Fantasy

It’s been a bit of a week of revelation and discovery for us. Or well, I say that but it’s nothing we didn’t know already! We’ve been looking at our world and finally putting in place our long awaited calendar. Long awaited because the world we’ve created isn’t simple, and certainly not when it comes to the passage of time. If anything, it’s become a bit of a headache but now we have things sorted out and more than that we have questions answered that we didn’t think we’d ever get answered! You know, those weird, vague and aloof questions that are there “just because”? Well now at least we have answers to them!

But the biggest revelation, again, is the fact that as fantasy writers we suck. We’ve been forced to admit that we really need to look at our definition of ‘fantasy’ and actually … get ourselves into that mindset. Before we started on this epic fantasy of ours, we were doing what I suppose was more of a modern day political thriller come fantasy. It didn’t matter if our fantasy was lacking there because we had so much going on that it wasn’t entirely noticed. And that was purely because this was the world we were using, rather than being as creative as we are now.

We’ve joked more than once this weekend about going back to that way of life! And I think it would be easier, it would be a lot easier because it would almost certainly save our brain power. But really, who wants to read that sort of a thing? There’s enough drama going on in real life politics (and sometimes even that can verge into the fantastical paths) without us adding to it! But at least we’ve realised that now, and spent most of yesterday putting to rights the things that we’re missing.

Which … is a fairly expansive list. The problem as well, I guess, is that there is two of us. We both need to make sure we’re on the same page. If we have one set of rules for magic we both need to make sure that we understand them and see them working in the same way. It might sound silly, but the magic in our world is a lot more than just waving a staff or a wand or a stick around and saying a few magic words. And as easy as it would be for us to do that … what can I say? We like giving ourselves the challenge.

Well, that and neither of us are quitters. We’ll get over and past this challenge now we know what we’re up against (aka ourselves) and this time nail it for good – we hope!

~ Clara