Writing – Marked Up

Bestseller? Seriously?

I was looking around for alpha readers for the first third (or so) of my book. When I mentioned it to one of my acquaintances, he asked if I had read Dungeon Crawler Carl. Not only had I not read it, I’d never heard of it. Lo, these many weeks later, I’m in a bookstoreContinue reading “Bestseller? Seriously?”

HFY – Follow up

I’ve “watched” a bunch of these, now. They have even inspired a speech, which I may or may not actually present. I’m not sure Toastmasters is ready for it, which makes it both tempting and intimidating at the same time. I have two things to comment upon: Presentation and Content. Digression: I donated $50 toContinue reading “HFY – Follow up”

Flow

I got writing flow this weekend! I wrote for about 15 hours. It felt like just a couple. But, yee fucking haw! This book may actually get written, after all. We’ll see if it’s repeatable. Chapter 13 just needs polish and it’s done. Almost 0100. Time for bed.

Life as a Werewolf

In the normal course of events, this is the sort of discussion one has with people. I don’t have people, so you, my vast internet audience, will just have to do. I’m not sure where I want my werewolf series to go. I know the beginning. I know the thousands-of-years-later state, which is not reallyContinue reading “Life as a Werewolf”

Learning 2 Write – XIII

Explicit Time I’ve already decided that chapters are going to be my unit of story/plot/logical time. My goal is to have each chapter be approximately the same page count, which is right now about six 8.5×11 pages, and cover approximately the same amount of story/plot, which is right now about one level. It’s nothing asContinue reading “Learning 2 Write – XIII”

History Repeating

First off, I just love the song. It’s not actually repeating. It’s definitely rhyming. This should be familiar: When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands that have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equalContinue reading “History Repeating”

Dungeons

What is a dungeon? From a utilitarian perspective: A training ground. One can run about in the real world killing things (monsters, humans, random animals), but there are consequences. Even systemized worlds need ecosystems. If people wander around killing everything, the ecosystem will collapse. Dungeons are for training. One can kill everything inside without worryingContinue reading “Dungeons”

Enlightened, Monsters, and Animals

I’m not a big fan of the term “enlightened races”, but it exists and it’s convenient, so I’m adopting it. This refers to those races who naturally (without system fuckery) form societies. Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Aliens, etc… This is not quite synonymous with “sapient”. Leaving aside the offspring question (i.e. are human babies sapient? It’sContinue reading “Enlightened, Monsters, and Animals”

How Does Magic Work?

This comes up in the context of a fight scene in Industrial Mage. Our intrepid hero casts a tornado-ish air shield around himself and it moves with him. Instead of a fireball, he creates a fire-whip, which behaves mostly like an actual whip. He casts water bullets at the bad spider creature, targeting the joints,Continue reading “How Does Magic Work?”

Learning 2 Write – XII

Scope Continuing the post on Endings – the irony of which does not escape me – I had a thought: It’s not (usually) that I get tired of a series, it’s that the series changes out from under me. Many stories (not just LitRPG) start with the struggles of our intrepid hero. As he overcomesContinue reading “Learning 2 Write – XII”