Hello. This is Daniel Martinez, just wanted to say hi. I see there are a few authors on the board giving some advice, and, I being an author myself, thought I would share some of my own advice. Perhaps a bit about me, so you know I'm not just pulling your leg: I'm nineteen years old and I've been writing for the last five years. In that time, I've written hundreds of lyrics and poems, seventeen or eighteen novels (I forget how many, and I'm currently at work on another one), and two plays. Four of those novels - How God Was Created, Artemis Grant, Paranoid Schizophrenic and Queen of the Undead have been published. (If you want to see them, go to my web site at novelistdanielm.com).
Anyway, enough about me - you want tips on how to write a fantasy novel? Well, that's just about what I specialize in, seeing as how most of my books are fantasies. The advice you've been given is great - especially about writing up the first draft and then marking it up. As well, you've been given a lot of advice telling you that you should outline your plot and define your chracters and blah blah blah.
Well, in my opinion, all of that is a good bunch of advice, but not worth much - because, in all honesty, if I plan out a book - if I write down any part of any idea, or try to develop an idea by outlining it or figuring out what's going to happen next - then everything about that idea just shrivels up and dies. Especially a fantasy book, or any other type of fictitious novel, for that matter. Non-fiction is understandable; you have to make sure everything is correct and accurate. That you've got all your facts straight. But not with fiction.
When I get an idea for a fiction, I see a scene in my head. There's a background, a foreground, and just a whole mental picture. Generally there will be people, or some type of intelligent entity, and I meet them as I write their story - they are my characters.
Sometimes I begin with how the place looks, and sometimes I begin with why the character is there. Sometimes just how the character looks, or why the character looks the way he does look. Then I go from there.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that, if you're going to write a piece of fiction, try not to plan it out too much - it's not real, and if you try to make it real through any kind of cenventional methods, you'll more than likely make the idea die. Take a look at what occurs to you - what scene you see in your head. Write it down, and go from there. And don't worry about length. Don't worry at all about how long it is - only about the story. If you're thinking of trying to sell the story, and that's why you're trying to write a long piece, then you shouldn't even continue, because profit is the wrong motivating factor: You must love the written word, whether or not you completely understand and/or trust it. And you must want to write for the sheer pleasure of writing, for the serenity or peacefulness or whatever that it gives you. Don't let people fool you into thinking that, as you write, you must do this and you must do that - because in all honesty, all that you must do when it comes to art is what *you* feel you must do. Don't worry about the wording, and don't worry about whether or not your point is going to come across to the reader - if you're new to writing, it probably won't, and if you've been doing it for a while, you will have learned that all of that - plot and story development, word-changing, character development, whatever - all come during the editing process anyway.
Hope this helps.
- Daniel Martinez, Novelist
President/Owner
International Publications
Keswater Productions
novelistdanielm.com
maybe i will start training my niece to become like you! 
