Friday 17 February 2012

What Genre? It Took Two Years To Find Out

This is just a quick update with a few thoughts and events that have taken place over the last few weeks.

What am I?

When the first draft of The Book of Prophecy, (The Journal of Fire at the time), was finished I really struggled to put it in a genre. Fantasy was close, but it never felt right because it's not magic, elves, orcs etc. It does have a tiny aspect of that type of fantasy, but it does not dominate the story, so I never felt it was right. I left it as the genre Fantasy because that was the closest one to what the story was about. Two years flew by...

... and it was only recently a friend I have made in a writing community told me about Metaphysical Fantasy, and what it is. When I researched what 'Metaphysics' actually covers, (good old wiki), I saw that this was exactly what my stories dealt with. I am so happy to know the genre it fits into and it feels like my books have found their place in the world. I would encourage you to go look at Metaphysics on wiki because it is very interesting.

The problem I think I'm going to have now is that Metaphysics sounds too smart. The whole point in my books is to take the ideas and simplify them as much as possible. It is just a fun story with those ideas fuelling it, and I'm worried if I label it with Metaphysics people will be put off thinking it's going to be complex. Metaphysical Fantasy is what it is though so I guess I shouldn't steer away from this, and only time will tell if labelling it as Metaphysical Fantasy is the right thing to do.

Other News

I have joined Authonomy.com and I'm loving it. The people on there have been so nice and helpful, so thank you to everyone on there. The problem is it's too addictive and I find myself on there when I should be writing. I'm getting better at prioritising though.

I can't remember what the last update was but I have finished the first draft of book two (sorry if that news is a repeat). I have put that on the shelf for now and I'm 55,000 words into the stand alone book I'm writing and that's evolving well. I think the best was to describe it is a hybrid of the film equilibrium and the book 1984. It was never the intention to be so political in the story but I'm enjoying that this is the path it is going down. The first draft should be done in six weeks and I'm happy with how quickly it is coming along, 2,000 words a day will do that.

I think that is the majority of the updates that are relevant so watch this space for more.