Author Archives: Tomas

Vastly different

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Another year begins, and the first weekend of a new year, I usually go for a walk (it’s not always a serious hike). There’s quite some striking difference between the first weekend of 2017 and 2018. While last year, it was cold wave here in the central Europe and I was forced to pile several layers of clothes to stay warm, this year I had the opposite problem.

7.1.2017 – Sunny, lots of snow, -22°C
6.1.2018 – Overcast, windy, +9°C

I guess that the situation reversed with the cold wave in USA and Canada… anyway, let’s see that comparison in pictures.

7.1.2017 – perfect winter

DSCN5923

6.1.2018 – quite sad-looking day

While there is some snow in the hills, it’s melting and very uncomfortable for hiking and that’s for a few weeks already. Forecast these days says that there won’t be much of winter in the near weeks, so I guess I am left with hopes for mid-February, which is usually the time of some colder days even in the years where the year’s beginning was warm.

Fare thee well, Illidan Stormrage

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This post will be a mixture of book-related and game-related thoughts, because, as I’ve planned I got to re-read the book about Illidan in the last two days. The choice was simple as with Antorus raid being opened a few weeks ago, the story of World of Warcraft’s (in)famous demon hunter has come to an another end. And what best way to part with him than by reading the book detailing the first end?

Spoiler-filled post ahead.

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Writing overload?

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I was not writing much (more like not at all) in November, but I got back to it in December. I knew I should have “a bit of time” for more writing between Christmas and New Year. In fact, I was decided that I’ll most likely spend the evening (and waiting for fireworks) writing, because I like solitude and it felt like the most enjoyable way to spend the evening.

It went better than expected. Since 20th December, I pushed out whooping 14,5 chapters at even more scary 42.000 words. I needed 32 hours of “work time” to do that. I don’t think that any other writing rush was this strong, and that includes when I was heavily procrastinating my bachelor’s thesis back in April 2016.

Well, now to where a problem new to me arose: I casually returned home half an hour after midnight on 1st, took a shower and went to sleep. More like I went to wait for sleep that did not come. My mind was constantly whirling, thinking about the story and what comes next. In the end, I managed to fall asleep around 3:00. Maybe seven hours of writing without anything else than toiler breaks were not as good idea as it looked at first…

…but I never learn, do I? I was writing a bit more yesterday (I think it was some 4-5 hrs) and even though I went to sleep at my usual time, I was still twisting around in my bed until I guess 1:30.

It’s great feeling to write and knowing that it keeps going, but I feel like my brain needed several hours to, in computer terms, terminate all the background processes related to it and finally shut down.

I hope I’ll avoid that today, though who knows. Today I added four more hours and 2,5 chapters to make the final count mentioned above. I plan to take a week of break from writing, partially because I have an exam the next week, but it’s not like I was ever good in forcing myself to NOT do something that brings me joy.

Book plans for 2018

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New year is coming and with it hopefully some new places to visit and new books to read. I’ll now focus on the book-ish part. For start, I’ve decided to set my 2018 reading challenge on Goodreads at the same 25 books per year as in 2017. 25 because it’s between 2 books/month (24) and one book per two weeks (26), and because number ending in 5 or 0 looks better in any case.

As for what I know will be in my 2018 reads, much of it is still unclear. I know that there will be pieces that just grab my attention on the way. I know there will be re-reads of things I liked before the next sequel comes out. And there will be some things that were sitting on my list of potential reads.

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Thoughts about chapter names

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Something I noticed lately was that vast majority of the books I’ve been reading only had chapter numbers, very rarely the chapters were named. During my recent thoughts, I’ve found that quite surprising.

Truth is that in this year, I was mostly reading self-published books that were in the 200-400 pages range and so it was not as important. If a book can be read in single evening, then it’s not as likely someone will try to find a specific passage to look at. I’ve realized that as reader, there might not be much benefit from named chapters.

That changes a lot when I shift to writer perspective, and that’s where my surprise comes from. The idea that I would be going through my draft without chapter names, trying to find a specific moment I needed to have a look on, is scary.

But then I thought about it again. Maybe the reason why it feels scary is on my side again, because of the sheer size into which I let my ideas expand – I am now somewhere around 450.000 words summed across book 0,5 (40k), book 1 (230k) and maybe 70% of book 2 (170k) + notes and bits that were cut already. Sometimes, I need to find a specific scene to look at. I am quite sure that just with chapter numbers, I’d be lost. Chapter names are pain to come up with, but I found them really helpful when I need to find something. And even though I do (and will do more) complete proof-reads myself before going to some kind of beta stage, I know that some parts were trickier to write than others and require several closer looks.

Well, I’ll end this random jumble of thoughts here I guess…

Fantasy thoughts: Elite law enforcement units

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This time, I’ll be sharing my thoughts about “elite law enforcement units” in fantasy. What I mean is something like American SWAT units and similar special teams in any other country. In fantasy, that will of course have different forms, but several things are shared: when you see them, they should induce respect on sight with heavy gear and reputation of extremely skilled and powerful troops that are used to counter the biggest threats.

Maybe Aurors from Harry Potter series could be used as example, but as you’ll see, for my story I went different way.

Also, this will probably be the first post where I share details from my story – but not about the plot, not yet.

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Book review: Soldier Scarred

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The fifth book picks up pretty much where the fourth left, with Endric tasked to bring Tresten to the Conclave. For the slightly better part, Senda is there with him. For the worst part, Urik is too. After his talk with him through the fourth book and Tresten’s approach to him – caused by hope for redemption – Senda does not understand why is he talking with him so often after all the time he spent chasing him and put him to justice.

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First draft done, many to go

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Two months ago, I wrote a post about reaching a tough decision in my writing attempt(s). Eventually, what I considered the hard way won, and I decided to pull out the prologue of the book to separate piece with as much detail as it deserves. I hope and wished I would have the first draft done by the end of the year, but I am bad judge of my capabilities in that regard, and it was threatened a lot when I wrote very little during November.

I had some more chances in December and yesterday I finished the first draft. In two months, which sounds quite fast, but some part of it was extending what I already had. Then, the rest was being created from scratch. Anyway, as of now the first draft is at almost 40.000 words, which sounds like really nice progress in two months of which one had no progress at all.

Now, it has much more left to do. There are still placeholder names (I really hate my ‘creativity’ when it comes to names) and some other things that will require my attention to make it as good as I can, which I guess will require two or three more drafts at least. How fast will that go I don’t dare to say, I only know that I’ll now take a break, read a book or three (I already blazed through one today, review will come later this week) and then return to it.

Maybe, by the end of winter, I might have something more to share than just terribly unspecific posts. I hope so. Maybe I can have it ready in late summer 2018. That would be even better.