"you must never be afraid to go there."
-harlan ellison
if you want to have exploding testicles in a story, put them in there.
i was sitting here, thinking about alternate timelines and parallel universes and what kind of fiction could be formed in one, separate for now from the fictional, alternate, parallel timeline and universe that i'm already working on. an idea was forming, slowly, painfully. involving a lot of research, a lot of maps.
then i got sidetracked, which as you know by now, happens a lot.
maps. i need to make a map of my little made-up fiction world. should it be a map of earth? a map of earth as i think it used to be? a map of some other earth as it is or used to be? in the fiction, we have already been to a few cities on one continent, with more cities referenced, more continents referenced even.
that got me thinking about scope. the scope of this thing that we've started working on ("we" of course references myself and all of my supporters and fans, for you are all in this with me). how big it can get. i realize i want it to get big, to continue to grow until it is a world, no a universe, jam-packed with people and histories of people. of places and maps to and from and of those places. not just one universe, but multiple universes. a "multiverse", if you'll permit me to use the term coined by Michael Moorcock.
after wrapping my brain around how big this project can be, my thoughts continued off onto another track. This big project. This work. Who is it for? Well, it's for me, of course. and for you. but is it for everyone? probably not. literary tastes aside, not everyone will like something that a writer creates. closing in a little bit though, could anyone pick up a some-day book written by me and read it? sure. would they enjoy it? hopefully. is it going to be age appropriate? if that age is ten, probably not.
i started on stephen king when i was eleven years old. i know what my kids are reading these days, and am ok with it for the most part (sigh... twilight). but is everything printed in a book appropriate for any kid to pick up and read? of course not. that's where parents come in. know what your kids are reading. i'm not saying sit down and read it first, but you can always find a summary somewhere, say online, or the inside cover or back of the book. or just flip through it. if you see the term "heaving bosom" or "purple-headed warrior", maybe your eight-year old shouldn't be reading that just yet.
that quote up there at the top of the page sums it up nicely. as a writer, if you think of something that you want to write down, don't be afraid to do so. as referenced twice now (once here and once from last week), the newest short features exploding testicles. am i going to take it out because some may find it offensive? no. am i going to let my child, of an age i don't feel is appropriate to be viewing the material, sit down and read it and show it to her friends? no.
don't be afraid to put words down just because you want a wider audience. does everyone want to read about exploding testicles? no. and i'm ok with that. initially i thought of this book of stories as "young adult fiction". after that last story, maybe i should remove the "young". or just trust parents to know what their children are getting after.
hope to see you all soon.
ok. see you soon. i'm off to get some laundry done.
