47,565 Words of Bedtime Stories
Five Books in 2021 Journal, Issue #11
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not really writing five books this year. I’m just arranging five books worth of words I’ve written over the years. Much easier.
Yesterday I finalised the cover for my first book and ordered a copy from the printer. With one item checked off my list, I looked to book two: a collection of bedtime stories that I’ve written for my kids over the years. This is going to be a fun one.
The Kingdoms of Ku-Mulkalt
A few years ago, we made a fantasy map as a family. This was the original iteration of it. Look in the top left and you’ll see a region called Mepton and a city named Parmirk. We started telling stories from there, and were introduced to characters like Moonstrike, Eleanor, Malmaul, Zepheuplatoo, Olivia, Yang, Princess Asumtra, and Duke.
Creature lore
From there, we started writing creature lore. One of my kids would show me a drawing like this with a creature name, its personality, and some backstory:
At first I’d use their guidance to write animals into the stories, mostly as backdrops. But we soon found ways to feature the animals more prominently. For example, we decided that these gross spiron worms would have a grand migration every year, and race into Mirkpar as a giant pack. As a result, the entire city needed to be built tall enough to not be damaged when the spiron flooded through. We also wrote up a Spiron Festival and assigned scientists to study them in some side stories.
Commissioning illustrators
Some of the stories started to feel real enough to justify hiring illustrators to bring them to life. We illustrated several creatures, but my favourite was this one illustrating the great Spiron migration:
Inviting collaborators
I also asked a group of about 50 collaborators involved with a side project to help me brainstorm details for other cities on the map. As a result I got dozens of ideas for how the cities on the map coexisted with one another. Some wrote whole stories, like a memorable one that takes place on a border town between two regions who are at war. I mixed everything into a big creative stew, and tried to reconcile the stories where they conflicted.
(Check out this collection of stories from another collaboration where we blended stories!)
And that’s how I got another book
Even removing other people’s content (with one exception), there was a lot to work with. I spent the last day formatting and sequencing everything, and when I saw I had nearly 50,000 words I packaged it up, gave it an ISBN, and ordered a draft copy. I’ll edit it when it comes, then I’ll have my second book!
I’m thinking the cover will be this stylised version of the world map.
I just might get all five books done this year. Fingers crossed!
