The truth is, I haven't done much in the last few weeks. My day job has been stressful and full to bursting with daily tasks, so I haven't had much time to collect my thoughts, sit down, and write. I have tried, mind you, but I've gotten nowhere. Maybe a sentence here, a slight revision there. Overall, nothing. It's frustrating, as I managed to find the enthusiasm for it back in November, which was an equally stressful and work-demanding month.
However, two new prospects have arisen: one is a freelance opportunity for which I am awaiting a reply. The other is a new gaming-based adventure story. A friend of mine that I have known for five or six years now has come out of "retirement" from running role playing games in order to run a new fantasy adventure. He met with us potential players last Wednesday to discuss it, and we spent an hour or so brainstorming ideas for the world in which we'll play.
The mistake I made when deciding to write the Laurent saga was choosing to do so well after I had begun to live it on a weekly basis. Many of the early adventures and character nuances were lost on me, and I had to reinvent them, now being more familiar with their further-developed selves. It was liberating in a way, to revisit the early, merciless days of my primary character, but even as I was guiding him through the trials and tribulations that contributed to his change of heart, there was a nagging at the back of my head. I had already gone through it once, and attempting to achieve that fresh, raw exhilaration again was trying. I wanted to do him justice on the page, and give the same sense of world-stopping, heart-changing clarity to his epiphanies that I'd experienced with him firsthand. Many times I rewrote entire passages because they were cozying up to cheesiness rather than the epic justice I was striving toward.
This time, I am prepared. The world is yet unformed, save for the ideas we bandied about last Wednesday. I have a character idea and received feedback for her, and I like where she has the potential to go. We are beginning this epic tale at the beginning - level 1, with barely the clothes on our backs to call our own. Oh, and since our faithful GM is the owner of an internet radio station, we'll be recording all of the gaming sessions, so I can always go back and refresh myself on what happened.
Since the world is a branch of one he has already created, and I am but one of nine people collaborating to create this story, I cannot in good faith take full credit for the plot, nor can I endeavor to publish it traditionally. Instead, it will be the main source of fiction for this blog. Tentatively, I will call it as weekly updates on Thursdays, though that may change as we get into the swing of the games.
You can look forward to many sword-and-board encounters, puzzles, traps, political intrigue among ruling families, and a long, winding adventure.
Stay tuned!
-Em
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