I love my cheap, macho military / action / adventure SF. And because dumb books are easy to digest whilst doing something else I'm more than happy to look the other way.
But... there are limits. Especially when the same mistakes are made over and over again.
There's a whole subset of romance novels in fantasy settings, which all seem to follow a certain pattern. This is one of those.
Sometimes they stand out (Rachel Aaron's DFZ series, for example) and sometimes they are 'pulpish' (like this one). Great if it's your thing, but Lindsay Buroker can do better, as she proved with her Dark Currents series.
I edited one of the images I found on https://www.collectedcurios.com/ and modified it a bit to make it a better wallpaper. Lunch, anyone?
(Click image to enlarge)
Military SF is a guilty pleasure of mine. Let's read another one...
Today, that's Confrontation by Nathan Hystad. Oh dear... (read on)
Wallpaper.
It's summer, and life and work are changing yet again. The future is... unclear.
It's a good thing I'm not the only one who doesn't know where he'll end up.
The truth is, most of us only discover where we are heading when we arrive...
Writing + Reference
(This is a follow up to Book And Chapter Sizes)
Do you need chapters, and is chapter size related to reading speed? I think it is! Read on...
(For clarification: the WOL tool is NOT running INSIDE VirtualBox.)
Series Review.
Continuum wrapped up. It could have used a few more episodes, but this was all they got.
Column.
One of the more curious side effects of this whole Corona mess is a loss of sense of time. We've been locked in our homes, stuck in an endless rut of repeating events, surrounded by the same four walls. For so long now that we're all losing our sense of time, even without catching actual Covid. Nothing seems to change, except for the weather, so perhaps it's only natural to forget about unimportant things like seasons, appointments, and clocks...
Shadow and Bone is a fantasy series on Netflix, with shades of The Witcher, Game of Thrones, Shanara, and every other fantasy series ever. Which doesn't make it bad. In fact, it throws in enough interesting twists to make it worth your while.
In May 2010 I visited Japan. I love that place. Summer started early that year, and the cherry blossom was (mostly) finished by the time we arrived. Well, there are still good images to be found on the internet 😉
Some anime series can get rather complex... And some of those series made it to NetFlix.
I haven't seen the following (yet) but I thought it best to start with figuring out the proper viewing order. So, as far as I can tell...
Writing.
... congratulations! Indeed, Wattpad is a serious problem 😁
Yeah, I know, I'm just jealous of those very successful authors with millions of (unpaying) readers. Then again, am I that jealous?
Yes.
Jumper (the 2008 movie) could have been the start of a great franchise, even if it had little to do with the books.
Young guy discovers he can jump, the goes kind of undercover, until the 'Paladins' (an anti-Jumper organisation dating back to the middle ages) catch up with him. Bad things happen.
But... how about the books? (And their relation to the movie?)
As I said before, if you suffer from writer's block then write some bad poetry. Coincidentally, the new F1 🏎️ season just started. Tomorrow's race two, and with some (bad) luck Mercedes will be just as boringly reliable as always...
But... it did inspire me to write some bad poetry...
Datatalk / Printing.
How important is the quality of the paper in your laser / inkjet?
Perhaps more important than you think. However, I'm not the expert (I'm no expert on many things 😉) so consider these my 'personal' notes...
Wallpaper.
There is one person missing in this image. The artist. The author.
Writing is hard. It's toiling away in a corner of the night, burning that midnight oil. Imagine that poor writer, driven by a mad vision, eschewing the niceties of the world to bring you the word...
Yeah. It's a lonely profession... no time for hanging out in bars meeting fans 😉
Writing.
I've created another website / blog account to handle everything related to the novel I'm working on.
Update.
It's 2023 by now, and I'm finally getting ready to release. Talk about being slow!
Writing.
I finally settled on a cover and a pen name. So now both my writing related websites are up-to-date. Unfortunately I haven't released the story yet...
Well, I have to start somewhere 😇
Do you remember good ol' typewriters? Man, the horror! 😣😂
I don't think there's anyone who has good memories about typewriters. I'm certainly not one of them.
Datatalk.
The Xara Designer Pro software package is quite nice, and capable of incredible things. It never got the traction it deserved, and has been picked up and then abandoned, more or less, again and again.
Some time ago Magix picked it up, and that rarely bodes well...
Wallpaper.
We had -17º degrees a few days ago... as in one real week of winter. I wonder if we'll ever see it again with all that global warming...
Nevertheless, it was warm inside, and I couldn't help myself from thinking about warmer weather, and walking on the beach...
Ten years ago or so Skyland was showing on Dutch television. At the time I downloaded a few episodes, and noticed that the broadcasted version was post-processed to look more 'dirty'. Which made it look a lot better, to be honest.
Story wise both versions are the same and okay.
Writing is hard. It's very hard. People have no clue how hard it actually is. Even writers themselves are clueless.
So, I set out to document the writing process. Read on (besides, it was about time I created another mindmap)...
Every writer has their own preference. For example, I prefer to write with empty lines instead of indents. (There are some disadvantages to that method, but I just find it easier that way.)
Still, you might want to go for the 'official' 'manuscript' format when submitting. Unfortunately, there's no such thing...
Series Review.
I’m in love. Not necessarily with Anna Taylor-Joy (who, frankly, is way easier on the eyes than I am 😂 even if deliberate make-up choices make her look a little weird now and again), no, I'm in love with the sixties. I’m a bit surprised that nobody is mentioning Beth Harmon’s… eh… predecessor / inspiration misses Emma Peel 😅
