STORYTELLING

I have started a new project, and I have my daughter Ally to thank for it. I am writing a story based on the same story I wrote about when I was much younger, but never finished. I no longer have those notes or drafts, but it has been amazing to me how much of it I remember. Things like character development and plot development are coming naturally because much of what I am writing has been floating around my imagination for over twenty years.

It's nice to begin thinking seriously about developing this story, and then actually writing it. It gives my imagination an outlet which I consider to be healthy. If not this, then where I do go with the fantasies that range inside of my mind?

My daughter has been an avid reader for years (she's only fourteen), and one the main genres she enjoys are fantasy fiction, which just so happens to be what I wrote and tried to develop when I was younger. Seeing her enjoy these stories, and borrowing her books, reading them myself, and enjoying them has spurred me on to exercise the story I have held for so many years.

I am looking forward to many, many hours of work; developing more characters, drawing a map of the land the story takes place in, creating a time line of events, and writing those events into story form. I have already written some of the story, but it still amazes me that the work for a story such as this doesn't start at the beginning, but rather at the end, and you tend to work your way backwards to the beginning.

I guess it's true for me; I have to know where I am going before I can figure out how to get there, and how to start. I might keep you posted on how things go. We'll see.

For now, peace out to all my brothers and sisters, all you who live in this world.