Earlier this month I pledged to finally make headway on one of my two would-be novels or my perpetually-in-development adventure game. The time has come to choose. And the choice is… The Witches of Coven Hill, a young-adult fantasy novel set in the fictional town of Coven, Massachusetts.

I came up with the basic premise for it way back in October of 2006 when I was working on another novel for NaNoWriMo. The idea has kind of gnawed at my subsconscious ever since.

So why Coven Hill? Well for one thing, it’s the most doable. The story has a definitive beginning, middle, and ending. (Though I’m still pretty fuzzy on all the in-between parts.) Still, I know who most of the major players are. I like the main characters, a lot. And it’s the shortest of the three projects. All told it’ll probably come in at 250-300 pages. That’s totally doable.

I also feel as if I have a better handle on the “voice” for this one, because it’s a bit lighter, younger, more casual than my other writing project, The Broken Prince, which is more of an adult fantasy in the tradition of George R.R. Martin and, to a lesser degree, Tad Williams.

You see, I get overwhelmed just thinking about the size of that story, and I’ve already scrapped two halfway-complete drafts because they weren’t good enough for me and I cared about “getting it right” so damn much that it was paralyzing. So that’s a project for later. When I have more time. And I’m a better writer. Eventually. Maybe.

As for Rise of the Hidden Sun, my adventure game, I really want to deliver the thing I promised myself when I started it back in 2003, which is to say I want it to be the very best freeware adventure ever made. Over the past month or so I’ve played around with scaling back the graphics and story so I could do it completely on my own, but in the end I’m just not comfortable with the comprises I’d have to make to do that. Nor with the amount of time I’d have to spend leaning over my laptop pushing pixels.

So for now I’m getting ready to plunge headlong into the world of young adult fantasy fiction. And I’m going in armed with the goal not of writing The Great American Novel, or a Good American Novel, or even a Serviceable American Novel. Nope, my goal is just to finish a draft and see what comes out. 

Don’t delete anything. Write the damn novel and then edit it. Easier said than done for a chronic self editor like me, but there you go. The old way clearly hasn’t worked. Time to embrace the chaotic beauty of crappy first drafts.

Am I right, Eric?