A few months before we left Ireland for good, my youngest sprout came to me and said something funny. I don't want to repeat it because it was more like an idea of how the world could look like in his 7-year-old-but-much-wiser-mind, and it might give someone else an idea. Can't be careful enough!

I had to laugh, but not only was it really funny, it was also brilliant. Genius actually.
My youngest daughter later said that it was actually her idea. Which possibly meant she came up with something and he used it, and turned it into some kind of fantasy world type of thing. He does that. And then I gave it a bit more thought.

source

One word

The subject was literally one word.
This one word triggered something huge.
Well, at least for us.
I did a few searches on the Interwebs, and nope: It hadn't been done. Not that I'm aware of anyway. There were some art pieces from one particular artist that were almost similar, but not what we had in mind, so no one can ever sue us for stealing their ideas...

Are you curious yet? Well, let me put you out of your misery and tell you about the plan!

I mentioned that it should be turned into a story, since it hadn't been done, and it was funny. The subject was quite interesting and before we knew it, our imagination was running with it. I said that it could be a family project, something we do together. We didn't have the time for it back then because we were moving here but we agreed that once we were settled a bit, we'd work on it.
So that time is quite near.

At first, one half of the family was a bit reluctant. You know, the usual teenage: "Ugh...What NOW? While rolling the eyes-thing. But after a while, even those Happy-mood-blasters got into it, and we all came up with ideas for a story. From those ideas came more ideas. Within less than a few minutes, we had enough inspiration to make this into quite a long story.

A book it shall be!

We worked on the villains, the main characters, and since it was clearly going to be a fantasy story, we also decided about the heroes of the story. The kids! I mean, 4 kids, 4 heroes! Isn't that how most of all the RPG games work?
Just imagine an evening of Dungeons and Dragons, with the most inventive Dungeon master you've ever encountered
(yes, I'm that kind of nerd).
Amazing how your imagination can just fly free without effort if spurred on by other people's imagination. It's contagious.
One feeding off the other.

One Word & The Snowball Effect

We came up with different kinds of worlds and layers within the story. How the villain(s) would make his/her/their entry, and when. How this would change the course of the story. We asked ourselves who we'd meet along the way. What role they'd have. What certain places could mean to us. I mean, if I was a Wonderwoman-kind- of-writer, I would have had this shit written right now!

via GIPHY

This must be what Stephen King's ghost writers do when they have to produce one book after the other.
Ghost writers, and Stephen King, yup, I know what I said...
I wonder if they have a few kids to brainstorm with. It'd help any writer with a writer's block, I can tell you that! Mine can be hired for brainstorming sessions but they disturb most of the peace, and they don't charge cheap rates. Just so you know...
Oh, what the hell, I'll even throw some of my professional expertise in the mix to sweeten the deal a bit. What do you think?

More ideas

Of course, the book needs some artwork. The kids immediately voted for my eldest son and myself to take care of that department.
Done!

Then came the question of how it would come into this world. Would it actually be a book in the oldfashioned kind of way?
Better things came to mind.
NFTs uttered one. Well, how do you know? The intelligence in my family often baffles even me! NFTs sounds like a plan.
We could either mint the different chapters as NFTs or the whole finished work.
Or both.
As for the artwork?
Same thing.

The moral of the not yet written story

So there you go. That's sometimes how things work in our family. I said sometimes. Because most other times we're a normal family with arguing and fighting siblings. But sometimes, just sometimes, we can actually work together and come up with amazing stuff.

It will happen. I can't exactly tell you when but that's OK.
Sure there'll be a boring, rainy day at some stage...