Anyone following this blog will have noticed a definite lack of updates regarding my latest writing project. That’s not because it has been going badly or that I have a block or suchlike in fact quite the opposite – I had to force myself to stop yesterday.
‘Tales’ is into its second draft and is becoming a bit of a monster (well for me anyway) at over 400 pages – I usually stop around the 320 mark. I blame ‘Game of Thrones’ a little as it shows how expansive a story can be. It’s lucky I only have a handful of main characters or might have to split ‘Tales’ into more than one volume – which would be silly as it is essentially just a one book gag – i won’t say why (‘Spoilers’ again).
Anyway I drew a map the other day as it is my humble opinion that every good fantasy book should have a map at the start regardless of whether or not the reader actually uses it to track the inevitable journey of the characters. Most fantasy books involve a journey – it’s traditional (I suppose it started with the Odyssey and continues in the present day). With the map came lots of ideas and problems with what I had already written e.g. how does Character 1 get to Place B given that it is hundreds of miles (leagues??) from Place A where he had just killed a dragon or somesuch. More ideas than problems I am happy to say; but ideas turn into words, words into pages and before you know it the story is getting away from you.
So I decided enough was enough. I made sure I had put ticks against all the corrections I knew it needed, made sure the new stuff I had written fitted in with the old stuff and posted it up on Lulu (just for me to see so far – sorry – it isn’t ready yet!) I will get another copy to go through with a fine toothed comb and see if the story works. I am sorely tempted to jettison a trad Medieval type setting for something a little more Japanese, but I will hold off from doing that until I have read it through once more. I blame IP Man and IP Man 2 for making me think that way.
In the mean time I am fiddling with Photoshop, Paint.NET and Illustrator to try and get a hand-drawn looking map done in two sections that will look okay for the book.
couchmagpie 