Huge fantasy tomes / huge series of huge fantasy tomes.

I don't know if MOREGONE is good, bad, or indifferent, but I'm enjoying the hell out of writing it.

In 1966 when I was fourteen years old, I wanted to live in Middle Earth. This was long before the genre of fantasy was established, at a time when few people I knew had read LOTR's.

Finally, fifty years later, I've found a way to live, not in Middle Earth, but in a fantasy world of my own making.

It is extraordinarily fun and fulfilling.
I think I've finally found a way to indulge my love of fantasy. Unexpectedly, it's by writing novellas, instead of full novels, and most especially by not trying to write huge fantasy tomes that are part of a huge series of huge fantasy tomes.

I'm fleshing this world out little by little, stand alone stories that can be read in any order, each different in tone and approach. I so far have several 3rd person stories, (SAID THE JOKER, TO THE THIEF; THE WYVERN RIDERS; THE GRIFFEN CORP, MOTHER SALI) one 1st person story, (MOREGONE) and--the only time I've tried this--one 1st person, present tense (for THE TOAD KING.)

By the end of this month I'll have written 150,000 words in this world. A couple of more and I'll have the equivalent of one of those huge tomes.

Personally, I'm pretty much done with reading huge fantasy tomes, huge series of fantasy tomes. I've been burned too many times by the authors not delivering in a timely manner and from most of them being Tolkien retreads.

It doesn't matter in my approach to TALES OF THE THIRTEEN PRINCIPALITIES. I have so many stories inside me and I want to tell them in so many ways that writing 30,000 words stories makes much more sense for me.

When I've written enough of them, I'm going to try to construct an outline of the Thirteen Principalities, including maps, graphs, and so on. Which, I'm hoping, will allow me to write even more stories.

All these stories probably need some rewriting, but it will be with a light touch, because the whole point of them is for them to be fresh and immediate.