Current project

So I ended last time without actually getting to what I'm working on now. As I wrote before I was floundering after finishing my previous novel and having trouble really sinking into something new. I bounced around a little bit, but for one reason or another, I wasn't ready to begin on a few of my other novel ideas. But I had one left. While most of my ideas are more in the realm of "literary" fiction (although I'm not necessarily a fan of that term and it's pretentious associations), I had one idea for a fantasy novel. This idea began building in my head a few years ago, and maybe a year or so ago I thought about the possibility of making the main character younger and thus, it could be a young adult fantasy instead of straight fantasy.

Now I have nothing against fantasy. I'm not one of those MFA types who looks down on genre fiction as less worthy or significant. It's all just entertainment, and whichever appeals more to you, that's just fine. As it happens, I simply prefer stuff in the "literary" mode, where it's about real characters in real world situations, where nobody's been murdered, and there's not a terrorist attack about to happen in a matter of hours if our hero can't prevent it. Even as I write that, I realize there's a bit of a snarky tone there, which I don't really want. I have gotten into some of those types of stories before (I've read everything Thomas Harris has published; I've stayed up late into the night to finish a James Patterson novel). The one genre that I have been most attracted to in my life is fantasy. Between the time I learned to read and the time I finished high school, probably the majority of my reading time was spent on fantasy novels. However, at some point in there, I'd say the change occurred in my late teens, I just sort of lost interest. My tastes changed. I didn't lose any respect for the art, but I didn't want to spend my time on it either.

So, that brings me to the point where I am in my late twenties contemplating writing a fantasy novel. A few things stand in my way. One: I'm not sure whether I'll have the excitement and interest in the project to work on it for the necessary length of time required to produce something good. After all, I spent years on my first two literary novels, and it's not fair (I guess I see it as disrespectful to the genre) to think I could just bang one out without putting in the same kind of hard work rewriting, revising, editing, etc. But would my passion be sufficient to keep me going through all those months of work on a genre that I am no longer in love with? Two: I haven't read a fantasy novel in years. Sure, I've seen the Lord of the Rings Movies and Harry Potter. I've even listened to the audiobooks of Harry Potter (read by the amazing Jim Dale), but it's been about a decade since I was actively part of that literary community, where I consumed many books and had a good understanding of its conventions and tropes. I'm afraid that if I tried my hand at this genre, I would unknowingly produce a story riddled with cliches that fans of the genre would abhore. I believe it's important to do one's research and to know about the kind of story one is writing. I'm sure if I tried to write a mystery, for example, I would produce something that didn't go beyond the conventions of the earliest type of mystery story. Sherlock Holmes would laugh at my pathetic clues, Sam Spade wouldn't even leave his desk to solve my case, and whoever the current champion detectives are would scratch their heads and wonder if I could possibly be serious with my offering. Because I don't know that genre. In the world of "literary" fiction, I feel comfortable with a story idea that even if it's a simple plot it hasn't been done quite the way I'm doing it, or there's enough room for another story along these lines because of the unique voice or character combinations I'll present. But I don't have that background any longer in fantasy, and I don't want to presume that because I've studied writing and have an MFA I could whip out something great because, "well, it's only fantasy, how hard can it be?"

After considering those reservations a few months ago, I pretty much set the project aside. I figured maybe at some point down the line I'd start tinkering with it, maybe do a chapter here and there and have a slowly expanding file on my computer, but I no longer thought it would be something that I would feel compelled to write. And then I reached the point I described earlier of lacking a project. So I'm in a situation where I need something to get caught up in, but I don't want to start my next literary novel because I know I'll be picking up and moving in a few weeks, so I don't want to disrupt that process. But I'm also not working, so I have plenty of time. It's possible I could pound through something fairly quickly and finish a draft before my life goes into upheaval. So, alas, my thoughts turn more and more to this fantasy idea. As a young adult book, it would likely be shorter than my previous novels (I'm thinking in the range of 60,000 words as opposed to the 90,000 range I've done before), and I have most of the story mapped out in my head and even written down in a set of notes I've compiled earlier. The final factor was simply that more and more this idea is what was occupying my brain. I wasn't thinking about the next literary novel, I was wondering how I could make the fantasy world work, what trials my hero might face and how he would overcome them. So I sat down and began.

More details next time on how it's coming along.