One reason why writing a novel is harder than you think.

It's really a very simple concept. Research.

I am writing a semi-comic (and dramatic) fantasy novel, which you would think would not require a lot of research. WRONG. WRONG WRONG WRONG.

Sure, courtroom fiction needs research, and medical-suspense-thriller-fiction needs research, but comic fantasy needs a megaton of research too, mostly because comic fantasy tends to parody the heck out of popular culture, history, other fantasy and sci-fi, gawd, you name it and some comic fantasy writer has probably used it in his books. Especially if his name is Terry Pratchett. And I am going a lot lighter on the parody than he does, so Og only knows how much time he spends researching for his Discworld series.

I've just spent 30 minutes checking the names I am giving different countries within this book to make sure that the allusions make sense. Tomorrow or Sunday I plan to devote a few hours to research about various mythical species (dragons, phoenixes, elves, sprites, domovoi, witches, huldrafolk, you get the idea).

I have to say that this is the most exhilarating experience I've had writing. I have about 6-7k words at the moment. I just need to repeat that 15 more times, then edit the crap out of it. And get other people to read it. Then edit it some more...and then maybe, just maybe, it will be good enough for a publishing house to at least consider.

However, next month I'll be polishing up a couple of short stories and shopping them around, mostly because I want to already have a little work out there when I'm trying to find someone who will take my novel. I do have some poetry published already, but I need to get my name out in the prose world.

There will be an update to the novel sometime this weekend, I think. Have a good one, all three of you!