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Welcome to the Writing Life! (Read 1050 times)

Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #425 - Jun 26^th, 2014 at 5:51pm	Print Post
	The primary antagonist in Book 4 is a real bitch, worse than Jasmine in the first three and I'm doing research and a lot of thinking to get her "just right" so that when she gets hers, the reader will cheer...


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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #426 - Jul 14^th, 2014 at 4:00am	Print Post
	I've been thinking about Samgara, it's history and why certain things are the way they are. Things are getting more complex. Good thing I take notes. Book 4 may take longer than I'd planned as I'm getting some insights and I need to figure out how they impact the story. At the moment, it looks like "the rot" is unsuspected and goes very deep.....
	« Last Edit: Jul 14^th, 2014 at 4:01am by Penthesilea »

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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #427 - Jul 14^th, 2014 at 11:35pm	Print Post
	Working on the larp has given me insight into how the "Oldkin" as they are called by the current population thought. They didn't use fossil fuels so at some point, they developed a plant that supplied them with an oil that burned readily in oil lamps and such and that with a bit more processing vaporized for use in internal combustion engines. They also cultivated a number of plants for medicinal purposes and another that produced a fiber that could be made into a bullet and knife proof cloth similar to kevlar. There is undoubtedly a plant fiber that can be made into Samgaran nomex but it hasn't popped into my brain yet. In short, while they didn't shun "high tech" they preferred to use natural plant based materials whenever possible. Which means I'm going to need to write up a few more "botanical" entries for the Reader's Guide.


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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #428 - Jul 18^th, 2014 at 6:49pm	Print Post
	I've had an idea for a prologue for Book 4 and after checking the timeline I figure that 560+ years is enough time for the "bad guys" to get done what I need them to do. So now I get to figure out the conspiracy -- the broad outlines at least.


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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #429 - Aug 4^th, 2014 at 1:57am	Print Post
	Working on the larp is forcing me to "flesh out" Samgara and it's also giving me ideas about Book 4. The larp is set immediately after or maybe during the last half of Book 3 and the situation in the larp foreshadows what will happen in Book 4. Right now, I'm doing more "thinking" on Book 4 than writing although I'm doing some. I consider writing a solitary activity. All the authors I admire -- living and dead -- wrote that way. Just them and the "blank sheet of paper" with only their agent(s) and editor(s) seeing it once it was completed. I tried the "multi-creator collaboration" thing in the original Castle thread and it was pretty much a disaster. I ended up scraping almost all of it and rewriting like a fiend. Some writers can make the "many hands" thing work but I've found that the successful "seamless" collaborations are the products of two writers who have very similar styles and a unified vision for the project. So, it's gonna be just me, the computer and the stack of solid "writing reference" books I have -- including a book written by the founder of a well respected writers' workshop in Chicago -- while I figure out how to do what I want to do in 4 (thank the Gods that 5 "should" be a lot simpler to figure out!) and how to do it. I probably won't posting frequent updates -- don't need the pressure! -- but rest assured I'll be working.
	« Last Edit: Aug 4^th, 2014 at 8:18pm by Penthesilea »

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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #430 - Aug 4^th, 2014 at 4:03am	Print Post
	I added a bit to the prologue tonight -- closed a gap and supplied some needed information. I need to dig out my copy of "Medieval Swordsmanship". I am NOT satisfied with my depiction of swordplay in any of my books so far and I really need to research that. Fortunately my interest in swordwork goes back decades and I have a LOT of useful reference materials in my personal library. I just have to dig them out and get my nose in them. "Stage combat" just isn't the same although the choreography lessons in those books are very helpful when it comes time to write out a sword fight.


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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #431 - Aug 8^th, 2014 at 4:32pm	Print Post
	I need to get out the HUGE 48 in x whatever map of the main continent of Samgara that I made back in the day and do some work on it both for Book 4 and the larp. Not only do I have to plot the spread of the conspiracy but I also need to add an undiscovered island -- probably on the far side of the planet -- and it would be nice to know where it is in relation to everything else.


