Gabriele
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Everything posted by Gabriele
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I'm already in a cabin since someone talked me into doing July Camp. I should know better. The camps never work for me the way November Nano does. But I got an invasion of plotbunnies now. Shooo, dang critters.
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The plotbunnies I keep catching are always either - Roman (A Land Unconquered featuring the Battle in the Teutoburg Forest and Germanicus' campaigns 9-16 AD; its semi-sequel Eagle of the Sea featuring the Battle of Mons Graupius and Domitian's campaigns in Germania about AD 83; Beyond Dark Mountains shows the last years of Septimius Severus ~ AD 210; Never to Return the Battle of the Harzhorn AD 235), - early Middle Ages (The Battle of the Blue Swords about the Battle of Nechtansmere is 7th century, the Saga of House Sichelstein which features, among others, the battles of Brunanburh, Riade and Lechfeld, early 10th century) , - high Mediaeval (Kings and Rebels, the monster that turned Fantasy on me, is still mostly based on 12th century Europe). Of course, the stories are about much more than the battles, but those serve well as timeframe, and they do play a significant role in the books. Besides the politics, intrigues, clashes of culture, a bit of romance, loyalties divided, evil schemes, dysfunctional familes, blood feuds and whatever fun I can come up with within the frame of history - which is a fair bit, considering those times aren't too well documented.
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Those tripartite Roman names I have to deal with are fun, too. *sigh* Or trying to find 1st century AD Germanic names that have not been tampered with by Tacitus.
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Thank you, Elbereth. It's far from being finished, and outside Nano I write more along the speed of GRR Martin but I'll get back at you once I got enough of the monster done for at least the first part to make sense.
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From my NiP Kings and Rebels, the only Fantasy novel among the bunch of historical fiction projects in my files:
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I ended Nano with 58,5K. Not so bad. Here is a bit from Kings and Rebels - The Shores of Exile. Fresh from the press, so to speak.
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Oh nice. Once I got the 50K, I'll look for a suitable excerpt, too. I'm at 49K right now so this should not be too long.
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My ratio of decent words is better. About 50% of what I write during Nano (and it's my 8th so I have some experience) is ok, and the rest is editable. I tend to overwrite so editing often means cutting needless stuff out.
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Do you have an idea how difficult it is to write when your head is lying several steps away from the computer and the rest of your body?
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Oh my, that sounds like I need to get my Roman army from a prior Nano and sic them at the lot.
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Plotbunnies love doing that. The only way to deal with the critters is to lock them up in the basement. Or a nice castle dungeon, if you live in Europe.
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I'll try to get some words on book 2 of my Fantasy series: Kings and Rebels - The Shores of Exile. And I'm not going to allow that Nechtansmere plotbunny to create havoc of my plans.
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Anyone doing Nano again this year? I'm going to get some words on book 2 of my Fantasy series: Kings and Rebels - The Shores of Exile
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Interesting ideas. I see one problem with that concept, though. You will always need a lot more farmers than merchants, and less leaders than the other classes, for a society to work. Does that mean that children assigned leadership will more likely die? And where does the system leave important crafts like smiths, bakers, weavers .... are they part of the farmer (hard labour) or merchant (because they can sell the wares they produce) class? Since you speak of 'children', I assume gender doesn't play a role, which would be cool.
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Have you read Pratchett's Maskerade?
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That sounds like chariot race fans in Byzantium gone hooligan, Saladin and Richard Lionheart, and about a dozen historical battles, Cannae, Issos, and Azincourt among them. What's not to like.
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Bernard Cornwell (Azincourt) and Stephen Lawhead (Robin Hood trilogy) have written historical fiction with Mediaeval settings where the bow plays an important role. And don't forget Legolas.
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And large temperature differences will lead to some really big storms. I'm amazed about the creativity here. I like to read Fantasy, but I'm not good at coming up with cool Fantasy concepts. Luckily, I like historical fiction as well and I'm better at writing that. Though I do have that alternate world where the lost towns/realms of legend have been real (you know, like Kêr Ys, Avalon, Lyonesse, Vineta, Cantre'r Gwaelod ...) and left dangerous magic behind when they sank in one big cataclysm. That one grew out of a hist fic idea where I could not match the story I had in mind with the history of the time. It's in the drawer right now, but I sometimes fiddle with it a bit. I need a better grip on the magic before I'm going to rewrite the first part and continue with the story. But I do like some characters and plot ideas well enough that I don't want to give up on it. Maybe Nano this year? The Roman and AngloSaxon stuff is in a stage where Nano won't work to continue one of those NiPs.
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Ah, lab mice. They don't cooperate just to storm off the poor researchers. Try rats, they can be argued with.
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Do you have an idea how fast mice procreate? You really don't want that sort of magic.
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Cuttlefish-velociraptors totally deserve an upvote.
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They wield shard spammer hammers.
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Can we get separate Book and TV/Movie threads again? It's difficult to find any book-related threads among all that other stuff I know zero about because I don't watch US/UK TV or play games. And I don't think I'm the only one not into media but much into books.
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That's cool re. Louis the Fat. I've been running that cabin since you can start your own. The first Nano camp a friend and I got sorted with two other people who hated history. The sorting hat must have had a bad day with that pick. Inviting people is a better way to make sure that you can have fun in a cabin. My kings of choice (for the Nano novel, that is) are Henry the Fowler and Otto the Great.
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I'm already Captain of a Cabin. It's open for people who think discussing Mediaeval kings is actually fun.