flannoria, use the alter egos that Bel, Figgis and Theresa may have have concocted for the gaming club, and start from there. The characters I love in a new setting.
Why the hell not *grin*
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