Xbox One Eighty
I love that play on words above, and a one eighty it truly has been. Like many, I am truly amazed that Microsoft backpedaled this much. And maybe I’m cynical, but I don’t trust it. This is how I see it (and its hardly a unique perspective). Microsoft knew that, all things equal, they would sell a crap load of systems, pretty much no matter what. They would sell a crap load of games. They would make money. Because they’re Microsoft, becuase they have the Xbox (and Halo) and they’ve been successful so far. So what they did, was take a gamble. They said, lets throw out a maximum profit plan. There would be no room for their customers to wiggle out of their grip if they wanted their Xbox games. The publishers would make more, Microsoft would make more, and most retailers would probably make more as well. And then…
The First Chapter
Anne R. Allen put a post a few a week or so back (I am so glad to be caught up on Feedly now…) that discusses what all should be involved in a first chapter. The moment I saw it, I groaned. Here we go, something else to tear everything I think I know to ribbons. But I read it, because this was a new blog I added to my reader, and I nee to get a feel for it, and much as I didn’t want to admit it, these types of posts are important. Nothing is concrete, but the thing about being a new writer, one who hasn’t written for anyone I wasn’t related or married to, is not having the ability to gauge what is concrete and what is quicksand. I think I know my stuff, but who knows what that will mean to readers? And the first sentence, paragragh,…
Violence In Fantasy
Adam Callaway at A Dribble of Ink has a great article that dissects violence, particularly in relation to fantasy. He makes some great points (especially using BioShock 3 where the violence there is ridiculous). The entire time I read it, I was trying to think of novels I loved that didn’t employ violence. I have a few, but none of them are fantasy. And it got me thinking about my own story. In the first novel, Sorcerer Rising, I have a good bit of violence. I think of it as action, but really, that’s how we as a society put a nicer label on violence. That’s not really a problem for me, I’ve always handled that rather well and I think it has a point. Virgil isn’t dark or an anti-hero, but his reaction to horrible things is to throw a whole bunch of horrible right back at it. Very rarely…
Writing Progress 6/18
I did much better last night than the weekend. 16 pages edited (plan calls for ten on Monday), so pretty happy there. 1,002 words added to second novel. I’m not keeping up with how many words I’m writing in Sorcerer Rising for two reasons. First, it’s done. I’m not here to add things, if anything I am cutting out words. Theoretically, I could keep up with what is added, but it would be more trouble than it’s worth. Second, it doesn’t count. This is reworking. If I started counting the words I had deleted, rewrote, added, deleted, added again, I would be the most prolific person in the world who’d ever written only one novel.
Announcing Sorcerer Rising
It is with great pleasure that I formally announce Sorcerer Rising. I have been working on this story for over four years and finally, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m going to continue to do some posts about the series as a whole, what I learned about it, etc, but here is the gist of it: Sorcerer Rising begins the story of Virgil McDane. Once he was a powerful Wizard, an explorer, scholar, and soldier. Outcast from the Wizard’s Guild, stripped of his power and relegated to a lowly Sorcerer, he finds himself more and more desperate. His world is much like our own, only magic is an everyday occurrence. The greatest resource is Aether, patches of raw magic that spawn whole dimensions. Forged from emotion and thought, the possibilities held within these worlds are endless. Some are featureless nightmares, others whole planets filled…