Babbling about fantasy...

I’ve had a few days off now from most of the usual work we do here daily, so I’ve had the chance to draw, write and get utterly, utterly bored. I don’t have a scanner at my disposal, so can’t scan the few doodles I’ve done so I could work with them on the computer. So I’ve been trying to write something. Unfortunately my mind is too preoccupied with other things to actually concentrate on anything creative. So I’m trying to unwind here a little. Get the writing juices flowing again. All that icky stuff.

I think I was just turning twelve, or maybe thirteen; it was Christmas, most likely Christmas eve after all the presents had been opened, stomachs full of food and sweets, and the world outside dark as it could possibly be, when I sat down in front of the telly to watch a premiere movie from the film channel we had back then. The Neverending Story II. Some weeks later I would see the first movie, and later on come to realize how poor the second one was, but back then, it changed my world.

Thinking back, it must have been the day before Christmas eve, but that’s not important here and now. As soon as the holidays were over and the library bus running again, I found and borrowed The Neverending Story as a book, and fell even more in love with it. It was the first actual book I bought for myself a few weeks later (and I still remember how horrified I was at how expensive it was! Over 130 Finnish marks!). And after they showed a Finnish theatre production turned TV series of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, I was a goner. I was utterly lost in the worlds of fantasy. I would follow Taran and Eilonwy in Prydain, go through the wardrobe to Narnia, learn of the (endless!) travels of Garion & al, sail the Earthsea and have adventures in Krynn, and many many other worlds as well. For years I read and loved fantasy, and of course it affected my long-time dream of becoming a writer.

I think I was already in school before I learned to read, but after that I had a book with me everywhere I went. I could read for hours, and wanted to become a part of that world. Wanted to write a book of my own one day. My greatest fear (after everything regarding death) back then was that I wouldn’t have what it takes to be a writer. I do believe that anyone can write, of course, but I’ve also always believed that it takes a certain something to be able to write things that people want to read, stories that will catch them by the imagination and transport them to another time, place or even a world.

That was my dream, and fear. But I digress (I like writing that, makes me seem all sophisticated and shit.). I was thinking about fantasy while just taking the dog out for a walk in the spring rain. As said, for years I loved fantasy, grew up with it from a child to a teenager, from grade school to the end of high school. Of course my tastes of it developed as well, I grew to dislike some old favourites while others (The Neverending Story!) still remain close to my heart to this day. I began to look for more realism in the books I read. Realism in fantasy? Heh. But you know what I mean. To put it simply: someone dies, and they stay dead. That kind of thing. I must have been about 18 or 19 when I fell out of love with fantasy, got bored with it because of one series of books, which lacked severely in this realism-department. They were just silly, and not in a Terry Pratchett –way. This didn’t last long, though; just a few years later I got my hands on Robin Hobb’s Liveship-books and the love was on again. Her Farseer-books had been the last good books of fantasy I’d read before the break-up, so it wasn’t surprising that hers were the ones which brought me back to my roots.

Anyhoo, by then I had moved away from home, had my heart broken by my ex, and even traveled the world a bit. I was older, and my tastes had refined further. I still feel nostalgia when I think of those books I used to love, and even when there is sometimes a passing fancy to read some of the more important ones again, I don’t want to, because I think I’d dislike them now, and don’t want to spoil the good memories. That is not to suggest that I hate everything I once liked, not at all. Things and tastes change, that’s all. I still love fantasy, enough to reread some favourites and look for new ones. Enough to go back to the world I created at the age of 13, to visit those characters and to start writing about them again. Even though I now much more prefer urban fantasy to epic, preferably with a touch of cyberpunk (and steampunk seems pretty shibby as well!), there’s still something about fantasy… how, even when trying to keep a touch of realism (again with the death-thing and all that stuff) in it, there still are so many opportunities to go absolutely mad with it. And when normal life with its routines, long numbing days of work get to be too much, there’s nothing like going absolutely mad in your own little world, you know?

Right. Let’s see if all this gets me somewhere with writing some fiction...