The Editor
When I first contemplated the idea of a new story last November, the first person I presented the idea to was none other than my own wife, the amazing Technicolor Mom.
Over the years, I’ve created, edited, and destroyed a lot of fictional worlds within my own head. Along the way, I have shared almost every draft, of every adventure, of every tale, with my wife.
She has never expressed anything but genuine interest in whatever project it is that I’m thinking of tackling. It doesn’t matter if it’s little more than WoW fan fiction, or my own attempt to be a real author, or something more fun and unique. No matter the case, she’s always had an open ear to hear whatever might be bubbling up in my creative mind.
Her feedback has always proven invaluable. She has always helped to ask the right questions about characters, their motivations, or what might come next with various story elements.
I am incredibly thankful to have her in my creative writing life. Sometimes she hears so many of my ideas, that they can’t all be contained.
Right now she’s helping me sort out the plot for season two of The Township, and I’m more excited about that story than anything that’s come before.
The Story Development
In a way, The Township has become the place where the very best elements of many other stories I wanted to tell, but couldn’t for this or that, have gathered to be presented in a new way.
This and that… here and there… little pieces coming back to life to be published at last. It’s all very exciting, and sometimes, even funny!
Some of you might recall that I was going to call my latest story “The Lampost”. The name has a long history in my writing. It originates from a very real light that shines on the far side of the property where I grew up. At night, when it is pitch black outside, you can still see that lamp from my parent’s home, glowing in the distance. My father called it the “orb” due to its white dome top.
I had, in 2011, envisioned a different story called “Colfax Landing”, which included a small suburban housing development surrounded by an alien forest, with only a lamp post standing as a beacon to protect the town citizens from the darkness. There was more to the story, but that little element was my favorite part. Over time, I never quite got rolling with writing “Colfax Landing”, and it made its way to the pile of unused drafts.
Last year, I was struggling to find a way to work the lamp post element into The Township. There are a few other elements from “Colfax” that made it into this new story, so I wanted to bring the light with me, but after trying a few different ways to shoehorn it in, I decided to drop the idea. Along with that, the name of the story changed to The Township.
Comically enough, as is the case in creative writing, something you consider quite unique might actually be pretty common.
In the latest film, The LEGO MOVIE 2: The Second Part, the hero Emmet discovers an alien jungle and eventually comes to a clearing by spotting a single lamp post at the forest edge. Beyond the light is a perfect little collection of houses. In the theater, my wife and I looked at one another with wide eyes and couldn’t help but laugh.
My idea had made its way to the big screen… except it wasn’t my idea.
I’m not ignorant, of course. C.S. Lewis used a lamp post in a famous tale long before me, and that tale has gone on to inspire generations of writers that have also had ideas of lights in the darkness.
Still, it’s always cool when something you had an idea for makes it onto the screen… even if it’s someone else’s version of that base idea!
The Sets
So. Much. LEGO.
Our daughter loves her “Waygos” and I love building more sets for her to enjoy. In the wake of The Township, we look at every LEGO set in a new light, asking ourselves… how can this be part of the story?
In the second season of The Township, we’ll have our very first “custom” set, that is to say the first set specifically built to be used as part of our adventure in the world ship.
Of course, I digress… we still have five episodes of Season One left and plenty to talk about after that before we get too far into season two talk!
I genuinely hope, to any and all readers that find their way to this blog, that my story is providing entertainment, excitement, and a little bit of adventure to your lives!
We’ll talk again soon!
TechnicoolDad 