Once upon a time, or so the story’s told, there lived a very old king known for his perfunctory ways, just as his advisors and mages were known for their nebulous answers when explaining those ways to outsiders.

“One cannot know the mind of the king,” they would say. “For if the king’s rule springs from the beatific will of the gods, then to question that rule is tantamount to blasphemy.”

And then, in their own desultory way, they would suggest that perhaps the king should send the outsiders to the dungeon, or banish them from the realm, or perhaps simply declare war on their home countries. This the king’s advisors always left up to him, of course, but it had been a long time since the realm’s last war, and didn’t the king want to see the special new weapons his advisors had devised? The bombs were especially pretty.

The king, who as we have said, was nothing if not perfunctory, often fell upon the first suggestion his mages would make. And so, while the bombs might be very pretty — to say nothing of the rockets and warheads and armored horse divisions — outsiders who questioned the king’s rule most often found themselves in the castle dungeons or wandering the empty roads that switchbacked in the barren realms to which they’d been banished.

Those who were banished seldom survived. The barren realms were inhospitable and known for their many dangers. Those who were sent to the dungeons did not fare much better. Food was scarce and rarely sent, and many were left to die. Only those on whose home countries the king declared war fared well at all. Because, while the bombs might be very prett — to say nothing of the rockets and warheads and armored horse divisions — they seldom actually worked.

Which might have been why so many years passed between wars, although the king’s advisors would never have admitted to that. To do so would have been to admit to deficiencies in their bomb-making skills — to say nothing of the rocket-making, warhead-arming, and horse-armoring skills — and leave the king to question them.

Outsiders did not fear the king. They feared the barren realms and the hungry dungeons, and they feared the stupidity of the court mages and suggestability of the king, but the king himself they did not fear. Nor did they fear the possibility of war between their two kingdoms. The reputation of the bombs — to say nothing of…well, to saying nothing of them — was well known among the realm’s neighboring countries, and it was almost a badge of honor to have had war waged upon you by the king. (It certainly beat the the prisons and empty roads.)

Outsiders were many. The kingdom, for all its pretty bombs and so on, did not have many inhabitants beyond the very old king, his queen, and the court advisors. Much of the realm had sadly been destroyed many, many years ago by the mages’ one successful bomb. In grand total, excluding the dwindling inhabitants of the dungeons and the sentries along the border of the barren realms, the kingdom contained twelve people, all of whom lived under the roof of the one castle — and among whom only the mages were eager to wage war, having half a century of pretty but useless bombs to live down and for which to make up.

And so, slowly, in their nebulous ways, the court advisors began to suggest warfare before banishment or prison. Didn’t the king want to see the new bombs? They were very pretty. They were perhaps the prettiest bombs the advisors had ever had built — to say nothing of the rockets and warheads and, okay, by now pretty much horse-less divisions — and it would be a shame to let them just sit there.

You can probably tell which five words we chose; I don’t think I worked them into the story as well as I’d have liked. (“Why use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice?”) But the fun was discovering that, halfway in, I actually did have a story — that, while I might not be telling it as spectacularly as I might like, I was telling it. I was getting words on the page.

And the more I wrote, the easier it got.

It’s always helpful to be reminded of that. What I wrote isn’t brilliant. Heck, maybe it isn’t even good. But writing, like any craft, gets easier the more you practice. The more you put words on the page, the less intimidating a blank page will look.