I don’t really know if anyone will ever want to read this, or why they would, honestly. But I will write about what I am doing and give background and so on because if it turns out that anyone really ever does read what I write, they might be interested in this as well.

The Dragon Sword

As I mention in one of my first blog posts, I started a novel at eight years old. It was called The Quest for the Crystal Sword back then. I have revamped it considerably, changed a lot of it, and even renamed it. It is now called The Dragon Sword. The most basic of the plot elements, searching for a sword, is unchanged from the first version. The main character, Prince Aris, is also unchanged (in name, at least). As for the rest, it is quite different.

It has been interesting to read and revise what I wrote as a fourth grader as compared to now, 30 years later. I will say this, and I’ve noticed this with other things I’ve written as well, what I wrote as an eight year old I could never in good conscious try to publish now. But as an eight year old, it would have been an incredible feat and what I had written would have been perfect for then.

The Progress of Experience

I have taken other things that I wrote in the past and updated them. At times, I wonder if it would have been different had I published them way back then, instead of trying to do it now. I could not have put them into their current forms back then, I didn’t have the experience or ability or perspective to do it. In 10 years, I may look at what I write now and think how my vision must have been so clouded back then and how could I have thought such-and-such a thing.

In thinking about this, I have decided that this doesn’t mean I (or you) should wait to publish something until we get the experience and perspective to make it perfect. Write what you know and feel now, and let that be enough. Then keep writing, and when the personal growth comes, write that. I don’t think I’ll ever be short of ideas of things to write about.

These posts are somewhat rambling. I want to return to The Dragon Sword, which I have about 71,000 words completed in the first draft. It is slow going, and finding time to write is one of the biggest challenges (the second is motivation…I can write blog posts instead, and that is SOOOO much easier). I have this feeling that all the things I want to do with this story will turn it into a set of two books, which I don’t want. Mainly because I prefer stand-alone, single books that tell the story and don’t need another book to help you get there. Series seem to be so in vogue, that I might sound like a caveman saying that, but it’s what I think.

World Creation

The Dragon Sword is a fantasy novel (that was probably apparent from the title), but I really hope it can give a sense of realism. When I say that, I mean I hope that when you read it, you feel like the situations, the characters, and the plot feels genuine, not contrived. That is the most important thing to me: making sure the reader believes what they are reading. Or stated another way, allowing the reader to immerse themselves in the story and escape into imagination for a while.

Doing that takes a little work I think; it takes creation of a world, whether the reader knows everything about it or not, it all has to be there in the background. The writer has to know all of it, and make everything fit into that world. I think that is key especially for fantasy or sci-fi. I will eventually offer the first chapter of Dragon Sword here as an incentive for subscribing to my blog (or offered for free to any current subscribers). When that happens, I would love feedback on it, and a sense of your interest in reading more.

That should occur if all goes as I plan, soon after Thread and Other Stories is published in a few weeks.