The Writing Process continued

Hi there,

The Faerie story will continue another day...

For now, I want to continue on the story of my writing process / progress and how I've got to where I am with my writing. The first part of it is here

The phase of unemployment and almost daily writing didn't last (thankfully for my financial situation), and the book ended up being put in mothballs for a while.

I had made it to what was then Chapter 8 of the book in a pretty creative few months, given that I was starting from a position of not knowing how to write for a prolonged period. Once I got over the initial "hump" of realising that the writing just had to continue, no matter what, it was just a matter of ploughing onwards, learning more about my own story and how to create chaaracters, events, storylines, places - a believable world with all of the geography, morality, laws and religion that entails.

On a tangent, that is one thing that is so much more challenging for a Fantasy author than for an

A Strange Fickle Thing (Pt 2)

The continuation of my little story - written on 8th September 1997. It's a lot longer than I thought it was... What have I gotten myself into??

So, the last of the faeries - four there were, old, wise and mighty in the ancient lore of magick: Grimkin, the most ancient of all, who was old before the arrival of the new forest and of man; Elmheal, who would converse with the trees for news beyond the city, until time and sorrow wore him out; Bayswife, the wise matriarch whose smile - oft seen - would cause the grass to grow as if sunshine and rain were unnecessary; and Palmbark, whose sad grey eyes made the trees weep, and whose youthful golden hair caused the birds to sing to her beauty - came together to discuss this: man's "love".

Now other faeries lived still in man's park, but these - sadly too numerous to name, although the once-great Leafblade and Thistlemaid were amongst them - were beyond the reach of the other faeries. Many had begun to partake of the leaf that did intoxicate them into incapacity, and some had given

The Writing Process

So, I've mentioned the subject of my Book and talked a little about various other topics, but what about the writing process itself?

Well, the underlying idea for this Book was born many years ago when I was bored in an old job. I began thinking about an origin story for a fantasy world and began to write it.

That story led to a thought about how the origin story might impact on the "Present Day" in that world, and various ideas and themes came to my mind.

Being Irish, and the conflict in Northern Ireland being unresolved at that time (yes it was that long ago), religious conflict came to mind. My star sign (Gemini) made me think about twins and things started to come together.

However, I didn't get far with the actual story - several false starts left me with a couple of Chapter 1s and Chapter 2s that owed far too much to the exposition in the Lord of the Rings' "Shadow in the Dark" chapter, so I ended up abandoning much of it.