I’ve read books my entire life. But often, especially after being diagnosed, I took a long hiatus. I thought I ‘d never read again; I kept hearing voices which would interrupt my concentration.
Fortunately medicine has worked for me. I’m now on a 3-month injection cycle, and back in University taking just one course per year. Some day, I’ll graduate with a BA in English Literature.
I picked up “A Game Of Thrones” thinking about how much I love fantasy, and how much I’d love to try and write a book like that. There’s many things I don’t like about Game Of Thrones, but even more things I admire and respect about the books, now that I am finally reading them.
I’ve tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to read 100 pages a day. This would take me an hour and a half in my prime, when I was a young man; It would now take me more than 4 hours now that I am a little older, slower, and get more distracted.
I think this is too much, so i’ve halved my reading to just 50 pages a day. At this rate, It would take me more than two weeks to finish an 800 page book. I might be able to finish just two fat fantasy books a month.
Which brings me to my point. The reason I’m reading again, and training myself to read a little bit every day, is that eventually I want to try my hand at writing a fantasy trilogy or book. I know it will be hard, and that I might not be commercially successful. But my love of fantasy stems from a very young age. I need to try to write a fantasy book, else I’ll never know how and why I failed at it?
Besides, I’ll have to write a collection of essays, and at least one literary work of fiction and some poetry. I am a writer, after all.
I will graduate with a BA in English Literature four or five years from now, after being a part-time undergraduate, off and on, for more than two decades.
I hope to write after that. Winter is coming, as the game of thrones simply states, and I hope to be ready. I’ll read up these books then start on another fantasy trilogy in a few weeks. It could be months before I’ve finished reading a couple of fantasy trilogies, so that I have something to compare to my own writing.
My own fantasy series, called: Patriklironomicon, is about a young female elf who pretends to be a boy. This unusual novel came to me rather a-quickly, one day, whilst I was plotting; I outlined three main characters and their stories before the day was done.
At this stage it’s just an idea. But I have a rough draft of an outline, mostly in my head.
I also want to write, what I’d call a space opera, if they’re even called that anymore. It’s about vampires in space, and about genetically modified humans waging a war, interstellar, against them; I guess I should read Dune and emulate it’s greatness; it’s certainly a space opera I could get behind. So we’ll see. Lots of reading to do first. Then, a little writing. But for my space opera I’m inspired a little by the Warhammer 40k universe. Just when will it get it’s own movie or series?
But anyway. I’m years away from a first book or any sort of final draft. I might graduate from school before trying to publish my first book – and that’s four or five years away. And I might choose to self publish on amazon and not bother with traditional publishing houses. I doubt I’ll have many readers, but I do like to write. Why not self-publishing on amazon?
Anyway, update you in a few.
Steve Mini from the 6
