Tomas’s Comments (group member since Aug 22, 2020)

Tomas’s comments from the Gathering Of Dedicated Scribblers group.

I got used to the fact there are bot accounts with links to dubious sites (many of them seem to be Russian XXX sites, based by the link syntax) liking random book updates in hopes to get people click on their links.
Now, they seem to be sending friend invites as well - I have set up a question to try and weed out random invites, and this presumed bot filled it by "hi" and a set of numbers.
Not even trying, bah.

What a "coincidence" that most of those addresses are partly or fully made of random characters.
Not something a reputable business - even a single freelancer - would have.

Sonja wrote: "Andres wrote: "What is a dead tree edition?" I want to know too? What is a Dead Tree edition?"

"dead tree edition" a joke term for any printed book, whether paperback or hardcover.

Dead tree edition = printed book (paperback, in my case).

I've finally set up a "dead tree edition" for my book, yay!

I know that printing long books isn't cheap, but I admit I was a bit shocked when the upload UI told me that just printing costs are $9.

I often listen to music while editing, but not so much while writing a fresh thing - the moment I get immersed in the creative process, I filter the music out anyway.

Andres, thanks for the update. I am getting some edits done on #2 and got almost half-way through, so by the time you're done with the refresher of #1, at least the first half of #2 should be ready for beta'ing.

In the meantime, is anyone of you using the personal Office 365 subscription plan? I am thinking about upgrading from my 2010-ish box copy and I need Access (not for writing, ofc, I use it to store coordinates and stuff from my hikes). Store app says the personal plan includes it, store webpage says it doesn't.
A billion-dollar company can't get it right, meh.

Most people have better and worse times, including in writing. Just keep going when you can but don't force it too much so you don't get deterred from further progress.

Andres wrote: "Oh okay. Did you create the names of the demons yourself or did you get them from WoW Lore?"

Usually a mash-up of various sources and random parts.
Some (hellhound, succubus) are commonly used as demon names.
Others are a mix. For example, strigerai come from Striga (Transylvanian for vampire, I think) but the suffix is shared with Eredar groups in WoW: Warlords of Draenor. Similar with gruntlings: there are gronnlings (small gronn) in WoW, and I combined that with the word "grunt".

Ash'terai, the warlock demons, are just "ash" + suffix shared with strigerai (as both are caster demons). Likewise, gor'ashi and talgrashi (melee demons) share the second part. Gor'ashi just from the word "gore" (unimaginative but works for brute-force demons) and talgrashi were pretty much random.

Rezam, one of the two major demons, doesn't have a direct inspiration but Raltash is, power-wise, based on Kil'Jaeden from WoW.

Andres wrote: "Tomas, just hit chapter 11. All the names are coming back to me lol. So far I haven't noticed any changes, at least, this feels as though I've read this all before."

The base story remains quite similar, the changes were mostly in details. And most of the changes mid-way through the story, where I explored the relationships between specific characters a bit more.

One thing that came to my mind when I was watching a documentary: a lot of fantasy is based on the medieval period in many aspects, but ancient Romans and Egyptians were more advanced in several ways, and so it was with some other cultures.

For example, ancient Romans knew how to forge layered steel, and had cloth "armor" created on a similar base principle as kevlar (layering cloth) as well as "armadillo style" armor from short plates that provided good mobility. And they mastered the use of water (watermills, aqueducts).
Chinese had lever-action repeater crossbows with an 8-shot magazine - pretty much the same lever-action principle on which the Winchester rifle is based.

Dammit, I gotta watch more documentaries for inspiration.

Thomas wrote: "It reminds me of those movies with Vin Diesel, Pitch Black and Riddick"

And still no fourth Riddick movie, dammit.

Anyway, if I ever decided to use what I mentioned myself, it would be after a lot of prep and thinking, it's just something that caught my attention on the spot and will go into the "maybe one day" drawer.

Anyway, my country got a fair share of weird weather recently. Last Wednesday: +10°C (some places even +15). Yesterday evening: freezing rain in -6°C. Forecast for the nearest days: -15°C night, -5°C day.
And when it started to snow today in the morning, it was with a bit of Saharan sand, so when I was shoveling it, the lowermost layer was orange-tinted.

*wonders if "snowing sand" is a potential fiction element* Here we go again, dammit.

I'm just randomly browsing Wikipedia and there's something that caught my attention...
Uranus, due to its 98° tilt and long orbital periods, has 42-year "polar day" followed by just as long "polar night".
Wondering if such a strange characteristic could be used in Sci-Fi for a fictional planet with extremely long "days" and "nights".

Amy wrote: "I have had lag issues in Google Docs as well; that's why I am considering Word. Any suggestions?

My novel isn't crazy long or anything. It's only 55k. So I am confused why it's lagging."

For me, the lag started around 20k words when I tried back in 2015/6. 55k is far above that.

Thank you, and to you as well.
Let's hope our creative juices flow in 2021.

Kindle Unlimited.

Amazon has fixed the series issue for me, though the book itself remains stuck in 'Updates in Review'.

On a brighter note, as I was checking that, I looked at my report. Got 210-ish page reads via KU over the last two days. Yay! Two more dollars!

I apologize for an off-topic mention that gets slightly political, but...
an article in the local newspaper says it's 10 years since a man burning himself to death set off the eventual 'Arabian spring' - and a decade later, we can see it was a massive fail.
However, writer me is thinking whether there are some lessons to take from it for crafting plots based on political instability.

Hmm, maybe I should start counting my edits in words rather than chapters...

I've edited one chapter yesterday. Did not feel like doing much today, so I told myself I'll be okay with half a chapter today, considering it was to be a complete rewrite.

Edited three full chapters.

Not bad.

I took Thursday and Friday off this week. I plan to do at least a 4-hr editing session both days. Good that I've bought a sturdy keyboard.

A bit off-topic perhaps but...
Anyone else having issues with Series page on Amazon? Mine is stuck and self-reverts to 'draft' without any explanation, and it also holds my book in 'Changes in review' stage.

I've mailed the support, hoping they'll figure it out, but I wanted to know if it's a problem someone else had as well.