Our last blog post of the year! And whilst yes, I know it’s not quite Christmas just yet, it is getting increasingly closer – but don’t worry we’ll be back in the New Year to provide some sanity … or well, relative sanity. I don’t think either of us can call ourselves sane at this point! But it’s getting to that time of year where there’s going to be Christmas things getting on and we need to dedicate what we can to our writing, when we can. It’s something that we find difficult enough as it is, without adding in the trials of Christmas and the New Year!
It’s also the time of year when we’re looking to our brain children and the various festivals that they have to celebrate things. But that comes with figurative children in your head who get into the spirit of things and start talking about their celebrations and festivals. It’s a great look into the culture of our world, where we’re learning about the foods and drinks, the celebrations and all of those things.
I’ll admit that we started out taking the lazy route – where we took some of our traditional Western festivals and just gave them a couple of minor tweaks to fit into our world. Granted, when we were doing that the setting **was** our world – so I think we can be forgiven for that! But now? Now we don’t have that luxury, and it’s better that way. It’s far more exciting to create our own festival set up – the food, the drink and the awe and wonder!
But, where we were quite happy with our one major tradition, we now find ourselves in the position where we not only need several but also several for each Realm we have. We have Eight Realms, each representing a different culture, and within those different cultures we have different celebrations to sort through and figure out. And that’s really kind of exciting, when we’re piecing these bits and pieces together and coming up with items that carve out our world further.
And okay, I’d be lying if I said that was all we’re doing. It’s our time where we start to review things – where we want everything in order to start the next year. A bit like the first week of a school term, starting everything so neat and tidy and I can guarantee that this time next year it’ll be a bit of a mess and we’ll be trying to figure out one thing from the other. But we can hope otherwise! Either way, we aim to kick start 2017 with a bang, diving head first back into our writing now that we have a world built, a magic system sorted … and our not-heroes and not-villains in place!
So we’ll be back in the New Year! Neat, tidy and raring to go! Until then we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year!
Charlotte and Clara 