What do an alcoholic werewolf, a zombie-raising orphan, a gender-confused and archery-obsessed princess, and a one-armed pyromaniac have in common? Well, apart from the obvious (i.e. they all belong in a clinical psychologist's wet dream), they're all characters in my fantasy story. Yes, that one. The story I started when I was seventeen, scrapped at eighteen, and have been revising, loathing, re-imagining, reassembling like a giant jigsaw puzzle of narrative loops and dead-ends, and generally fussing over ever since. A third of my life has been given to this behemoth of cliches and tropes and commonalities that we fantasy fanatics just love about the genre.
What is it about a fantasy story that so fires the imagination, to the point where even the most sordidly pessimistic, un-blinkered skeptic still longs for it, still craves that adventure, that newness and strangeness, that epic pseudo-historical ambiance? Why do I think that I can write something sufficiently innovative and interesting enough to warrant publication?
It's a tough question to answer, and if I had a milligram of sense, I'd have given up on the notion of ever finishing my story, and settled down to make a comfortable living doing technical writing. Fortunately, I haven't an ounce of sense, and so I continue to dream of vampire demigods, vengeful dragons, continent-hugging glaciers, and mist-wrapped ancient cities straddling the snaking wetlands of a mighty estuary. And I dream of being the next Tolkien or Jordan or Martin, and opening the gates of imagination for a new generation of outcasts and lonely teens.
Or maybe I'll just settle for paying the gas bill with my writing. That'd be nice.
No comments:
Post a Comment