November 22, 2013

Journaling - Week 3 of NaNoWriMo

Well, this week left me a bit bogged down - i.e. behind on word count and completely surprised at the direction the story has taken. It has actually been a very exciting process, though. While I've always written from a Christian worldview and with the desire for my writing to please God, with this story I decided to consciously, intentionally seek to write the story God wants, rather than fighting for the story I want. So at the beginning I told God that We are the Rising is His story, and to help me write it the way He wants it.
I was expecting that to have some effects on the story, but I wasn't prepared for how dramatic those effects would be. What started out as an idea for a fantasy story about a man and a dragon fighting to avenge themselves on the empire that enslaved them has turned into a story about Christianity's earliest arrival in Western Europe, and about how God can even use something as horrible as the Roman Empire to accomplish His good purposes. Of course, there is some of what I'm calling "speculative history" thrown in there too. Basically, it's my imagination playing with the concept of domesticated dinosaurs. (I had to find something to do with the dragon character, after all.) Honestly, I would like to see a lot more Christian writers start exploring that concept. We have plenty of evidence that people in the past did domesticate dinosaurs, so why not incorporate them into our fiction?
But one thing at a time - and the first thing on the to-do list is to finish NaNoWriMo!
Best of luck, writers! We're on the home stretch, so don't quit now!

3 comments:

  1. Good to know you're still going at it.

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  2. Where do you find your information on domesticated dinosaurs? I would really like to know, I find that sort of thing fascinating but the information is hard to come by.

    I hope We Are The Rising is going well!

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    1. The best information I've found on domesticated dinosaurs is in the books "Chronicles of Dinosauria" by Dave Woetzel and "Dire Dragons" by Vance Nelson. "The Puzzle of Ancient Man" is a great book that touches lightly on the subject too if memory serves me correctly. I believe that author's last name is Chittick, but his first name escapes me.
      So glad to hear of someone else who likes the topic too! The info is definitely hard to find, since it's so politically incorrect to talk about the idea of dinosaurs and humans living together, but it's really fascinating and the evidence is undeniable.

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