A knight in shining armour standing on a street in a futuristic city. An example of a secondary world anachronism.

3 Ways to Avoid Secondary World Anachronisms

Amongst the more popular reasons for being taken out of the moment were secondary world anachronisms. For example, the characters cry out the name of a present-day primary world deity, or the world has the same days of the week or month names as our primary world. Here are three ways to avoid secondary world anachronisms.

Making Maps: Techniques and Tricks

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I love making maps. I make a lot of them. Some are continental-sized, some regional, city or town-sized, and others as small as individual houses or even rooms. While this won’t be a tutorial (although I will provide links to some of the tutorials I learnt from), I will detail some of the many tools and techniques I use when creating my maps.

Milardus maps

Creating Maps for Novels: Challenges and Solutions

I like making maps. Maps help ground my work, so I know where everything is. They also allow me to work out how long it takes to travel between places. Or where characters are born and raised and how that affects their world view. However, drawing up a map for readers, well that’s a whole different kettle of fish. I find that incredibly difficult.

A small reservoir as seen in The Glyphs

The Glyphs 4 – Where the Saerk Are We?

The Glyphs is a multiple-choice game where you control the fate (and demise) of a gong farmer, as they explore the sewers beneath the Ancient City. Just choose an option from the poll below, and the most popular option will decide what happens next. I’ll put out one of these every week.

Wúrnúr and Hématnar.

Religion: The Scroll of Choalú and Wúrnúr

Wúrnúr being the elder warrior was named chief of the Onghaor, and while he had many duties, including teaching the boys and girls how to war and hunt, for the tribe was too small now to rely on just the boys, and collecting meat for the empty stomachs, he was constantly badgered to take a wife and sire children, for what the tribe most needed was children so it could grow in numbers.

A work space. Not me. This is not me either.

Why I’m Risking My Back For My Work

After reading Flexnib’s post about Bibliotheque Bound’s post, I’ve decided to add this post to the posticle about work desks. I have a work desk (or at least part of one). It contains a computer (a laptop) as well as several removable hard-drives, and a multi-functional laser printer.

Coils of the Serpent has 10k views

Coils of the Serpent – 10k Views

In comparison, it’s not much, but recently my novel Coils of the Serpent crossed the 10,000 views mark on Royal Road. The more popular works receive that many in a day, but it is almost two years to the day since I posted the first chapter there.

My Coding Activity on Codeberg

Writing == No Coding

Yesterday, I wrote about how I have difficulty reading whenever I’m deeply involved in a writing project. Well it’s the same for coding. I can’t seem to do both at the same time. It can be incredibly frustrating.

A pile of books. I love reading, but I can't when I'm writing.

Writing Without Reading

If you ask any professional writer what’s the best way to improve your own writing, they will nearly always tell you to read. Read as much as you can. Read material outside your usual likes, even outside your comfort zone. Read fiction. Read non-fiction. Read biographies. Read history. Just read. But, what if you can’t read? What if the act of reading interferes with your writing? What do you do?

Adam T Perkins and Summer Williams performing in The Bear

Why I Miss Community Theatre

I’ve been reading Sirekat’s posts about the various cabaret acts, she’s been attending over the last few weeks. I know it’s not quite the same, but it’s made me miss the theatre community I was part of back in Perth. Community theatre is not a thing here in Singapore.