Do you smell that? It's the smell of achievement. Last year I made a bunch of random doodles that all seemed to cohere into a quirky cast of characters. I taped them to my wall (because what else would you do with such doodles?) which, of course, allowed my sundry of roommates to view them. One of them suggested the crazy idea that I turn them into a sort of strange children's story. Ridiculous right? Of course not. I live to do things like this. And so, an idea was born. But, the question remained: How to turn a bunch of doodles into a compelling and magical story?
Subsequent weeks were spent drafting characters and world dimensions. I made preliminary plot charts, more plot charts, character sheets, drawings. I wrote the laws of the Universe, and made maps. Finally, I was all set, I was going to go for it in June's Camp NaNOWriMo. I wrote about 2,000 words and realized something dreadful. My plot had one huge, gaping hole which made it impossible to move forward. Why were my villains doing what they were doing, and what were my heroes trying to save everyone from? Of course it would be my villains giving me trouble, although I will admit I've never had this kind of trouble writing before! Usually my plots come perfectly gift-wrapped in a false veneer of completeness that I can sort of wrangle into coherenceness as I go. I've been stuck all Summer. I just couldn't figure out where I wanted to go with my story. What do you do with a genre that's been overdone (Teen Supernatural Fiction) to make a story that's new and engaging? Why you borrow heavily from an old source of course! And not just any source, but The Source.
It couldn't be anything other than the Word of God that saved my story from wallowing in the pis of lame plotness. But yes, several days, in a sudden fever of inspiration I was able to fill in all plot holes, find a solid direction for my book, and two more besides! I would like to take this time to thank the author of Daniel (Daniel) for writing down his mysterious visions replete with so many details and crazy neat things that happen. I won't tell you what it's about (for now), until I get a bit of real work done on the story. These things have a nasty habit of changing themselves along the way, so we'll see :).
On another pleasing note (although probably unimportant) I've passed 1,000 pageviews, so yay!
Coming Up Next: For real, Fractals will be next..... 
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