Monday December 9th, 2013

The exercise:

Today's writing theme is: that's a wrap.

Use the prompt as you will, but I'm going to do a little look back on the yearlong journey through Mejaran. I hope it's of interest even to those who did not participate in the collaboration.

Plus there's a little surprise announcement at the end.

Mine:

When I first wrote the introduction to Mejaran back in January I had absolutely no idea where the story would go. I intentionally left it as open to interpretation as possible, as I just wanted to provide the setting and allow the story to grow from there.

And grow it did.

Characters and relationships were created, twists and turns materialized. At many points during the year I truly had no clue what was really going on, nor what was coming next. Reading back over every entry was vital before attempting to write the next one.

Some things I wrote were misinterpreted or misunderstood, others were taken in directions I never considered. I'm sure I'm not the only one in that category. It all made for a very compelling experience, as far as I was concerned.

Allow me, if you will, to end with a couple of minor trivia notes and a little announcement.

Since I was creating the world we would play in, I took the liberty of naming a few things after people in my life. The first, and perhaps most obvious, was the village itself:

Max
Ethan
Jay
Aucoin
R
A
N

I think at some point I had come up with something for what the ran stood for at the end there but I've totally forgotten it now. Mostly it was just an ending that seemed necessary to make it sound more like a place name than Meja did, to my ear at any rate.

Well, maybe that wasn't the most obvious name origin. I imagine Doctor Maximus Jaycox could take that prize. Fun fact: Kat and I didn't care for any of the longer versions of Max when we were naming our son (Maxwell, Maximilian, etc), which is why we chose what we did. The only one I was pulling for was Maximus, but I was aware I never stood a chance with that.

Finally, a place name origin that none of you could have guessed: the mountain range looming over the village.

NAtalie
DAwn
GAil

That would be Max's only cousin, inspiration for the Nadaga Mountains.

I hope those of you who participated in the monthly installments enjoyed yourselves. I know I certainly did. So much so that I would like to do it again next year. But with a little twist to get things started.

In the just over two thousand day history of this blog, there have been a grand total of zero guest posts. All the writing that has appeared on the main page has been my own. That's going to change in January.

Because I have asked Greg to write the introduction to the setting we'll be paying monthly visits to in 2014. I am looking forward to what he comes up with, and I hope you all will join me in exploring the world he sets out for us.