Easter project update 2023

As Easter approaches my Easter project is more thought of, more inclined to be written.  Today I wrote a small snippet towards it, which is more than I have done for weeks if I am honest.

I am quite proud of what I did, even if it was only two paragraphs.  The idea hit me and I had to add it in, the villain has been remastered, he has a more full personality now and seems quite real, whereas my old villain was pretty naff really.

However I am starting to realise that this story, which was planned to be a trilogy could actually have some kind of comic elements to it too and may not be just three books!

As I realised that the two main characters are very hero/villain with magical powers like a normal comic would be.

It was never intended to be another comic, but it is starting to flow that way.  But it is written as a novel, because I prefer to do that with this project.

Thing is, this project is not really in first draft yet, it is actually only in planning mode and note taking whilst I try to visualise the whole world.

I do actually know where I would like the story to go and I believe once I am happy with the whole plan, this will be written down quite quickly.

The story is quite musical in parts, with poems and it is reminiscent of Charlie and the chocolate factory, but it is also poles apart as well.  The storyline is only similar in that it is based on a fantasy candy world; there are no children as main characters, no competitions, no mutations and a lot more magic, myth and legend retelling.

Similarly to project AD, it does have anthropomorphic supporting characters and is set around Easter, with a little bit of Easter tradition thrown in to help the story along a bit.

Why is it musical in parts and has a lot of poetry in the plans?

Because when I write, I write the kinds of movies I want to see – to me this is a musical family fantasy based around Easter, the Easter bunny and candy land. 

I’m actually quite excited about this project because it’s super fun to write.

Project AD is fun to write, but it is less playful if you get me?

Also this Easter project has a better and more energetic playlist than Project AD when I write it, so writing moves along faster – not to mention the language is rather different in project AD compared to this project.

My sense of humour can be very naughty at times and I have to keep reminding myself that I intend for this to be a family audience, so at times I get sad because I think of a hilarious scene and then sit back and realise how would I respond if a young child read or watched this and then I am like – OH MY GOODNESS DELETE-DELETE-DELETE!

No innuendos about gumballs Tina!

Shocking, really I am!

But those things slip in there and I have to be careful and mindful about it and who my audience is supposed to be, so the gumball joke is deleted.

So, you won’t be reading about how you should handle an evil gum tree any time soon!

By kicking him in the gumballs!

Shakes head*

Sorry about that!

Thanks for reading!

Steampunk 2

Steampunk 2

This project started at around 2014 and I have been procrastinating a lot with continuing this, I have bursts of wanting to add things to it about once every four or five months, but those only last a couple of days.

I feel it’s a complicated project because I believe the believability of this fantasy steampunk may not be believable enough to its readers as I think this idea is very out-there…

I think it is only a matter of confidence really.

This idea is a family collaboration, including ideas from both Henry my son, and Paul my partner. Mostly the idea came from Christmas morning in 2014 I had such a bad chest infection we had to celebrate Christmas in bed. This meant, Henry enjoyed carrying up his presents to me on the bed to open them so I didn’t miss anything! In Henry’s eyes, it was the best Christmas ever, because it was so different! But then he says that every year! He had this idea my body under the duvet was a mountain for his cars to drive over and this started our game, which built this story!

That was a bad year for my chest, I was admitted to A&E (ER) the next day as it went into pneumonia, at this point I had had the infection since Halloween!

Below is what you may find in this standalone novel!

Giants

Inventors

Religious figures

Philosophy

A coming of age hero

A close grandfather and grandson relationship

Steampunk themes

Environmentalism

Existential crisis

Corny humour

Gross humour

Family friendly

Poetical interjections

Climate change

Trolls

Bio mutualism

Debunking sciences

Debunking mythology

This story has been influenced by many things, primarily throughout my childhood rather than adulthood!  This story wasn’t decided upon entirely until 2014, but I had little thoughts here and there since I was about eight years of age!  So maybe the origin of this idea is much older than I originally said?

Here are my influences below for this particular story;

The never-ending story movies (never read the book)

The princess bride (the movie)

Are all the giants dead?  By Mary Norton

The BFG by Roald Dahl

The Matrix movies

Land of the giants (TV series)

The borrower’s books, TV series and movies

Gulliver’s travel and the movies

Innerspace movie starring Martin Short and Dennis Quaid

Noah’s ark from the bible

The shrinking scene in Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory movie starring Gene Wilder

I am pretty slow with this novel, because I don’t really have much of middle, unlike most of my other stories I do actually have a beginning and an end, but the middle is rather bland and needs a lot of work right now to make it more fleshed out and exciting!

I don’t suppose this work will actually be done within the next five years, but it is one of my top ten favourites to think about.

I haven’t completed draft one in all of this time!

The novel is hollow at the centre, because it has a beginning and it has a definite finale, but I just haven’t got much in the middle yet.

Thanks for reading!

Suzy Snowflake review

I love Christmas for more reasons than just the family time, presents and food. I love Christmas for some of the songs and tunes that are available at yuletide.
Songs that feed the imagination of the fantasy writer and artist such as; “Suzy Snowflake” written by Sid Tepper and Roy C Bennett in the 1950s and sung by Rosemary Clooney. Suzy Snowflake is a little snow fairy that beckons children to go out and play in the snow, though the song isn’t exactly about Christmas per se, snow intrinsically is associated with Christmastime. Though some will argue that Suzy Snowflake is nothing more than just a little girl dressed in a snow white gown, there is a video however that shows otherwise. In the video Suzy taps at the windowpanes of little houses with a magical wand that frosts the panes over. In my opinion, that’s not to the ability of a mere mortal child.
I like to think of Suzy Snowflake as being the female counterpart or wife of Jack Frost, another Christmas/Winter hero.
I am aim to write about a Christmas song at least once a week leading up to Christmas, all of them are secular Christmas songs and could be considered food for the imagination.