I've decided to use the diary for something more interesting than my random thoughts (which go in my LiveJournal). I'm going to start a Writer's Diary, following the progress of my novel. It's something I've thought about doing for while as a way to share my experiences and any tips or ideas that I find along the way. i studied English at university and I like nothing better (ok, maybe I like some things better, vodka probably and shopping and pretty boys and some others) than discussing stories, especially my own!

I'm probably a few months late starting this because it should have tied in with me starting version number 13ish of The Citadel back in the summer. What with one thing and another I've not written much for the story and I'm having a mini rewrite anyway so I guess it is not too bad a place to start. Like the plot of the story the wriitng of it has a lot of history so I'll fill that in first just so you know.

Check out my Wyverns shelf for the story so far but The Citadel is basically a fantasy epic set in a secondary world called Midgard, which is a name from Norse mythology meaning Middle Earth.
This was a concious decision because my story was inspired by Tolkien (who I like to think of as J.R most of the time), partly because I love his work but it is also a reaction to it, and to the other writers who followed his style. In a way I'm trying to create a dialogue between his work and mine, which is a rather grand thing to do and I'm totally out of my depth but I want to do it anyway because I like to be ambitious.

The idea of trying to establish this dialogue really came to me about five years ago (when I was 17/18). I had to write an essay about someone I admired and all the things I wanted to talk to them about if I had the chance. I've always been a fan of Tolkien, discended from fans of Tolkien (I first read Lord of the Rings when I was eleven, The Hobbit when I was a bit younger, which was the first book I remember really enjoying). I had been writing The Citadel at the time, under the title The Citadel Under the Mountain which I call The Old Version or OV for short.

That began when I was fourteen or so and was a story I began in colaboration with a friend of mine, Liz Street. She came to my scool from Chile and we were both fantasy fans and liked writing and the story began as a school project. A year or so later Liz moved to the North of England with her family and we lost touch. I carried on with the story myself, writing the earliest versions on paper and then switching to computer when one arrived in our house (I did have a very short lived attempt at using my mother's old typewriter).

I started university in 2000 and it was around that point that I abandoned the OV and began the NV, New Version, which I wanted to make even more complicated than the story was before! I have always thought of the story in the context of Midgard but I wanted to create a history and mythology to feed in to that and so the story changed based on all the backstory and world building I'd been doing. I wanted to focus more on a race of people I had created for the story, the Dragonians, rather than on the more-human Midgardians who had been the focus of the story (see The Road to Ennion on my shelf which is based on the earlier Midgardian story). Most of the wold building was to do with the Dragonians and their culture.

During my time at university I did not have a chance to do much writing but I did lots of thinking and learning. I also got back in touch with Liz, the story is dedicated to her althought I'm not sure how she will take some of the changes to it (she is very religious and the story is a bit anti-religion) I found my course very useful and it introduced me to lots of new ideas and ways of looking at literature. Many of those ideas I've incorporated into the story and into my way of looking at it objectively. I have never taken a creative writing course, I tend to back analyse my work once it is written and change it accordingly. My writing is close to the stage where I'm including things during the process rather than thinking about it when I edit after. I don't know if I'll ever be happy with my writing but I'm getting there (incidentally I have never ever written a complete version of the story, the longest was about 145,000 words).

I graduated last summer and I finally returned to The Citadel seriously in July, working mostly on The Road to Ennion rather than the novel. I took a long pause in mid-October (for real life) and went back in earnest at the end of November. I've written my way though Christmas, working on The Citadel and I have almost finished the updated version of the Prologe and Chapter One, I'm currently working through Chapter Two which I will then edit and publish on Elfwood with the new Prologue and Chapter One.