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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #432 - Aug 8^th, 2014 at 4:54pm	Print Post
	I just realized I'm going to have to decide or figure out what the equatorial circumference of Samgara is....


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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #433 - Aug 9^th, 2014 at 9:49pm	Print Post
	Penthesilea wrote on Aug 8^th, 2014 at 4:32pm: I need to get out the HUGE 48 in x whatever map of the main continent of Samgara that I made back in the day and do some work on it both for Book 4 and the larp. Not only do I have to plot the spread of the conspiracy but I also need to add an undiscovered island -- probably on the far side of the planet -- and it would be nice to know where it is in relation to everything else. I'd forgotten how HUGE that map is and looking it over, it is obvious that I'm going to have to make a new one since the original is showing wear and a considerable number of pencil marks that even if erased still won't get it into pristine condition. Gotta find out how wide a roll of drawing paper I can get at United Art and Education. I'm also going to need a drawing board the size of a dinner table. I've got a pretty good sized sheet of masonite that I can use. It should be big enough to support about half of the map at a time! Post #33,555
	« Last Edit: Aug 9^th, 2014 at 10:20pm by Penthesilea »

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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #434 - Aug 9^th, 2014 at 10:59pm	Print Post
	Just did some measuring. The map is 48 by 54 inches. The scale on the map is 1 inch equals 80 miles which means that the map covers an area 3,840 miles from north to south and 4,320 miles east to west totaling 16,588,800 square miles. And since the map cuts off BEFORE hitting the west coast of the continent it probably should be BIGGER. More sigh I've got three books "in the can" [to use movie parlance] and before I go any further I have to figure out what has been going on. I know who has been pulling the strings. I know why they've been pulling the strings. What I need to nail down is HOW they are pulling the strings. I've got an inkling about how it's being done but I haven't gotten it all figured out. I also need to figure out how certain things in this world work or don't work -- which may tie in with the "string pullers" but I'm not absolutely sure yet. And I need to make it plain that Samgara was essentially a peaceful place until about a thousand years ago when conflicts/wars started breaking out. I was flying by the seat of my pants when I was involved in the original thread and I spent the better part of seven years making novels out of it and working to make everything fit together smoothly. I did a pretty good job considering. But now I want to do better so I have to put in the time doing/writing the research and if that means I'm NOT pounding out thousands of words of new material a day, then so be it. The only person I'm competing with is me. And "me" wants to write a good read and THAT means getting my ducks in a row with pretty collars on before I plunge in. Once I know where I'm going, it won't take me long to get there -- I get downright obsessive when I know where I'm going -- but like any smart traveler, I'm going to have my "maps" in order before I start!


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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #435 - Aug 9^th, 2014 at 11:39pm	Print Post
	Aaaannnnnnnddddd.... United Art and Education has 18 pound poster paper in 48 inches by 25 yard rolls. I'm good to go when it's map making time! I'll pick up a roll the next time Spirit wants to hit the comics shop which is right next door to United Art.


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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #436 - Aug 10^th, 2014 at 4:35am	Print Post
	Now that I know how big the map is, I can figure out how much bigger -- east to west -- it needs to be. I'll probably add another foot or so on the north side since the continent is cut off there too. Gonna be crunching numbers and looking stuff up over the next few days. Samgara's main continent is about the size of Eurasia from east to west so I need to know how many miles that is. ASIDE from "a lot!" I also need to add some settlements to the map and I really need to make some smaller scale maps so I have more detail about the distance between places and the terrain although I'm hoping that I don't end up drawing topography maps.....


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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #437 - Aug 11^th, 2014 at 12:10am	Print Post
	Skywise has been teasing me about map-making. If he's not careful, I'll swat him with one!


