Between not sleeping well, sinus trouble, and a general brain cloud running between the hemispheres of my brain causing thoughts to to be muddled and difficult to handle, I’ve not been getting on well with the craft of writing. I’ve written far fewer words than I am capable of. I don’t like that and I need to change it. I need to change it right now. After this post I’m jumping in feet first and not looking back until I’ve done all I can.

That’s my plan at any rate. Next weekend is Easter and if I’m to hit my Lent goal I need a lot of words to make it. I’m way behind, but I still think I can pull this one out. Just need to put my mind to it. That’s what I plan on doing each night this week and next. Putting my mind to it and seeing where I am at the end.

The weather is looking clearer and so are my thoughts. I’m thankful for this. Ever since I posted about doing Of Gnomes and Dwarves my brain has been on fire! I don’t mean the oh I’m thinking happy thoughts and I have a general plot in mind. I mean ON FIRE! I’m remembering all those old ideas I had with some vague direction. I’m remembering everything about each character with plots, subplots, interwoven story lines. I mean everything! I had never forgotten about the story and I certainly never forgot about the characters.

Back in high school I played D&D. Now don’t roll your eyes that this is just another D&D story with random encounters and the like. I never lumped my story in with anything like that. I had a greater plan. I really did. Yes, I had dragons, yes, I had dungeons, and dwarven depths, and elves, and half-elves, and thieves, and a band of adventurers. I had all that, but I also had more than just that.

The first book is the story of how all the characters met. Chance Encounters (guess where I came up with the short story Kance Encounter). Each character also had a background story. Those are revealed in conversation but in the original writing it’s done in data dumps. I never liked them. I also didn’t like that nearly every character in my books was male. A lot of that will be changing with the re-writes and this is making the story have a totally different dimension.

The first character is Maus.

Yes, German for mouse. This is why the title of the series is Of Gnomes and Dwarves. A play on words. I used a lot of German words in the books whenever I had something Gnomish or Dwarvish to name. It helped during the writing and didn’t slow me down grasping for a name.

He’s a male dwarf that’s been horribly burned and scarred. The common folk don’t care for gnomes as it is, and this hideously ugly specimen gets a lot of unwanted attention.

He runs into Willie. Willie is an amnesiac dwarf. He loves a good fight. He loves to get the group into trouble and his memory is a constant distraction when he remembers something.

Slick is a half-elf thief. He’s never known his father and his mother abandoned him in the city when he was quite young.

This is the first key change in the original story. Slick is going to become a female helf-elf. When I first though about the party I knew I needed to change the dynamic and this was the first. When Maus and Willie run into slick, you’ll understand.

Reeg is a Paladin. Well, I don’t call him that in the story. He was annoying, pompous, and tried very hard to keep the party on the straight and narrow. Yeah, that happened a lot. Reeg will change only slightly, but he’ll still have his shiny armor and do-good attitude, but he’s going to have a very different past. This will be revealed in the short stories I’ll be putting out this year.

Dorg is Reeg’s brother and a mute healer. Having a mute healer was always funny to us, and he’ll remain that way. What’s changing about Dorg? His background. First he will become a she, and one of only a few female healers. During the finding (that’s what I’m going to call it) females have their tongues cut out so they may only heal and not perform spells that could harm a man. This will add a dimmension to Dorg that never existed before. The name will likely change as well. I haven’t put enough thought into that.

Finally there is Herminn. Ever party needs a wizard, right? The only trouble with Herminn is that in book two, when they meet him, he’s a great wizard. Okay, when you meet him you’ll know he’s more than just that. But a spell backfires and his mind is literally blown. The party, because of Reeg, can’t leave him behind so they pack up what they can and drag this wizard along.

I’ve written four books in this series and all of them are going to be 100% rewritten. I’ve got plot outlines for the books and I WILL have a great time revisiting this world and these characters.

I’ve looked over a character list for the entire series and wow have I got a lot of characters. I don’t have a cast of thousands like some stories do, but I have a lot of characters. Doing the re-write I’m sure that each book will grow and expand far beyond what they’re currently at. My writing has gotten better over the years and now I can finally tell the story I always intended to tell all along.

I hear you saying in the back of your mind “yeah yeah, it’s a D&D story. Nothing good ever comes from a gaming story.”

I give you V&A Shipping. I you haven’t yet listened, it’s there on the right or up top. This story was based on a game we played call Bulldogs and one of the inventors of the game sold the idea to a gaming company. It was a blast to play and nearly all of the characters you’ll run into were from the game we played. I only took the characters. I didn’t bring along character sheets, or inventories, or anything like that. I took the concept and ran with it.

That’s what I plan on doing with Of Gnomes and Dwarves. Have fun with it. Make it my own. Build the world to suit my needs, not borrow from D&D and use a pre-made world.

I’m getting more and more worked up just talking about it. There’ll be more to come. I can assure you of that. I’d better get started. I’ve got a lot to do!

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!