The Swords of the Ancients

In an attempt to get a step closer to being a real writer, I’ve started this blog. One  of my best friends has already done this, and I’ve found that her work has greatly influenced my desire to write something worthwhile. To this end, I’m going to be posting here once a week or so, at least to get started.

This project is my first serious attempt at putting a cohesive novel together. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for years. I mean, I even put myself through four years of college to get better at writing and editing. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that the characters I’ve wanted to write about for years finally introduced themselves to me. That sounds a little strange, but you see, they weren’t really characters until then. They were concepts. They were ideas that I liked, but they were not ready for the world. Now they’ve grown. They’re not quite yet ready for everyone to see just yet, but they’re ready for me to start to tell their story. I’m ready to tell their story. It’s going to be quite the journey for all of us. I’m going to force myself to write for a while at a time, even if it’s just jotting down some more concepts, bits of dialogue,  or even just a sentence or two that I like. It’s the whole process of writing that really does me any good. It’s not that EVERYTHING I write will be golden. Far from it, in fact. But if I do not write, I will never have anything to sift through to find that little bit of shiny.

I’ve written poetry before. Quite a bit of it in the last couple of years, in fact. That’s part of what keeps my deviantart page occupied, and I think I’ll keep that there, in it’s own place. This is going to be different from that. Most of it is complete rubbish, in my opinion, but there have been maybe a dozen that I actually really like, to the point of sharing them at poetry slams and open mic nights. It still terrifies me. Even with my background in theatre and public speaking, my legs still tremble every time I stand up to read a piece I wrote. I think it’s a matter of reading something aloud to a crowd that has so much of my own emotion placed into it. This is going to be vastly different from my poetry, though the final project may incorporate some bits of verse. The whole point is, though, that this is going to be bigger. Even as an English major, the biggest paper I’ve ever been required to write was about 15 pages. I want this to be at least 300. That’s only 20 or so times the amount of pages as the longest piece I’ve ever written. How hard can it be?

Okay, I’m kidding myself there. I know that it’s going to be a challenge. The benefit of having written lots of things in the past, however, is that I can pull bits of inspiration, character, plot, and even setting from some of my short stories and essays I’ve done. I’m setting a goal today. I want to write a minimum of 500 words per day. More than that, and I can reward myself for a job well done. If I can continue to produce stuff at that rate, I’ll up it. It’s going to depend on my free time and state of employment.

At any rate, it’s time for me to do some real writing (no offense intended, fellow bloggers). Before I go, I’ll again take a page out of my friend’s book and explain the title of this blog. You see, some time ago I found a photo of several swords sticking in the ground. They were worn, rusted, pitted, and had clearly been there for some years. The extreme angle of the photo, however, made them seem absolutely massive. Every time I see this photo, I feel utterly insignificant. After staring at this image for several minutes, I began to envision a long-forgotten society to whom these giant weapons had been just that: the weapons of giants. Maybe they wandered out of the world. Maybe they died. For whatever reason, they left their swords embedded in the earth. Centuries later, a new race of (far smaller) people find them, and are utterly bemused by their presence. They are a mystery left behind by people far different from the people who inhabit the world in which this story will occur. There is some great fantasy in the making, here, my friends. I’ll share what I can with you. Hopefully some day I can take you to where you can gaze out over the valley and see the swords of the ancients for yourselves.