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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #438 - Aug 12^th, 2014 at 4:11am	Print Post
	Samgara needs more pantheons! So far I have the Greeks, the Celts and the Asgardians along with some of the Babylonians and Egyptians. Others I'm creating out of whole cloth. I need some deities -- preferably not really well known -- from the Far East and the Pacific. sigh More research.
	« Last Edit: Aug 12^th, 2014 at 4:12am by Penthesilea »

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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #439 - Aug 12^th, 2014 at 6:51pm	Print Post
	After pricing heavy cardboard mailing/storage tubes on Amazon, I think I'll just make a storage tube for the map out of PVC pipe with one end cap glued on and one not which I can do at a fraction of the cost of the cardboard ones since those are sold in multi-packs and I only need ONE since I intend to use 2 to 3 inch diameter pipe so it will be big enough to hold more than one map. Smaller area maps will be on standard sized graph paper so they can be kept loose in a file or in a binder. Problem solved for the WIN!
	« Last Edit: Aug 12^th, 2014 at 7:08pm by Penthesilea »

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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #440 - Aug 13^th, 2014 at 5:32pm	Print Post
	I've had the map, a yardstick, The Samgaran Gazetteer and my calculator out and the new map is going to have to be about 6 feet wide and I don't know how long. Book 4 has some locations that are off the current map toward the equator and even if the readers never see said map "I", visual person that I am, need the map to keep things straight in my head and therefore in the book! I need to add the previously mentioned but never "seen" Southern Islands, the Southern Continent (an extremely hostile place to be sure!) and a new super secret island that I haven't decided on a name for yet or if it will even have one. I also have some very hard thinking to do about Our Heroine's final solution to a massive threat to the population of Samgara: how "final" to make it (since at least one pantheon of Gods will oppose her efforts) and if it is totally and completely "final" who or what do I bring in to incite conflict 'cause even after the events of Book 4, Samgara will not suddenly be peaceful and conflict free. Getting to that point will take some time, maybe centuries -- I haven't decided -- although I anticipate that the inhabitants of the Castle will have a long stretch of calm after Book 5 is done while I turn my thoughts and creativity to "backstories".


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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #441 - Aug 14^th, 2014 at 6:51pm	Print Post
	I've been pounding out an explanation for an apparent anomaly that wasn't a problem when the original Castle thread started but turned into a bit of one when I started writing books. I'm pretty sure that it's "explained" and I'm going to put said explanation into the Glossary. Then I'm going to start pulling together information about Samgara's guilds, mage schools and warrior orders. Which is gonna be a pain in the posterior since my "expert" on the Order of Dark Knights is still missing in "real life" so he'd better not complain about what I come up with in his absence!


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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #442 - Aug 15^th, 2014 at 3:08am	Print Post
	Okay. I've about figured out how Our Heroine gets some vital information and I've pretty much figured out how the Bad Guys are keeping their plans hidden. What I have yet to figure out exactly HOW the people or person who uncovers the information gets into position to do so. I've got a rough idea but "it" still needs work.


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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #443 - Aug 15^th, 2014 at 6:51pm	Print Post
	The current issue of Writer's Digest arrived today. It's about getting an agent among other things and I'll be reading it over the next few days. I'm not ready to resume the agent hunt -- and not all that sure that I even will for that matter -- and I won't be until I have Homecoming revised and updated. There are a lot of options out there and I want to consider them all before I make any drastic moves. Who was it that said that "writing" was the hard part?


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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #444 - Aug 15^th, 2014 at 11:17pm	Print Post
	Penthesilea wrote on Aug 15^th, 2014 at 6:09pm: Dang! Reworking the intro to the Prometheans that I have in Book 2 will have to be done. And I will as soon as I decide how to to do it. There are at least two ways that I can go, maybe three. I'll have to mull them over and see what works the best. Went for a walk and did some mulling. I've come up with the solution that explains the inconsistencies that were cropping up and I won't have to rewrite the intro TOO much. I'll go do that directly.


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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #445 - Aug 15^th, 2014 at 11:24pm	Print Post
	Done! Checks "Rework Promethean intro" off the list!


