I'm going to write a book

I have a nasty habit of attempting impossible things. I have an even nastier habit of attempting possible things and succeeding. Often through sheer dumb luck and a consistent persistence. Now, don't get me wrong I am stupid, but I am not arrogant. I don't think I'm going to be writing the next Harry Potter, or the next Game of Thrones. In fact, I think I could not be further from a literary genius.

When doing some research for this task, many people told me to start off small write some short stories first and build up that experience. To those people, I say, no thank you, it defeats the very objective of success through stupidity that I have spent years cultivating. But don't worry, I'm not so stupid that I think I have the necessary know how on how to write a book just off the bat. I told you earlier, stupid not arrogant. I'm instead going to be using a book called How to write a Novel in 6 months.

I'm going to document my experiences along the way with what the book tells me to do and to share my thoughts but also my planning so I can see how the book evolves over the process, the things I have learned and the things I have struggled with. Especially as someone who has never even wrote a short story before.

The book opens quite nicely, and one of the first main topics it brings up is about what ideas do you have. I think it is safe to say I have many ideas. I mean, I have stories in my head for just about every genre which you would think great, a smorgasbord of ideas to pick from. Except the problem I face is decision fatigue. I make many choices in my day-to-day life, and to try and pick a genre for my book was equally challenging. However, to quit now before things get crazy would be the smart decision, and where's the stupidity in that?

So, the genre I chose after a whole 5 minutes of thinking and using my instincts was indeed, high fantasy. I've always loved high-fantasy things, I remember in my early days watching movies and just being enraptured by their beauty. A world of magic, and myth where anything is possible, and anything can simply be because it wants to be.

But there's more to a book than just the genre much like there's more to a sandwich than just the bread. We need a theme. A theme in a book from what I can tell is the main idea or message that an author explores in a book, cue the drum roll performing monkey because the theme I have chosen is Hope.

Hope to me is a very powerful thing, it has gotten me through a lot. Even on my darkest days when I was laying in my bed with depression waiting to die, rotting. I still had the thought in the back of my head that one day I would feel better.

Hope can give you a purpose, a reason to keep on going and that is the message I want to give in my book. That no matter how shitty the odds, no matter how impossible everything seems, there is always a chance to succeed even if it is 0.01%. That is something I kept in the mind when I felt at my lowest, and here I am today having clawed myself out of depression if I had not held on to that slither of hope who knows if I would still be here now.

So now we have an idea for a novel, a high-fantasy story about hope. I guess the next question is what will the story be about...A tiny hobbit set upon an impossible journey to save the world from an evil threat? A war of 5 kingdoms? Magic dragons that bond with their riders? An order of magically enhanced monster slayers?

Thing is that originality can be hard. Like, hard, because almost every idea has been done in some form. Thats not to say it is impossible, but I think this is what deters a lot of people, they come up with an idea they think nobody else has done before and they get disheartened when it’s already been done or alternatively, overly protective of their idea because they don't want anyone to steal it.

Safe to say, I fit into neither category. You see, I love a good burger. But a Burger at McDonalds is not the same as a burger at Burger King. They taste very different in my opinion however they are both still burgers and because I'm greedier than a dragon I enjoy both with equal amounts. Just because somethings been done before, doesn't mean you can't do it your way and it not still be good. Don't get me wrong, I'm still not thinking I'm going to be some sort of literary genius writing the next Game of Thrones, but I'm still going to write the book I would like to read which is an excellent bit of advice I have seen thrown around in the past.

Having previously worked at a bar, I know how to make a cocktail or two and because of this, I believe (stupidity in full swing) I know what ingredients to put into my cocktail of a book. So, to bring this first post to a simple conclusion, I want to write about an Elf who must overcome impossible odds just to survive.

More about our would-be protagonist in the next post as the planning kicks off.