PT and Pratchett

Mutant Hollyhock

Once again, this is Jane, but with Jim handling the typing. Seven weeks out from surgery on my right rotator cuff I’m no longer required to wear a sling, but I’m a long way from being able to type with my usual speed and dexterity.

When I’m not doing PT exercises or what chores I can help with, I’ve been doing a lot of reading. My latest project is to read all of Terry Pratchett’s Diskworld “witch” books. I started with Equal Rites and I’m currently reading Wintersmith.

In the author’s notes following A Hatful of Sky, Pratchett made an interesting comment about writing. Let me quote just a little bit of it:

“I had to write this book. In fact, other projects had to go on hold to let it past. This was because certain scenes and characters just turned up and camped in my head and wouldn’t go away…. You can’t start on your next planned book when another one is bumping gently but insistently against your brain.”

I really liked what Pratchett said because it’s very much how story telling works for me. I’ll take it one step further. For me, stories very often start with some variation of “what if?”

What if a young woman raised by wolves was dropped into the middle of complicated human politics? What if the game of mah-jong actually encoded not only a complicated magical system, but also a secret history?

Those of you who are familiar with my work will recognize the seeds that led to the Firekeeper Saga and the Breaking the Wall series.

For me, writing isn’t about markets or mechanically-defined tropes, or those rather stiff and formulaic elements that I see far too much of being presented these days as what are necessary to tell a good story. Right now, my biggest “what if” has to do with healing from surgery as in “what if I move wrong and tear something loose?” I look forward to when this particular story lets go and I can get back to writing. For now though, I need to settle on healing and daydreaming.