So, I’ve gotten to a point in the process of trying to define the entire world’s cultures for my novel series that I’m going to have to change how I approach things. I’ve already come across several questions for the France and Germany-analogue countries where I had to just leave them for later because I wasn’t going to be able to answer them without writing the country’s myths first. But for those two I’m using historical periods I know pretty well as my inspiration, and I’ve already had to write a lot about them since they’re such near neighbors of the country in the first novel. Once I’m done with those two, I’m going to need to do much more serious research before I can even answer the questions, let alone write the myths. And I think I’m going to want to write the myths before I try to answer the questions, because they give me such a better feel for how I want the culture to develop.
Now, a few of the remaining ones I could probably try to muddle through without doing the research first, since this is all just world-building in-my-own-head stuff, and very little of what I’m writing now will actually make it into any of the finished products, novels or game alike. I may know enough about the real cultures to work with the ones inspired by Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Meiji-era Japan, and possibly even the Persian Empire, but…I think it would start getting very generic. Technically, I might also remember enough from my classes on the Aztecs, Maya, Inca and Moche, but again, I don’t want to start getting generic.
Of course, since I’m counting any time working on a writing project, including research, that won’t have any impact on my Camp NotNaNo hours. In fact, it might actually improve my time! But it’s much less personally satisfying than writing. Though at least once I’ve done the research I’ll get to write the myths! (And after what I went through today, I am definitely making one of the countries address cramps in their myths, making them specifically a curse caused by a particularly unpleasant and misogynistic deity.) Of course, I still have to finish up the myths for the British Isles and France inspired countries; the former needs a replacement for the Arthurian saga, and the latter needs everything that’s going to accompany the Arthurian saga, which of course needs all new names. And I haven’t written the Teutonic/Norse-inspired myths yet, either. I probably want to brush up on my Norse mythology before I try that one. (Also need to brush up on Irish, Welsh and Scottish myths before I try to finish those myths…)
That’s why I may take a detour (as it were) and work on a fanfic I had abandoned a long time ago. It was a fix-it fic for the Wonder Woman movie, trying to repair the horrible, glaring problem with the first five minutes of the movie. And since I’ve been reading a (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) book about Greek mythology since last night, I suddenly have that on the brain again. Even opened up the file to have a look at it briefly. It would be pretty cool if I could finish it and post it before the sequel opens. (Though who knows when that will be! I doubt enough theaters will reopen this summer for any studios to be willing to allow their new movies to open. Certainly they’re not going to want to open new movies before California and New York are back online.)
….Hmm.
I feel like I had something I actually wanted to say, but I don’t know what it was, or if I’ve already said it.
Guess I’ll just hope I did, and close off the post for the night.
Today’s time: ~49 minutes
Total time in July to date: ~17:30:42.89
(They’re both approximations because I accidentally forgot to start the timer when I first sat down to write, and although I tried to run it after that to about the right amount of time, I’m not sure if I ran it long enough. I am quite positive I didn’t run it for too long, though. So I may be closer to 55 minutes than 49, but…eh, not a huge difference, y’know? Either way, I didn’t even go a full hour, let alone catch up to where I should be.)
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