Pushing Too Hard

I don't know what happened. One morning I just sat down and opened up my blog dashboard and my brain shut down. Have I been pushing myself too hard? Getting involved in too many things? Joining too many blogfests and challenges? Probably. It feels like the creative center of my brain just shut down. Probably from overwork. I feel like I haven't accomplished much. But when I think about it rationally, I realize that for the past several months I've been enjoying a spurt of creativity greater than any I've experienced so far in my life. Then one day it just gave out on me.

I closed down my dashboard and I've barely looked at it since. I missed Alex's blogfest. (Sorry, Alex!) And I failed to return interview questions by the date my interview was supposed to be posted. (My apologies, E.R.!) But I desperately needed to walk away for a little while. I have barely read a blog or thought about blogging for over a week and, honestly, it felt good. In hindsight I see that I was running on fumes for the first part of this month, barely getting by, not receiving the inspiration I've grown accustomed to. If I even so much as thought about my stories my brain would slow to a sluggish crawl.

I realize what a real danger pushing yourself too hard can be. Unfortunately, it's a tendency of mine. I've been pressuring my brain to come up with new ideas, new material. I've been attempting to create an entire world in my mind. I've been demanding much of my creativity, but not feeding it enough. It finally said, enough is enough.

I think this is why it's so important for writers to continually read as well. Reading feeds our creative brain. The more story it soaks up the more it understands and can produce. And thus it's important to give it a steady stream of new material. New stories, new ideas, new techniques to take in and process and add to your author's toolbox.

It's been several months since I read something new that was really good, good enough to fire my own imagination. (Though I have to admit, that last rocket boost from Lord Dunsany kept me going a good long time.) Which is probably why my creativity started to sputter and die. But recently the final book in a trilogy that I found quite fascinating finally came out and as soon as my husband was done with it I dived in. And despite its flaws, this book has been like a feast to a starving man for my imagination. Particularly since the plot happens pretty much entirely in Hell and the author spends a fair bit of time world building the various circles and regions therein. This is of interest to me because one of my novels will have large sections devoted to action happening in the underworld of my fantasy realm. I've learned a lot from this author's treatment of a similar type of landscape. The wheels of my creative brain are starting to spin again.

I was even able to open up blogger and write this post without my brain turning to goo. Though, admittedly, I feel way out of the loop now. I'm not even going to try to catch up on most of the blogs I've missed. I'm just going to look ahead and get back into the swing of things going forward. I've got blogfests to prepare for! And I've learned something from this whole experience. Don't push your imagination too hard without giving it regular meals. And take a break when you need to.

Voyage on the Oceans of Fantasy

I came somewhat late, as a reader, to the fantasy genre. In grade school I had, unfortunately, bought into the notion that Fantasy was for geeks and I was a very self conscious adolescent. I didn't want anyone to think I was even less cool than I already was. So although I had read and loved all of the Chronicles of Narnia as a child (no self respecting Christian home would be complete without them even if all other media with "magic" is utterly rejected) and though I had voraciously consumed (in the privacy of my bed room while no one was watching) a short story by Ursula Le Guin that I found in the back of my English book one year, I was careful not to delve into the genre too deeply for fear of being "uncool".

When I was 16 I was caught off guard by an acquaintance who told riddles. They were very clever and I asked him where they came from. "The Hobbit", he told me. I was irrevocably lost to the ranks of the "cool". I could no longer deny my curiosity as it pulled me toward tales of magic and made up worlds. I checked out The Hobbit from the library. I read it quietly in my room. It was good, but not as good as I expected. Still, my appetite was whetted and I knew there were more that followed it. I picked up The Fellowship of the Ring from the library and I was never the same again.The chapter "Shadows of the Past" was a point of no return for me. I'd never read anything like it and I wanted more.

Oh how I cursed myself for not getting the other two books at the same time! How I cursed our house out in the country and the need to get a ride from my parents to the library. When I finally had access to the library again, I didn't make the same mistake twice. I took both The Two Towers and The Return of the King. It was an experience that transformed me and made me into the fantasy reader and writer that I am today.

Back then, I wanted to read more fantasy, but I had no idea where to start after reading The Lord of the Rings. I didn't know anything about the genre. And it wasn't until several years later, when I met my future husband who is a fantasy reader as well, that I was finally able to get into it. He introduced me to many fantasy authors and many new books and series. Still, the more I read the more I continually become aware of how much I still don't know about the deep waters of modern fantasy. And in particular, about its origins and development.

But as a fantasy writer it's important for me to know as much about my genre as possible. Every writer should know what has come before them, what has been done too much and what hasn't been explored enough. And so, as a reader and as a writer, I have decided to made a grand expedition into the turbulent waters of the modern fantasy genre to explore its far reaches and become better acquainted with its currents.

I'm going to start at the beginning (roughly) and travel decade by decade reading as many of the well known and influential fantasy offerings as I can (without prolonging the journey too much) until I reach the present day. And along the way I will blog about my reading experiences and how I think the genre was influenced, for better or worse, by the books I am reading. I will be focusing in particular on how the genre has changed and developed over the last century plus and whether or not the changes were good. (Spoiler: I'll probably think they're bad. I'm a traditionalist.) But I will try to maintain as objective an outlook as possible along the way.

My reading list begins in the 19th century at what is (arguably) the beginning of the modern fantasy genre. Works before this time and before these authors were tended to either be new fairy tales (like John Ruskin's The King of the Golden River), parodies or satires (like Gulliver's Travels) or written as children's stories (like Alice in Wonderland). My selections will not fall into those categories. I will try to cover ever sub-genre as they develop. The first stage of the journey will cover:

George MacDonald~ Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women (1858)

William Morris~ The Wood Beyond the World (1894)
                          The Well at the World's End (1896)

I would sincerely appreciate any suggestions for authors and books that a true fantasy devotee must read. I have done some research, but I'm sure there will be plenty that I miss. Particularly any from those early years in the 19th century that I'm not aware of. I'll report my findings soon!