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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #446 - Aug 16^th, 2014 at 4:22am	Print Post
	I've been pulling out "writing books" this evening. Not only the "workshop" book I'm reading but books on plot, structure, revision and editing. I can tell a good story but I can do better. And I intend to no matter how long it takes. I'm not in competition with anyone but myself and have nothing to prove to anyone except me. There's no one I'm determined to prove "wrong", no one I want to show up by getting published. In my opinion, those aren't good reasons to write mainly because the push to "succeed" or "show so and so" can cause a writer to make compromises and in the process lose or never develop their own unique "voice." I write for me and validate the faith that someone had in me when I had no faith in myself. He knows, or should, who he is......


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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #447 - Aug 16^th, 2014 at 6:20pm	Print Post
	Currently trying to design a "coordinate system" for Samgara because Book 4 is going to require me to give the "longitude and latitude" of certain places vital to the story and I'm not having much luck. I'm pretty sure that Hidden Bay is going to be where the "prime meridian" runs through and the equator will be considerably south of that. I hadn't wanted to use longitude and latitude but everything else I've considered has been too complicated or clumsy to use easily and logically, if a system isn't simple and easy to use, it won't be used. I'll use my original map where the locations of the various city states were described in relation to the Castle to get them put on the map and then determine their location using the new system.


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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #448 - Aug 19^th, 2014 at 5:00pm	Print Post
	I worked on editing Book 4 last night -- found some places where I had the "wrong word spelled right" and others where I'd left out important words in my haste to get that section written. I also tightened up the prose in a few spots. I didn't make a note of my beginning and ending word count. I did that deliberately. I have found I work better without the pressure of "Oh my Gods! I have to write XX number of words today or I'M A FAILURE AS A WRITER!!" I may write new material today or I may not. I have a rather pressing non-writing project that has to be finished today so banging out words will be taking a back seat. That is not to say that I won't be thinking about Book 4 -- ditch digging does not require a lot of cognitive function -- and if I'm not thinking about Book 4 and what and how things happen, I'll be thinking about Samgara: climate, geography, the political situation. Building a world from scratch is hard work, especially if you aren't using medieval Europe with the names changed to fool the readers as your setting. Or a modern setting like New York or Chicago where all you need is access to good travel guides and maybe the local visitors' bureau. I'm building a world from scratch. The only things it has in common with Earth is that it has more water than land area, a yellow sun and an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere. And of course, a humanoid population. That's it. Everything else has to be figured out and written down. I'll admit that I'm probably fleshing out my references for Samgara with more information than I'll ever need but I don't care for figuring things out on the fly. So while I might not be pounding out new material for the next novel, I AM thinking about how the different societies work, the cultures of the widely separated city-states and since I've decided that Samgara has no North African or Sahara-type deserts, I need to know WHY there aren't any. So I need to research climate. Consequently, I REALLY don't need to deal with being judged not a "real writer" because I'm not writing XX number of words per day. I am a "real writer." I'm just a DIFFERENT KIND of writer... And the ditch that needs digging calls...
	« Last Edit: Aug 19^th, 2014 at 5:24pm by Penthesilea »

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Penthesilea Forum Administrator Offline Warrior Queen, DarkLady, Phoenix, Ghostbuster Posts: 47422 Location: The Castle..... Joined: Jun 21^st, 2006 Gender:	Re: Welcome to the Writing Life! Reply #449 - Aug 21^st, 2014 at 5:48pm	Print Post
	A reference book I need should be delivered today so I can get some of my pressing questions answered. I've also taken several reference books that I'm not currently using downstairs and brought up several others that I need to have handy. Most of them are from Writer's Digest Press. Writer's Digest magazine is considered the first and last word concerning the craft of writing and the books they publish uphold that reputation. I have most if not all of their books 'cause you STILL might need to know about police procedures or trauma treatment or poisons even if you ARE writing science fiction/fantasy!


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