By Michael A. Joosten

It's been an interesting couple of weeks lately... I think I'm spending more time than usual on the computer, but I'm certainly spending LESS time that usual on the Internet. And the beneficiary of this surfeit of computer time has not been games (though I have been playing a lot of Solitaire lately... which says absolutely salutary about me).

No, I have been spending copious amounts of time lately on writing LEGO stories.

This is hardly something new. My first extra-curricular writing project was a story (fully illustrated) about the Imperial Guards and Pirates (the LEGO guys), back when I was in Grade 3... which was a very long time ago.

From then until about... lemme see... about two and a half years ago, I wrote more and more about my LEGO people, ending up with 30 books (none with more than 32 pages, I assure you), and 45 or so issues of a monthly "LEGO Report" that my brother and I put out for three and a half years, and an 80-page novel.

I finally tired of writing all this in mid-2004. Looking back, of all that enormous volume of paper, hardly any of it had any literary value. But it was an incredibly valuable part of my life, and can be credited with my ease in writing in most respects. Though even my work of three years ago seems a bit cringe-worthy now, it's remarkable to see the marked progress from year to year.

Well, I don't think it's any coincidence my LEGO book output stopped at right about the same time I joined Classic-Castle.com, not with me joining the CCRP two months in, and becoming one of the staple authors of the Roleplay. Never mind that I was one of the Gaming mods, I was posting additions to that thing anywhere from three to eight times a week for over a year and a half (even counting out the month I spent in Europe). It broke my heart when I finally had to stop out of Roleplay-wide malaise from which it never recovered, and I tried to get back into it at a later date, but once the pace was lost and the mutual support of the other Roleplayers undone, there was no going back.

And so we come, about a year since then, to my resuming LEGO-based story-telling around Christmas. It was pretty much a full-fledged return to the universe of my old LEGO stories. But rather than continue to build on stories that go back to my stilted beginning in 1995, I decided to rewrite the best stories of the whole thing, and expand from there. Most of the infrastructure, the subcreation and world-building, remaining intact, but the stories were to be completely restructured.

To this new literary endeavour I brought a year and a half of CCRP experience and more than half a year of Barrow-Downs RPGing, as well as a general increased maturity and awareness of literary technique. What is now about seven months of watching Stargate episodes has had its part in stimulating the creative part of my mind, if not directly influencing the narrative.

What has had rather little influence on this "LEGO Book Series" has been LEGO itself...

It's interesting, but while I've made an effort to incorporate the new themes of LEGO that have come out since I stopped writing in 2004, and while the factions and characters still have their little plastic counterparts... from the written text and the descriptions therein, you'd hardly think it was LEGO being written about at all, unless you had a comprehensive knowledge of LEGO promotional storylines.

It's the world that's the important thing. I'm deeply attached to the great history of the Royal Knights, Johnny Thunder, and the Spyrius Empire. I cannot just cut the universe adrift from its source. And even though the storytelling has lost the LEGO flavour it once had, the LEGO models and figs are still the wellspring of creative thought. It's just that I've grown up, and my LEGO has with me...

Now... um... where was I going with all this?

Ah. Yes. What I've been doing lately.

Well, there's not really much to say about it, except that I'm enjoying myself immensely. I actually skipped Religion class today to get back three hours earlier than usual, so that I could be sure of having time to work on a chapter or two (I have three different books on the go: one Castle, one Adventurer, and one Space). Mind you, this would hardly have been drastic for Joe Ordinary College Guy, if you consider that today's Religion class was only a review of the last few weeks in preparation for Friday's test, and keeping in mind that I am pretty much Religion Geek Maestro. Still, I NEVER skip class, unless a doctor's appointment or seminary function, or something similarly serious, distracts me. This is a first.

And the result?

Well, I wrote two more chapters. One on the Castle book, one on the Adventurer book (which really doesn't enthuse me, but the events need to be covered, important as they are to the entire Johnny Thunder story arc. It'll be the weakest volume, though). And the whole LEGO book product overall?

It isn't great literature, let me assure you. My fiction continues to suffer from a lack of distinctive characterization, as well as very linear storylines, with an immaculately sharp distinction between good and evil. I either rely almost entirely on dialogue or I start sounding encyclopaedic/"Annals of Aman"-istic. All of this is improving, especially as I work my way out of the whole "rewriting of old stories" thing and into the writing of totally new tales, which gives me a much freer hand. Being aware of it also helps.

But it isn't great literature. It isn't supposed to be. It's FUN! I haven't had this much fun since the headiest days of the CCRP, back in the summer of 2005. And it's very similar, in some respects. Except that this is all my work, all my creation (though the LEGO Company gets credit for some of the set-up). Did I mention I'm having a blast?

~~~~~

And in other news... I not only got through Psalm 112 on Monday with no problem, I totally NAILED it! Go me!