"Hello, is Naivete there?"
"Speaking."

Recently I was offered the chance to write a fantasy serial. The project is fairly open ended, as I've been given the green light for as many words as I can type by the end of December. The gig might still fall through if my writing isn't up to spec, but for right now I'm excited and optimistic. My last few projects have all come in over word count, forcing me to go back and trim (and in some cases amputate) entire sections, so having the room to breath is refreshing.

As projected, it should come out to be somewhere between 20k to 30k words in length. Just big enough to feel like an accomplishment, but not TOO big, especially when the love of your life is in another part of the world, and your main pastime is falling down on concrete late at night.

Preparing for the work has me flipping through all the 1st Ed book, especially the old "Dungeon Master's Guide." It has left me with a new appreciation for the sheer amount of information that was compiled by Mr. Gygax and Co. Twenty-thousand words? That was nothing. He has chapters that are 20,000 words long.

The name of gems? In there. How about titles for Northern European rulers? In there too. Along with all that stuff pertaining to actually playing the game. Amazing.

So to all the folks that came before us and made a niche for stories about point-eared people and midgets, thank you.

I'm having a blast.


P.S. I would be remiss if I didn't add that people have been telling stories about elves and whatnot for ages. In the next few years I'd like to read enough to develop a sense of context for all these fae and goblins. Can anyone recommend any good titles?