Fantasy, mystery, thrillers, horror, historical. . .I write it all, and review it too!

Feb 13, 2012

Welcome to the Origins Blogfest!

Courtesy Wikipedia
On Mondays I usually have my series Medieval Mondays. Today, though, I'm participating in the Origins blogfest, telling the world how I got into writing. Medieval Mondays will actually be on Tuesday this week. I'll be talking about the Hexamilion, a six-mile wall the Byzantines built to try to stop the Ottoman Turks. Did it work? Come back tomorrow and find out!

My story is a pretty typical one. I got inspired to write because I grew up on science fiction, fantasy, and roleplaying games (anyone else out there a Gamma World fan?). I didn't write for a long time, though, because most of my creativity got sucked into my archaeology studies. Archaeology couldn't quite satisfy me, though. So much is left unknown. When you visit a place such as Avebury or uncover some spectacular find like the Sutton Hoo ship, pictured above, you're only learning a tiny percent of the story behind it.

So I got into writing to tell my own stories. One thing my readers often notice in my tales are the layers of personality my protagonists have. They are conflicted, multidimensional, often hypocritical, and nobody knows them completely, not even themselves. This is what makes people interesting, and as much as I love my field of study, archaeology will never be able to give us this.

7 comments:

  1. Hi AJ, nice to meet you. I'm having a tour around people's origins. I never got the Dungeons and Dragons thing myself, though I did like the cartoon series :-)

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  2. I'm highly enjoying this blogfest. It's been great going around to read how other people got started.

    I never played D&D but, like Annalisa, I did like the cartoon. And yet, I still ended up writing fantasy. Go figure...

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  3. Really clear internet site , thanks for this post.

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  4. Characters with layers and depth are the most interesting! You're ahead of the game in that respect! Nice ORIGIN story!

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  5. Reading your origins, I just realized why it is I savor my characters so much. I think it's because I can write them as multidimensional and hypocritical as I like, and they have no choice but to yield to my, the creator's, idea of who they are. They're my clay, my treasure hidden in the dirt, my bones to unearth.

    So cool, your profession! I had romantic visions as a kid, long before I knew of the actual work involved, of becoming an archeologist. Something to do with Indiana Jones, I'm sure!

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  6. your experiences must be great inspirations!

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  7. How cool that you got into both archeology and writing. 2 of my favorite subjects:)Great to meet you on this blogfest.

    your newest follower,
    Nutschell
    www.thewritingnut.com

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