State of the Nation Address

So, we’re coming up to the new year and I’ve been thinking about the blog…

What’s that? Where have I been? What do you mean where have I been? Where have you been? Oh, you’ve been right here, waiting for me?

Time to back up. I haven’t posted here in a long time! My last post was back in June when I was racing against time to get my Nanowrimo ‘winning’ entry printed up for free. I didn’t get the free printouts (serves me right for leaving it until a few hours before deadline to try and sort any wrinkles out…) but I did get 3 copies printed out, which left me with an immense sense of satisfaction.

 

Even just holding the book in my hands, smelling the pages and looking at all the typos in their real-printed glory made me feel giddy – giddier than I’d have ever thought possible.

A couple of people were kind (gullible) enough to read the book (many more offered but didn’t follow through – shame on you!) and I got lots of useful feedback from them (apparently I use the word ‘thing’ a lot in my writing) which I’m planning on incorporating into a final draft (well, final is such a strong word…, at which point I’ll start shopping it around to agents. If that doesn’t work out, not to fret, I can possibly avoid a lot of hassle by self-publishing.

Speaking of Nanowrimo, I took the opportunity to spend this year’s month of frenetic writing activity to start work on a sequel of sorts to Twilight of the Idols’ (or ‘Twilight of the Gods’, as I’ve since renamed it), tentatively called ‘Legacies of the Gods’ or possibly ‘Children of the Gods’.  I’m about 60,000 words in now (about half of which is an immense prologue that needs to be severely cut down), and expect ill finish at around 150,000, at which point I’ll need to bring out the trimming shears.

Anyhow, So I’ve been busy with that, a lot of simple word-building (fleshing out my world map with regions and ruins) and working on the twin-hemisphere map I’ve been slowly working on. The latter project was made much easier thanks to the purchase of a new PC (thank the demiurges for SSD’s!) which has made work on large maps a lot easier than before.

I’ve also kept myself busy with random map commissions to help finance the PC and small bits of research here and there. I’ve just about settled into my new apartment, though the acquisition of a new demon… sorry, puppy, has meant a lot of adjusting and a lot less time to myself.

 

(to anyone interested, her name is penny and she’s adorkable, but a raging feline coprophiliac…), something my cat isn’t very happy with.

Now onto the matter at hand.

Blogging is a difficult pursuit, one which takes a lot more time that one thinks. I’ve learnt this the hard way, as my sporadic updates will no doubt bear testament to. With a new year coming I thought I’d try revamp the blog, and come up with a schedule. Not that many people are reading, but it’s more of an exercise in discipline than anything else. Now working shifts (very shitty shifts, at that) make this rather difficult, but I’ll try stick to my targets.

So, without more digression, here’s my plan for the blog:

2 updates a week:

Humpday Musings: just me talking about whatever I’ve been up to lately, cool links, films I’ve seen, movie soundtracks I’m listening to, worldbuilding stuff I’ve come across on the interwebz etc.  I expect this entry to be quite random, with pics and weirdness. Expect general geekiness to appear here.

Weekend Worldbuilding: Anything related to Elyden comes here. New maps, thoughts on the worldbuilding process specific to the world. Fiction. Languages. Anything along those lines. I expect this to be the least updated section J

Let’s see how this pans out…