This ties into my last blog post, about finding pleasure in your craft for the sake of it.
But I mean, there’s pleasure, and then there’s just plain old excitement, you know? Joy. Like, you can’t wait to write your stuff, and then you can’t wait to read it, and you absolutely don’t care what anyone else has to say about it because those two things–the reading and the writing–is enough fuel for you to continue.
I’ve encountered writers who claim that they don’t read the genre they write in. I get the feeling that many of these people write in the genre simply because think they can do better than the mediocre attempts they feel that others make. There is so much room for error in fantasy, especially epic doorstoppers. “That’s not realistic enough,” you’ll hear people say often. “In my world, they don’t…”
And so on, and so forth.
I mean, I get it. I’ve had my fair share of complaints with certain aspects of the genre, and God knows I used to read Limyaael’s rants like they were the Bible. But all bitching aside, I love the character-driven epics only slightly less than I love my own children. I love the epic, cheesy goodness even of works I wouldn’t hesitate to tear apart with a spork if given the chance. Books, movies…heck, even video games, they’re all fair game. I’ve got my complaints about the way some fantasies approach the writing aspect of things but fuck if I don’t inhale all of that shit up like a starving dog.
For example: I played the shit out of Final Fantasy X-2 and I loved it, every single cringe-worthy part of it.
And in case you don’t know what I’m talking about, here you go. I can’t even really watch it without face-palming.
That excitement is part of why I continue to write what I do. I am not trying to make my work into anything that it isn’t–I’m not trying to pretend that there’s literary merit to it, or that I could change worlds or lives or whatever. I just love this genre, and I love writing in it, and damned if that’s going to change any time soon.
Birthplace is a bit different. While I don’t actively read in the paranormal genre, I do love horror, and what I was trying to do was blend horror with a bit of fantasy (something which will become more clear as the series progresses). For the longest time, I marketed it as YA urban fantasy. Later, I was told that this genre is actually “paranormal” which I suppose is where stuff like Twilight and other works with shape shifting beasts fall in. But in my heart, it’s horror and fantasy.
So there you go: my unabashed, shameless confession. I feel a lot better now, to be honest.
Read The Agartes Epilogues which combines everything you’ve come to expect from the genre–long, boring political talks, large armies, far-fetched ambition, fantastic monsters, ancient legends–with delicious, soap opera-like drama. It’s got dragons and love triangles.
