[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Joshua Grasso

I think sometimes writing can be a 'mid-life crisis' thing, or simply a way to rediscover earlier joys of self-expression after the better part of a life spent doing the 'right' thing or being otherwise responsible. Our society doesn't exactly reward artistic endeavor.

You're right about not rewarding artistic endavours; it's not for nothing that there's a stigma of being poor as an artist, except for the very few happy ones.

But... a mid-life crisis in my early 30's? Euh... I hope not.

However, I think the other possibility is simply that for most of us, writing (or any kind of art) needs to be refined in age. Everyone is publishing at 16, 17, and 18 now, which I think can be a bad thing, since it's hard to be original and not simply emulating (or outright plagiarizing) your influences at that age.

As I said above, that's actually what I'm very afraid of: plagiarizing books and characters that I don't even know that exist. In my story, I want to have a weapon created for the hero. Actually, I envision this story as a duology (at the moment, being two parts, or two books), with the first part being the quest of the creation of that weapon, and the second part being the quest to put it to use.

It's been done before, in The First King of Shannara, at least, so the weapon must be *VERY* different from the one described there. One example is:

"The Sword of Shannara" -> Terry Brooks
"The Sword of Truth" -> Terry Goodkind

The Sword of Shannara *IS* a Sword of Truth; its magic reveals truths.

I want to avoid such similarities; and I actually feel like swords are done to death.

I wish to have this hero wield two weapons... but that has been done before too. (Drizzt, Artemis Entreri, and some others I know of.) Because I want the hero to wield two weapons, the one created almost HAS to be a sword. (I'm not really an axe man, and I never heard about someone wielding two quarterstaffs...)

What sword? A Scimitar? Damn you, Drizzt. A Katana? Hm. Isn't a katana too similar to a Scimitar? And what about Miyamoto Musashi? He already wielded two katana's. A normal "western" sword? Very hard to wield two of those at once. They're not right for that.

Also, I don't write a "reluctant hero, create weapon, defeat big evil" story.

So even while making this simple decision, I already feel stuck to some extent.

The one thing I know is that my story will have A LOT of character development. And I mean Planescape:Torment-like A LOT. (If you ever played that game, you'll know what I mean.)

I'm starting to dislike fantasy novels that just go like: "Hero here, pick up weapon/talisman from there, fight-fight-fight, find evil, kill it", without a lot of character development. Character development is the number one reason why I DO like the early Drizzt novels, but I'm questioning if I should keep reading Forgotten Realms fantasy, because so many books are just quests with shallow characters to fulfill them.

Before that, writing is more about being famous, making money, etc. It can still be about this to many people, mind you, but I think as you turn a pivotal corner you simply want to record something and/or express yourself in a meaningful way.

Indeed....

In my case, I have a profession (I'm a professor) that I spent 10 years preparing for. I have a stable job which pays me decently, and I'm happy in my chosen profession.

If I had to do it all over again, I probably would have chosen to become a professor or university teacher. (In the Netherlands, only the head of a university faculty is called "professor".) It's too late for that now, the only thing I could hope for is attaining a promotion some day. (Studying stuff probably became my biggest hobby in the last few years.)