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The greatest resource for fantasy writing that I have found has been my personal experiences. My son, who is 23-years-old, about finished with college, is a far more skilled writer than am I, however, all the neat resources, games, and technology in the world cannot give him a voice of the world. Nor will the manmade things of this world develop an imagination sufficient enough to fuel the passion for writing. A worldly voice comes from only one place, and that place is the natural and spiritual world. The real resource for fantasy writing.

Get out there and travel, meet other ethnic groups, mingle with the villagers, study other cultures, learn how they think, eat, sleep, collaborate on civil projects, learn what religions they honor, how they interact with their families and each other. My best advice is to travel alone. When you are alone, you interact more fluidly with strangers, and subsequently are freed to get to really know them. Your imagination kicks into a more curious mindset when you are young and out on the fringe of life.

When I was my son's age I had already been living overseas for five years. It was about that time that I began thinking of my friends back home, and the realization came to me that my lifestyle was so bizarre that it needed to be recorded into either a journal or some fantasy disguised short stories, or mini novellas. That was during the time when I went two years without ever speaking my native tongue. I lived with the Thais, ate Thai food, married a Thai woman, studied Buddhism, drank Thai beer and ice coffee, and dreamt Thai dreams.

There is no better resource for fantasy writing than experiencing real world characters in their environment which should place you completely out of your comfort zone. After all, think of all the stories we read about in everyday life in America in the paper that we shake our heads in dismay over, the unbelievable things that people do. There is no Hollywood producer or writer that can craft horror, adventure fiction, intrigue and mystery that can equal what's going on in a typical city right now.

Other resources for fantasy writers are real life events throughout America and the rest of the world, but you have to train your eyes and ears to detect the bizarre and the supernatural that constantly manifest itself in the mundane. In the pages of any newspaper in any city there are stories about real life struggles and accomplishments that a crafty writer could use with modest modifications into wildly bizarre science fiction fantasy that would appear out of this world, when the real story originated right in our home town.

So don't go to the library, hop on an airplane, train, boat or hitchhike your way across a vast landscape. Resources for fantasy writing will envelop your senses and demand that you live, really live man, now while you have life in your grasp.

Learn more about this author, K. Joe Schrott.
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