My Author's Blog

Who knew this would lead here?!

         Lately I have been going back and forth between a few projects, the sequal to 'The Lost Gate', notes and little bits about other projects that just won't leave me alone till I write them down, and preparing myself for NaNoWriMo 2007(which begins one week from Thursday by the way!!).
 
         Late last night, as I was burning the mdinight oil working on a chapter on the novel sequal, something kind of struck me as funny and interesting, and maybe just a bit scary. It's not the first time I have thought it, and I am sure it will not be the last. The chapter I was working on kind of tied back to a short story idea I had a while back, and which has slowly grown beyond what I had originally intended for it, as it began to throw off branches into the 'larger story'. Then it hit me. When I first sat down to write what later became the first chapters of 'The Lost Gate' I 'thought' I was merely writing a short story about one of my major characters. As I wrote, the story began throwing out these little 'trailers' for lack of a better term, which seemed to grow up about the main story and began to take on their own life as well. Then the story seemed to start growing 'roots' into the deeper history of the world it is set in, in which I had already been dabling for a long time to create a believable back drop for my stories. From there it seemed the main trunk of this now rapidly growing 'small' sapling began to draw more life from these histories. By the time I got about a third of the way through what became the rough draft, I realized 'this ain't no short story'.
 
         I knew I had ideas and inspiration(or perhaps it was just the characters whispering in my ears?) for a novela at least, or perhaps a stand alone novel about these characters, some of which I had never intended to create! Oh, how foolish I was still, and how little did I understand the scope of what was now growing, nearly beyond control. Now that I have more of a handle(maybe?) on what I have created, or am creating, as I work on this sequal, which had originally been intended as a one book sequal, continuing the story of the characters, and has now become the outline for a 'mini series'(?) if that is the term I am looking for. Not till now have I come to understand that this is an epic, growing on its own, putting out roots into the stories of the past, causing them to solidify in my imagination also, for future writings perhaps, and continuing to put out branches and trailers, growing into a vast and complex, nearly living thing(at least its alive in my imagination). And I now look back and think, 'what happened to that short story?' and to be honest, I can't even remember now where that story was going, or what I intended it to be.
 
         Surely, in this world and community of so many talented writers/authors, I can not be alone in this sort of 'self deception' so to speak? So what projects have you started that became something not entirely what you intended, or grew beyond recognition into something more than you first had in mind? Do you, like me ocassionally have a character walk into a scene, describe them in detail, and suddenly 'know' all about them, and then stop and think to yourself, 'Where the heck did they come from?' before going on? Or perhaps, it is merely my own little 'madness' that I live in, and that I draw my inspiration from, my muse if you will.
 
Until next time, Happy Writing!
 
 
RD Williams
http://www.authorsden.com/robertdwilliams1
 
PS: Nine days and counting till NaNoWriMo!!
http://www.nanowrimo.org