Today I had a choice to make. I could choose to spend time working on my story or I could work on the hat I'm making for my hubby. Since there is a storm coming this weekend I decided to work on his hat - a hat made with yarn from my stash (sticking to my resolution!). I am trying to finish up the hat before tonight's hockey game, but I don't think that's going to happen unless I work on it in the car on the way to the rink which I may do unless I can get a little more time for knitting.
While I was knitting I was thinking about my story and where it is going. I've worked out quite a few details about what the Hunt actually is and how it started. I'm still mulling things over in my head a bit though because I'm not completely sure I like what I've come up with. The only way I'll really know is if I put the words down on my virtual paper and see how it goes.
Writing this story is quite a bit different than what I used to do with the video game company. With gaming, I had guidelines for writing - a world already existed. I was given the background to the world, so I knew who and what was going to shape my writing. Even when I got to the point where I was writing the back story for an expansion pack, I still had the existing world to guide my writing. Sometimes that did make it difficult to be as creative as I wanted to be but overall I think it was a bit easier writing stories for a world that already existed than creating my own world.
Also, my video game writing was more structured. In most cases, I had a very definite goal in mind and the story wasn't novel-length, just long enough to get the basic story across and help the player more through the world and complete the quest they were doing. I'm sure many players didn't even bother reading what was written beyond seeing where they needed to go or what they needed to do. But I did try my best to give the players who read the story a decent story.
My Kilynn story has been a fun challenge for me so far. With no world to guide my writing, I've had to create the world, first in my head and now I've started making world notes on paper so I can keep things straight in the story. I've had to create the characters, not use ones that were already existing in a video game world, and give them lives and hopes and dreams. I am having to create the myths and legends of this world I'm creating. All in all, I'm having fun with the story and just the process of writing.
One thing I do like is not having any deadlines like I had when I was working for the video game company. I can write when I want, and don't have to when I don't feel like it. I am writing for the pleasure of writing. I encourage everyone to try it, even if it's just writing down a few lines about something you dreamed about, or something that happened to you. Once you start writing a few lines you may find that those few lines suddenly turn into almost 4800 words and counting.
I don't know what I'll do with my story when it's done. I don't even know when it will be done. But I know I will enjoy the process of getting there. :-)
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