Each time I’ve posted on the blog, it’s been on a subject that’s been rambling through my brain, or a specific update. It feels ever so faintly awkward to me, so I figured I’d ask people who come here, what do you want to hear from me about?
I’m a gamer, so I could go over the gaming stuff I like. I could post some of the stuff that I’ve created, too. I can discuss where the motivation for particular characters came from, or any of dozens of subjects. I just don’t know what you, as readers, would like to see from me. So…go ahead and ask, if you want to.
Ancient Dreams 
I would love updates about the next book, lol. Oh and do you plan to play the next Mass Effect? And I would love to know what type of game you enjoy.
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So, I will not be playing the next Mass Effect. I played about to the end of the Citadel in the original Mass Effect, but the game crashed and I lost interest for a couple of reasons. My wife will be, though, and I’ll probably watch the story bits over her shoulder. I’ll do a post on the games I’ve played recently and my view on them in the next few days, though!
Primary Reason: I’m not good at games that require fast reaction time, or shooters in general. I suck at these games. >.>
Secondary: I get really, really, REALLY motion-sick in most shooter games. I’d love to go through some of the games, but I just can’t handle the motion. And don’t get me started with the trend of putting the characters offset slightly to the side of the screen…ugh. That’s the worst.
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I can understand, so you like RPG and Platform games. Maybe teehee. I’ll wait eagerly for your articles!
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Heh. I’ve already started writing up some about the games I have and which have had the most influence on me. We’ll see how much I get done. I’ve got friends coming over in an hour. Hopefully I don’t wipe out the group of characters this week!
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I mostly subscribe to author blogs because it do not trust amazon to inform me when they publish new books. Getting updates on word count, progress and thoughts on how the story is shaping up is enough for me.
I loved the “tinkering” part of the book where Sistina created traps and monsters even though it did not take up that much of the book. The book reminded me about “Perilous waif” by E. William Brown even though it has a very diffrent setting. I guess I am just a sucker for great world building.
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I totally understand where you’re coming from on Amazon not telling you when a book comes out. I read a lot, and I’ve run into the same issue more than a few times. But I definitely can promise to keep updating people on book progress. This week has been a lot better than last week was for that.
Where the traps and monsters are concerned…I suppose I just don’t want to take up too much space for what’s essentially background for what I consider the real story to be. But there is going to be a little bit of it in Spells of Old, if that helps at all.
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Yeah that is probably for the best. I read a series called “Nightlord” by Garon Whited and in the first book there is a lot of “tinkering” and world building that was really interesting, explaining the magical theory of the world and such, but in the last book he went way overboard and the entire thing just became a stream of technical “magical” methods for creating devices that hardly ever got used. The tinkering is all well and good as long as there are not page up and page down dedicated to it and at the end of the day.
It is fun seeing the protagonist being smart and creating traps and such, but it becomes pointless if nobody falls in them or if they do so predictably. Seeing the plan for the golem in the book being made early, casual mentions of it as a boss and then have it wreck the enemy unexpectedly in the last chapter was great. I had some problems imagening what was actually happening in the final fight scene. It was a bit “golem is awesome, then it killed them”, though I understand that the main focus was not on the fight but rather on the “Jewels”
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Oh, that book…I read book 2 of the series (I wish people would put in the series title which book a series it was!), and got a little frustrated over some of it. Didn’t even bother with the others after it ended on such a down note.
I will state that the magic system of Ancient Ruins is not as developed as that of my primary world, and since it’s not my main focus, I haven’t put as much effort into developing it.
I probably should have described the fight with the golem more, but my brain blanked out every time I thought about it. It’s huge, lumbering, and hits like *guesses* two tons of rock sheathed in fire. It just didn’t seem all that interesting to me, and I didn’t want to make descriptions that would be too irritating to people who actually know how to fight, unlike me.
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I feel like I am opening each comment by bragging about “I read x series”, but I think the reason the lack of description of the golem fight stood out to me is because before reading your book I read “Girl in the box” and “Out of the box” series by Robert J. Crane which carries itself partly on amazing fight scenes. Having a better description of the fight would be nice, but I realize that the fight scenes is not what makes your book great.
When I read through the last chapters *spoilers* I was not really worried that the golem would not win the fight, but more about if Daniel (I think that was his name, been a few days since I read it and kinda forgot) would survive and how his love interest in Sistinas camp would take the fight/the loss of Daniel. I sat worried that she would betray Sistina in order to save/avenge her love so the fight itself did not really need to be described in order to build suspense.
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Heh, don’t worry about it. I think one of the easiest ways to explain issues is how it compares to other, similar stories. It’s part of why I mention the books that spawned Sistina.
As an aside, have I mentioned I’m a near-compulsive explainer? This is why I answer so much stuff. I love worldbuilding and brainstorming, so explaining why/how is enormously fun for me. Onward with reply!
I’ve actually read a couple of the Girl in the Box series…and I think I understand what you mean. Unfortunately, I think it’s a matter of personal taste. I’ve found myself skimming combat detail lately, and prefer not to go heavily into it to try and give the reader the ability to imagine whatever they want. However, on my last editing, I did notice it was a little…spare on the details. But I also didn’t want to change things after so many people had read the book. Likely as not, when I do a full edit to do an omnibus edition after book 3 comes out, I’ll add detail and flesh out sections that in retrospect needed more to them. But that’ll be then.
Now, Daniel is actually the sort of character I feel a redemption arc most fully fits. He’s just a regular guy who works in the army of the big bad evil people. He didn’t really care about anyone until he met the people being enslaved, and he started having doubts. Yes, I believe that any character CAN be redeemed…but as I also said, that doesn’t mean that they should be forgiven. Someone like Daniel? A lot of them are stuck between a rock and a hard place, and they don’t see any other options.
I…was going to say more, but I’m shutting up now. Yay, stream-of-consciousness explanations!
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post some of the stuff that you have created
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