Wednesday, September 9, 2009

The Best Time to Write

11:30 on a school night, and I am in bed, the covers pulled over my head. What do you think I am doing? Sleeping right? 
Are you kidding??? What idiot sleeps at 11:30 on a school night while in bed? Ahem, well I suppose most people. Actually, it's probably me who was the idiot, but I had a moment of inspiration. And when a writer gets inspiration, she writes. So there I was, hiding underneath my covers and writing in my five-section notebook by the light of my ipod while trying not to wake up the sister in the lower bunk.
How do I go from drifting to sleep to frantically scribbling down an idea? Well, you have to understand my thought pattern I guess. Let's see if I can trace it for you.
The farthest back I can remember is when I was thinking about The Chronicles of Narnia. This led me to think about C. S. Lewis's use of mythological creatures. This led to thinking about other books that follow that same line, such as Lord of the Rings, Ella Enchanted, and Puck of Pook's Hill. This made me want to write a story about a time when fantasy took place in the form of mythological creatures. Naturally, I began coming up with the first chapter before I even considered a storyline. But I got all the way through the first paragraph, and this is what I wrote down to the light of my ipod.

I'm not going to start this story with the traditional "Once upon a time." I mean, that's so vague! It doesn't even give an estimate of what time the story is once upon. I'd rather start like this: this story happened at a time when decent rogues still fought with swords instead of just shooting each other, when women were expected to wear long gowns and be beautiful unless they were witches, and peasant was a common noun directly opposite of royalty. It is a time before mythological creatures became scared and started hiding and became endangered, hence gaining the title "myth." That is the time this story is once upon.

Anyone got an idea for the rest of the book?

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