DiscWorld's 'Death' is Dreamy
Terry Pratchett is eating up my premium brain space
Creating worlds is work.
As an aspiring almost sort of Author, I have blocked out an ambitious schedule for myself - coffee and socials in the morning, popcorn and business in the afternoon, then music and writing overnight. When I’m in the zone, I can crank out 10,000 words in a session - but getting in that zone is a necessity when one is in the middle of an eighteen-book series. Typically I put on a playlist, load my brain with awesome music and get to work. This has worked quite well for me for the last seven books, but I needed some new inspiration-
that quest for inspiration led to my disciplinary downfall.
CONFESSION: I usually don’t read other Authors while I am deep in creative zone - I am deeply focused on my own work, and don’t want to be unduly influenced by other people’s wonderful ideas. But the need to procastinate was weighing heavily upon me and I really wasn’t in a mood to wait for Steam to update itself, so I looked at the List of Things I Really Should Read and saw the words:
DiscWorld
Now, I am not an uncivilised woman. I read Doug Adams, J. R. R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis at a young age, and felt that I had already fulfilled my Extremely English Authors quota for Science Fiction. I am also a fairly accomplished gamer, and consider myself to be literate in Early First Person Shooters. But Pratchett’s ghost was haunting me; it seemed everywhere I turned lately, I was seeing references to his literature and the subsequent games, and my lack of Pratchett experience made me feel like an unwashed ignoramus. Convicted in spirit and lazy at heart, I googled it:
It came back with a cartoon. Being a cultured person, I immediately clicked on it, and settled back to educate myself quickly on Pratchett and Discworld…
that’s when I made my terrible mistake: I watched it.
Out of the vast darkness of space, the Great A’tuin blew me away with a heavy drumline and a ramped-up righteous jigging beat, courtesy of Hopwood and Bush. Mesmerised, I proceeded to bingewatch Cosgrove Hall’s amazing interpretations of Pratchett’s Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters, then realised -
Christopher Lee is Death.
CONFESSION #2: Christopher Lee is my secret crush, due to his tour de force metal performance as Charlemagne: by the Sword and the Cross. Nothing can be more gloriously metal than Sir Christopher Lee wreaking his vengance upon the Saxon Men. But this… this was an entire new crush level. Against Lee giving voice to Pratchett’s morosely witty and adorable Death, I had no defense. This character came absolutely alive for me in a way I cannot explain -
I could not sleep that night. I awakened and had to have more. I snuck my phone under my blanket so the sleeping Husband would not awaken, and read scavenged bits and bobs of Pratchett. After a sleepless night, my eyes bleary from too much phone reading and my neck with a crick in it from sneaking it under the covers, I have now come to two conclusions:
I shall have to buy all the Pratchett Books
I am in enamoured of Death.
Alas, I am now completely behind schedule, and hopelessly lost in the amazing narrative of Pratchett. This is a crisis of sorts; I cannot write an eighteen book series AND read all of Pratchett’s work - it’s just not possible. So I’ll just have to give up writing…
no no no wait
I mean, I shall have to hurry up and write my own series so I can get back to the serious business of reading DiscWorld. Perhaps this is the Truth I was meant to find, that when we find other Authors, we as Authors find ourselves -
or just maybe I think Christopher Lee as Death is Dreamy.