Helen Lowe's Blog, page 38
March 16, 2022
When It Comes to Worldbuilding & My Books…
On Monday, I posted a list of previous worldbuilding posts that specifically focused on my own books, only to realize afterward that when it comes to these two topics, the bullseye category is probably A Geography of Haarth.
The Wall of Night Series map; artist Peter Fitzpatrick
I posted the series in two instalments, the first over 2013 – 2014, and focused on locales in The Heir of Night and The Gathering of the Lost.
The second instalment ran from February 2017 through until December 2019, a...
March 13, 2022
On Worldbuilding: Listicle 1 — Posts Focused on My Books
I’ve realized I’ve let the worldbuilding focus slip a little bit over the past month, with the last post featuring on February 14:
Open for some serious worldbuilding business…
Beware The Expository LumpNo valentines included tho’ — unless a few worldbuilding tips fit the bill. 
When starting, I quickly realized I had done a considerable number of worldbuilding posts before and promised a few lists. The idea being that this would pull the links into one (or several) place(s) and give readers th...
March 9, 2022
About The Characters: Meet The Minor Players In The Wall Of Night Series — Meet Luin
UK/AU/NZ
The About The Characters post series focuses on the minor characters in The Wall Of Night series, in large part because:
“I think it’s the presence of the smaller characters that “makes” a story, creating texture around the main points of view.”
~ from: Legend Award Finalist’s Interview, 2013
Initially, the series focused exclusively on characters from The Heir of Night, but now I’m continuing on with minor characters from both The Gathering Of The Lost and Daughter of Blood — in alphab...
March 6, 2022
A Time of Scurrying
I have always loved Katharine Kerr’s Daggerspell, which kicks off her first Fantasy quartet, the Deverry series.
The second, Westland series (also set in Deverry incidentally) also comprises four titles:
A Time of ExileA Time of OmensA Time of WarA Time of Justice
Recently, I was juxtaposing these titles with a phrase from a much-loved television series, Babylon 5. The phrase is “The Hour of Scampering” and is used by the (alien) Vorlon ambassador to describe the early evening, between wo...
March 2, 2022
On Supernatural Underground Now: What Makes A Hero?
Yep, my 1 March blog on Supernatural Underground has not only posted but I’ve finally gotten onto my Heroes in Fantasy series, after heralding it on January 1.
What makes a hero?
As mentioned in the post, my normal m.o. is to jump right in and tell SU followers all about heroes in fantasy literature that have rocked my reading world.
And I do reference quite a few heroes—but I also wanted to look at what makes a person a hero, whether in storytelling or real life (although my focus will very mu...
February 27, 2022
What I’m Reading: “The Shipping News” by Annie Proulx
The Shipping News was first published in 1993 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1994. It was made into a film in 2001, starring Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore, and Judi Dench as “the aunt.”
The story centres on Quoyle, who is called only by his surname throughout the book and is the despised younger son of an expatriate Newfoundland family living in the United States. Friendless except for the chance-met Partridge, Quoyle lurches from debacle to disaster in a life distinguished only by in...
February 23, 2022
Inside The Writing Life: The 3 C’s & Contrary Muses — But Hold On…
Well, there I was, all set to put together another “3 C’s” post on the reference to “contrary, if not downright cantankerous muses” in my WALL #4 update post of January 6 — when I realized that effectively it was already written and posted on October 25 last year, as:
Inside the Writing Life: Wrangling The Road BlocksIt’s not just about contrary muses, but it’s certainly a major part of the post. As you can see from the following, there’s a smidgeon of “Characters Behaving Badly” in the mix as ...
February 21, 2022
Celebrating The New: Eleven Years On from 22nd February, 2011
Last year was the tenth anniversary of the February 22nd earthquake which took 185 lives and did so much damage to my home city of Christchurch and its wider environs.
Accordingly, I did a retrospective post looking back over the decade:
Faultline: My Decade From February 22nd, 2011My chief emotion, when writing the post, was sadness and a profound awareness of the decade’s physical and emotional geography of loss.
Yet despite my sorrow I also felt greatly honoured, because the Prime Minister c...
February 20, 2022
Today’s Post Tomorrow :-)
Just a headsup that the usual Monday post has been rescheduled until tomorrow.
No, not because tomorrow’s date is a numerical palindrome, although that’s probably reason enough for wanting to record a post on that day, i.e. 22 02 2022 reads exactly the same reversed (although the spaces have to be adjusted.)
The reason is because tomorrow, February 22, 2022, is the eleventh anniversary of the 2011 earthquake that, more than any other of the 10,000 plus we experienced, destroyed and seriously da...
February 16, 2022
Inside the Writing life: A Closer Look At The Three C’s
Art: PJ Fitzpatrick
When I posted the WALL #4 progress update on January 6, I referenced the “Three C’s”:
Characters Behaving BadlyContinuityContrary,( if not downright) Cantankerous MusesI shared some insights into the phenomenon of Characters Behaving Badly last year, but thought you might be interested in the other two C’s as well.
So I’ll expand a little more on Continuity today and come back to Contrary, if not downright Cantankerous Muses either next Thursday or a little later, depend...
