Tag Archives: cycle

Red Bargain: Onwards?

So, over the past several months I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to do with my life.. about what I can do with my life.  To be honest, part of me would love to be able to go and get a job and just work like a normal person.  But I’m not a normal person.

My depression has worsened over recent weeks, leading to me feeling like I’m at a bit of an impasse.  I know I want to write.  To be a writer.  That is at least a start.

Book I of my ‘fantasy epic’ is at draft stages, and I’m working through it to try and get it publishable.. I’m just a little unsure what to do then.  I am strongly considering the idea of self-publishing, possibly by using a Kickstarter to raise funds for promotion and for people to do general pre-ordering type stuff.  My thoughts here are still in their early stages

The Harbinger Rises, Book I of the Red Bargain

The Harbinger Rises, Book I of the Red Bargain

Heh, it almost looks attainable when I make a picture like that.

mapextract

Mappe

So, as you may know, I’m doing my best to write a fantasy epic that I hope to get published properly and be like a real author or something.

All fantasy epics need a map, and that’s what I’ve been working on today.. It’s slow going because I’m effectively making it poster sized (much larger than the cropped extract on the right) and am doing my best to make the quality as good as possible.  Basically I’m a perfectionist..

It got me wondering what other (real) authors do to get their maps worked out.. do they do them themselves? I’m curious.

Ministratum – A Matter of Mood

Sometimes writing is difficult, and coaxing the words is a challenge that would try the most creative among us, and yet other times the words appear to come almost unbidden.  These times are special; stories can grow almost by themselves, like watching a skeleton grow flesh and come to life.

I frequently find it interesting to look at the mood of different parts of my work and I cannot help but see a certain similarity between my own thoughts and feelings and those parts of the book that seem to write themselves.  I think this is somewhat natural – possibly so much so that saying so is a little redundant, because it is so obvious.

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Another Novel Update

Planning ahead is something some authors find hinders them, and restricts their characters, and prefer to just write from the beginning through to the end with only a light hand on the tiller.

Myself, I am not one of those authors; I prefer to make sure I have a plan as well-defined as I can have from the start, and I would be surprised if most authors did not have at least some kind of pre-defined plan, even a loose one.  I find it hard to imagine how anyone could produce anything coherent without one.

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More Ministratum

Chapter thirteen is the part of my book that has been most heavily based on an afternoon of gaming so far, and consequently it has been one of the most challenging to write.  That seems paradoxical, however when you consider the difference between four friends having a laugh and attempting to create a serious high-fantasy world with a cast of three-dimensional coherent characters, then the reasons become clearer.

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The Ministratum Cycle – An Update

Today the word count of my embryonic novel has passed the 62 thousand word point, which I’m told is meant to mean that it gets easier because I’m meant to be well past the difficult ‘getting started’ point.  I don’t really feel that way though right now.

My medication is being rather funny in that I’m starting to feel like I’m on a 30 hour day cycle, sleeping ten hours, then awake for twenty.  Unfortunately the Earth is simply spinning too quickly, and despite my asking as forcefully as I can it simply refuses to slow down.