The Dream

So one of the people in my writers group shared a tweet the other day that I jokingly replied to, but the longer it's been since that tweet, the more it's been rattling around in my brain. She asked "if your book was turned into a movie, what kind of merchandise would you want to see come from it?" Jokingly I said "novelization of the movie," but now I'm wondering.

One of the fun parts of being a writer is dreaming about success. Thinking about people reading your book, writing great reviews, that's all normal. But what about the details, the nuances? Do you want walk into a store and see action figures based on your characters? Plushies? Posters? T-shirts?

I look at The Paladin and I wonder what kind of merchandising there is. Would I even care about that? I can't immediately think of anything worth putting on a shirt or turning into a toy. No... the "secret author desire" I have is so much dumber: I want to see fanfic.

It's silly. I want to see badly written fanfiction of my story out there. I want to see people making their own paladins, creating their own parishes and stewardships. I want to see people inventing renegade hunters and packs of wolves that have their own code. I want to see people enjoying my work so much that they want to dive in for themselves. And yes, I want to see all the terrible romantic pairings they come up with. Hit me with your OTPs, guys!

But the merchandise, the video games, the t-shirts, and especially the fanfic, it all has to be earned. So I push forward, plotting, editing, writing, deleting, rewriting, all so that I can see that day. I want my stuff out there. I want people to enjoy it. I want people to dive into my world. And yes, I want to see Simon/Reagan pairings that will make me cringe.

​DFTBA