The World of Janus

Most of you don't know this, but I recently wrote an absolute mess of a novel. I'm a seat-of-the-pants writer, for better or worse, so my story is full of inconsistencies, zigs, zags, pits, and snares.  I think I have a collection of interesting characters, but the story itself is a mess.   I spent about six months writing this thing.

I forced myself to write at least 1,000 words per day.   I wrote five times as much a few times, but I don't think I ever wrote less than my daily goal.  It was actually quite fun to trudge around in the mud.  I feel like I reached down into swamp water and yanked a pile of roots and slime loose and tossed it onto the shore.

I'm now trying to sift through this mess and locate a story.  Revisions have been nightmarish, to be honest.  I've started and stopped on several occasions.  I've started new novels and quickly abandoned them.  Finally, I gave up on the novel and put it aside for a few months.  I'm now revising it again and focusing on the actual story, as well as the world in which the characters find themselves.

I'm hoping to break into the YA market.  I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel, either.  I hope to spin a compelling yarn that loosely abides by the chthonic hero's journey structure.  It ain't broken, so I don't plan to fix it.  This structure is ubiquitous. 

Having said all of this, my gardening has yielded some interesting crops.  I don't want to spoil the fun, but I may use the ideas that I've come up with in a full-fledged RPG.  I'm going to use a tried-and-true engine to run it.  It will be a small, fantasy game.  I'll probably have David Guyll illustrate it for me, too.  

We'll see.  

Now, back to the "novel"!