Paracosm

Paracosm

Look it up in a physical dictionary. It doesn't exist. In fact every time I write it, there is a little red line underneath it meaning it isn't spelled correctly. I did an Internet search and found it is in Wikipedia and the free online dictionary, user based information sites.

Well, I found paracosm in one of the Wired magazines my mom started receiving for no reason. The article, (May, 2012) titled "Fantasy Islands" written by Clive Thompson, described a paracosm as follows:
         Fantasy worlds that many dreamy, imaginative people like to invent, particularly in youth; "Worldplay"; leads to imaginative adults who can solve more problems since they are used to solving problems in an imagined world.

This is something I have been doing for years, well, existing in someone's paracosm, since I am a big fan of Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing. But, recently I was struck with this amazing idea for a world, where it would kind of reflect our world. Of course, I have to go up against a giant--- Star Wars, a paracosm that George Lucas created, turning into a multi-billion dollar industry. Now, there are many writers involved in turning out stories for this franchise. Look at the magical world of Harry Potter, that magical world has made it's creator richer than the Queen of England!

My paracosm started when I was pondering some questions I found myself asking about the Earth's Moon. I decided to answer those questions using a fictitious planet's moon in some fictitious galaxy. Suddenly, I was bombarded by other questions within this universe I found myself creating, I would answer with stories. Then more questions came, leading to more answers to think through and write. It is really exciting, like the games we played in high school sociology. I went out and bought a large piece of black poster board. I mixed three different "whitish' colors and flecked this poster board, creating a background of stars. I then cut all my different planets out of construction paper and glued them to this background. Then the writing really began. I started writing stories about the different planets, occasionally turning to my large National Geographic World Atlas for ideas.

This writing was inspired by the WdC Mystery newsletter in my email on January 15. It gave me a few ideas I want to incorporate into my world. I thought I would share this with other writers as it is also a great place to turn to when a writer needs ideas for a story, has that thing called "writers block" or just needs a place to naturally and imaginatively escape. One may never know what kind of stories will come out of having a whole world that belongs to them.