Time for an update on Evinden, I think.

Current word count: 77,905
Current page count: 221

Start date for project: 11 April 2001, allegedly. This is the oldest file I have archived on the computer relating to the project – a file called ‘Ideas.doc’.

Rather terrifyingly, that means I’ve been working on this damned book for seven bastard years. Seven! That’s quite clearly utterly ridiculous – there are children out there whose entire lives encompass seven years, and yet I’ve somehow managed to take seven years to write a book; in fact, to write half of a book, it’s nowhere near finished yet.

One thing’s for certain: if Evinden turns out well and I write more books, I dearly hope that they prove to be rather less ponderous in their creation. Of course, Evinden went through a bit of a funny early development in that it was originally to be a screenplay and had an entirely different structure, before before restructured in (I think) 2004 as a novel.

Still, with James providing spiffy feedback and a few select other people having read and enjoyed the book, I’m rather more spurred on to finish the damn thing than I ever have been before. The Eastercon 2008 convention also rather invigorated my writing spirit – I couldn’t help but think this is where I want to be. Once I got used to the lingering nerd smells and the Klingon guy, anyway.

Reading over this Ideas.doc file is really quite enlightening, reminding me of where I was coming from in the first place. While it’s changed vastly and become infinitely more detailed, some of the early notes make for an amusing list of “Fantasy Clichés 101”. This was back in the days when I hadn’t read any fantasy, and before Fellowship of the Ring hit cinemas. A different age!

Check it out:

Basic ideas/concepts

• Magic
• Sword-fighting
• Flying (flying characters, or flying vehicles?)
• Hero’s Journey
• Epic
• Huge, towering cities
• Demonic creatures
• – invasion?
• Dark/light? How ‘serious’ are we getting?
• Mythology
• History
• Flawed characters
• Characters have past connections
• One character appearing to several, drawing them together?
• – Mentor/wizard character?
• Must protect somebody?
• – on a journey?
• – both physical and mental?
• – Extending swords?
• – must have!
• – huge variety of extending cool weaponry!!!!!!!!
• – Girl from above rescues Cut from work?
• – City perched atop clouds (hidden)
• – Waterfalls!
• – Cut can save his people from the tyranny of the Telladors.

Not a particularly auspicious start.

I’m really not sure what I was thinking calling the lead character ‘Cut’. I mean, there’s no way a typo could have made that one embarassing, eh?