I’m occasionally asked how I’ve managed to write my series of “Bell Mountain” fantasy novels.
Well, it’s a long story, and it starts with my friends Bobby and Ellen in their basement, with me ten years old or so. We are making up wild stories. Bobby was old enough to have a subscription to a science fiction book club. We did our best to imitate the authors.
Point is, that’s where it started and it never stopped. Writing stories is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do as a career. It takes a long time and years and years of practice: not only in writing, but in reading.
“It walked in the woods. It was never born.” –Theodore Sturgeon, “It”
Boy, did that intro ever turn me on.
So how do you wind up with books full of countries, people, and cultures you made up and somehow made convincing? Too much goes into it to polish off in one blog post. Suffice it to say you really, really want to do it. You’d rather write stories than be president. You will study your art and never stop trying to improve it.
Your teachers will be the authors you like best and read again and again. Some of the writers who influence me, to this day, are Edgar Rice Burroughs, J.R.R. Tolkien, Herodotus, Plutarch, Livy–these last three have been in print for thousands of years, they must have been doing something right.
And you must be willing to keep at it no matter how many times it gets you absolutely nowhere.
That’s enough for now. I hope I’ve made this interesting enough to spark some comments.
