Writing Blog Number 2

20240909 Monster Dictionary Update

Monster Dictionary Update

I have not been posting much in my blog lately because it seems I might finally - finally! - have finished the monster dictionary I have been working on for the past 15+ years.

Yes, this started as something for me to collate the information I wanted for writing in one place, became a labour of love, and then devolved into a complete obsession.

What it was was simple - I wanted to have the creatures and names of creatures from all folklores, legends and mythologies from around the world, nothing created for literature, and nothing from pop culture, with the original stories and myths and maybe some developments. Then I decided to separate a section at the end for cryptids, those creatures that could possibly exist, based on biological science, and that people do think exist.

Then... then it grew. What I thought would be maybe a thousand animals and humanoids and gods which were not depicted as humans sort of grew. Almost 7 thousand names have now been collated for over 5 thousand beings.

So, in February, this was where I stood, thinking I was close to the end:


Well, it is now September 9 as I type this, and after going through 2 books that added around 150 new creatures (!) to the list (mainly from Lapland, Finland, Australia and south-east Asia) and more words, we are now at:

You can see the pages, the word count, and it also shows I used 10-point Times New Roman font in two columns per page. Also, this is from near the end, showing I have included references, though there are no in-text citations. It's not an academic piece; it is something that should never have blown up quite like this...

My list of names is at:
,
showing all names. 1360 of these names are alternate names or spellings of the various creatures, meaning we have 5617 individual creatures.

AT THE MOMENT!

Is it over? I hope so. But there will surely be a creature somewhere from sometime that I've missed. I have asked many people to give me ideas for monster I might have missed. This year, I have received a number of suggestions. Sorry, but no-one has found one I haven't got. Three quarters were beings I already had, and the rest were creatures from literature/pop culture, creatures from RPGs, or scarypasta/ SCP creations from online sources. The last books I have read (around 7 of them) were all written before the Internet corrupted and distorted what people think is the "reality" of these myths.

Anyway, I am strange... and does anyone know a publisher who wants a 460-plus page book (before I even add the Index, which I will do once I am sure I have finished!) with over quarter of a million words?