The Cryptolexicon

The Cryptolexicon is a hard bound journal that was handwritten by a mentally unstable former priest named Doolin Donnelly. In 1840 Doolin secluded himself on a small island in the middle of Rotten Lake in what is now Douro-Dummer Township. Then he disappeared, leaving behind only a ramshackle campsite and the journal. Contained within its pages are rambling descriptions of what the priest claimed to be ancient hieroglyphics of an unknown origin. Doolin does not name the exact location of these hieroglyphs in the Cryptolexicon. In the journal he claimed that the hieroglyphs themselves contained a dangerous eldrich power and were best left alone. Those that have taken the time to study the journal and the folklore surrounding Doolin have surmised that the supposed location may be in an isolated northern corner of Peterborough county into which Doolin apparently ventured after being excommunicated from the Church in 1839. Local folklore claims that  Doolin went insane after eating copious amounts of a toxic mushroom he found growing in the basement of the Cathedral of St. Peter-In-Chains. The Cryptolexicon is currently in the archival collection of the Peterborough Museum and Archives. 

Into the Widening Gyre

When should personal ideas for a creative project be shared? I feel that there is always a danger when deciding to share my ideas with others. I fear that I have not let my ideas gestate for nearly long enough and that they will stumble forth into the world as half formed monstrosities of embarrassment. Even in this Age of the Overshare in which we live, my fear is usually enough to keep my ideas to myself. And man do I ever have ideas. All the time. Every day. Constantly. Up until relatively recently I didn't even write these ideas down. I've now discovered that when I get an idea out on paper it tends to stop churning away in my brain. Needless to say that my room is strewn with notebooks, journals, print outs and random pieces of paper everywhere, like so:

Even if I didn't already know that I'm a crazy person, I think that once enough feverishly scrawled pieces of writing piled up on the floor of my bedroom I would eventually figure out that I'm a crazy person. Really if anyone looked into my room it would be difficult for them to come to a conclusion other than "A crazy person lives in here."

Thankfully my writing keeps me from venturing out into the street and spewing forth whatever nonsense happens to make its way from my feverish brain to my vocal chords. Most of the ideas that I write down eventually sell off their prime mental real estate and mosey off into the sunset regions of my brain. They're all still in there somewhere but at least they let me get some friggin' sleep at night.

And then there is The Pentagrathon. It is the singular vision I have for a young adult fantasy novel. It has churned in my head for longer then almost any other idea I've ever had. Sure, it only sprouted there back in March. But not a day has gone by when I have not thought about the Pentagrathon and written down something about it. Some days it's only a sentence, or a name, or some fleeting idea for a plot point. Other days it is pages and pages of notes, diagrams, plot arches, back story, settings, characters, mythology, cosmology and there's the crazy vomiting forth right there. Today all I did was refine a few names for some of the antagonist deities, whom I've called "Malfactals". This was the process for a single name:

  Yeah. I know. Tomorrow I might even change his name again. I'm finding all this world building a lot of fun but also a bit frustrating in that I'd really love to get started on writing this thing, once I get all of this freaking world building done! I've written maybe three pages of actual story compared to the twenty two plus pages of world building I've done. Also I made a mock up of what I'd like the book cover to look like:

Pretty cool, right? It's a magnified image of the fractal pattern created by a bacterial culture. It goes with themes and stuff.

So that's a little bit about my idea for a book. As half formed as it currently is I'm committed to writing this thing. I've stopped playing video games to concentrate on writing, with the exception of the occasionally round of bit Dungeon on my phone. If you know me at all then you will realize that this is a pretty big deal. The great thing is that I don't even miss gaming. The writing gives me more pleasure. And really that's how I know that I'm on to something here. Of course the proof will be there when I've got several hundred pages hammered out and I let somebody else read it. It's either that or I'm going completely crazy and this is a cry for help. You decide.