C.A. Sanders's Blog, page 33
August 18, 2015
The Chaos Seed
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The Chaos Seed is what sets Wizards apart from ordinary human beings. It allows them
to summon and use Chaos energy to power their spells. Since Magic is transformation, Chaos is extremely powerful. The Chaos Seed also provides immortality to Wizards, but if the seed is drained completely, the Wizard dies.
What is it? : No one knows exactly what the Chaos Seed is, but Wizard scholars believe it to be a connection to the Dream World. They believe th...
August 17, 2015
Magic in Watchmage: An Introduction
Magic is at once very simple and incredibly complicated. There are several types of magic users, and each has different effects:
Magelings: Magelings (they call themselves magicians, wizards, mages, or whatever is en vogue at the moment), can create minor reality transformations. They do this by “weaving” together the five elements (Air, Water, Earth, Fire, and Aether) into set patterns, producing the desired effect. As the human body can only produce a small amount of elemental energy, they...
August 13, 2015
Lays Do Us a Flavor: My Results
I take potato chips seriously, and I love the Lays chips contest. As a true connoisseur of chipdom, I tried each of the new flavors: New York Reuben, Southern Biscuits and Gravy, Greektown Gyro, and California Wavy Truffle Fries. I judges each one based on taste and originality on a scale from 1 to 10. This is serious science, folks, I swear.
Here are my results:
California Wavy Truffle Fries: I’ve had this flavor before. It’s called “Sour Cream and Chives.” Were the waves supposed to make it...
August 11, 2015
Geno Smith…IN THE FACE!!!
Remember last year when I said “I love the Jets because they find new and exciting ways to lose”? Well, this time they found a way to win.
Starting Quarterback and albatross Geno Smith got into a fight with a backup linebacker, who cold cocked him and broke his jaw in two places. Geno’s out for 6-10 weeks. Ryan Fitzpatrick is now the starter.
This is awful for Geno, but probably the best thing for the Jets.
Geno has tried and failed. He isn’t going to get any better. Neither is Fitz, but at...
August 7, 2015
Learning WordPress, the hard way
As I mentioned before, I’m trying to upgrade and add more content to my site. It’s great to blog about geeky stuff and such, but I want to add additional resources for my books. They’re great big worlds that overflow the books.
I want to create wiki-like pages for Song of Simon and for Watchmage, something where readers can click on a table of contents and it’ll bring them to the right topic. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to do tabs. If I can’t figure it out, I suppose I can do each article...
August 3, 2015
July 31, 2015
Under Deconstruction
With The Watchmage of Old New York (the novel, not the serial) coming out soon, it looks like I have to do another revamp of my webpage. I would like to add additional source material for my novels. The hard part is motivating myself to do it.
Because both novels are fantasy, there’s so much to add. So far I’ve been doing it obliquely with my articles on Music History and NYC History. That’s great, but it’s not enough.
So what would you like to see as far as source history goes? For Watchma...
July 29, 2015
Old Articles
I wrote over 200 articles on music for several magazines. Unfortunately, the main site that I wrote for, suite101, completely changed it’s format, and most of my articles are gone. I hate wasting good writing, so I’m going to move a bunch of them over here. It doesn’t really fit what I’m currently doing, but they’re a part of my life, and I don’t want to lose them.
I don’t think that music history articles will transfer to fantasy novel book sales, but you never know.
July 16, 2015
Promises Promises…Inside Out
Ok, I swear that I’m going to start adding more source material on NYC History today. I already have something on 19th century slang written (my own notes for Watchmage). I just have to rearrange it for consumption. Right now it’s in a form that only I can understand.
I should organize my files better. One day I’m going to be dead, and people are going to need to find my important files…
Inner Critic: Wow, Craig, that’s freaking morbid.
Neuroses: Yeah, people are gonna think you’re all emo...
July 9, 2015
What to do next…
Watchmage is almost ready. I just sent the final copy off to the proofreader and layout artist. Now the question is: What comes next?
I could do the following:
1) go over the first draft for Watchmage #2: Cold Iron. I think it needs a lot of work (as all first drafts do)
2) Write more short stories. I’d like to do some shorts in the Watchmage world, but not using the main characters, per se. In that case, I should probably do the same for Song of Simon.
3) Start adding more content to this we...
