Adrian Faulkner's Blog, page 35
October 16, 2020
Taking A Week Off – The Climb #602
I’m giving myself a week off.
I had made plans to start to introduce a bit more structure to my writing when I took leave the week after next. As that date has loomed there’s more and more that I want to do in that time, to the point where I doubt I have time to do everything.
Part of me longs for super-productivity, and whilst I do think I can be a lot more productive, I still don’t believe that at my most optimum would I be able to get everything I wanted done in a da...
October 14, 2020
Pre-Patch – The Climb #600
Today was a big day in World of Warcraft as the pre-patch went live in Europe.
If you think of World of Warcraft as a house, then the Shadowlands expansion is a bit like putting an extension onto it. As part of that extension, there may need to be some rewiring or replumbing.
Pre-patch is, in essence, the completed house, but with the door to the extension locked. System and class changes go live, but the new content doesn’t. I suspect it gives the developers a lit...
October 13, 2020
The Silence Of The Pandemic – The Climb #599
I’ve heard a lot of people talk about how the pandemic has impacted their creativity.
For some the stress and confinement has caused them to be unable to write. For others it’s the ability to read. I’ve been fortunate that I’ve suffered from neither of those (although finding the focus for reading was a bit of a struggle at the height of the pandemic), however I did notice one big change today.
I don’t seem to be able to enjoy music.
Whenever I’m planning, writing or ...
October 12, 2020
Planning Ahead – The Climb #598
Today has been a day of admin. As the year draws to a close there are a bunch of things I want to get complete as well as a bunch of new things I want to start. Whilst I’m OK if not all of these come to fruition, what I don’t want to do is get to a stage where I’m flitting between so many different items that nothing gets done.
I started experimenting with planning my year back at the start of 2020. At the most basic level this established what my goals were for the ...
October 11, 2020
Twitch Streamer – The Climb #597
This weekend I’ve started doing some Twitch streaming this weekend. It’s nothing too exciting, just a couple of hours of Warcraft each day. It’s been a way to motivate me (if motivation was needed) to do all those final things I need to do in Warcraft before the pre-patch lands next week.
I managed to get my brawler’s Guild mount and I’m very happy about that. After not getting the Bruto (still salty about that although I have no-one to blame but myself) and I didn’t ...
October 10, 2020
The Digital Writer – The Climb #596
I made a decision some years ago to go fully digital with my writing.
My reasoning was many-fold. The first was that I wanted to be able to index my work and be able to find it with a search rather than trying to find the right notebook. Secondly, I wanted to be able to write anywhere. If I went to a convention or on holiday, I didn#t want work on a novel or story to have to stop.
I’d already been embracing other aspects of digital working for many years. Back when...
October 9, 2020
Imposter Syndrome – The Climb #595
When I first got my agent I suffered terrible imposter syndrome.
I’d submitted to her on a bet. A group of us (many now published names) were lamenting our lack of published books and vowed to all send to agents as a result. I had Black as Knight kicking around and had received some good feedback on it the previous summer from another top tier agent.
So I did what I was supposed to do.
I listed who I thought were the five best agents in the world… and I sent it to them....
October 8, 2020
The Ruthlessness Of Antagonists – The Climb #594
I’ve been reading some craft things about antagonists and threat that may prove useful in an upcoming project.
I want my antagonists to prove a challenge to my protagonist. Sometimes that threat comes in the form of intellect or power, but in this project it comes in the form of ruthlessness.
And this is where I sometimes struggle. I want to show them as being ruthless, and that often means I go graphic and dark. There’s a place for that but I think it’s better suite...
October 7, 2020
The Returning Idea – The Climb #593
My ideas develop over time and a lot of the time it’s not even conscious.
I have an idea for a future book. It’s a strong hook and one I’ve talked about before, but today it visited me again.
At the heart of this is whether the idea works best as an epic fantasy or an urban fantasy. The last time it came round I worked on it as an epic fantasy, threw in a bunch of ideas and had a pretty solid concept for a novel.
But today I’ve been wondering about it more as an urb...
October 6, 2020
Battle Ground *Minor Spoilers* – The Climb #592
So I finished Jim Butcher’s Battle Ground tonight.
I’m a big fan of the Dresden Files after my friend and writer Stephen Aryan encouraged me to read them. It’s a weird series because the first 6 books in the series are only OK but that investment in reading is worth it due to the way book 7 goes into high gear and the series just goes off like a rocket. It’s asking a lot of people to stick with a series for 6 books before it becomes amazingly good… but it is what it is...
