Still wondering whether The Four Realms is worth 99p of your money? Well Anarchy Books has a FIVE chapter PDF up on their website for you to download FOR FREE. A number of people have said lovely things about the book so far (and none of them have come to me asking for money in return!) so see what you are missing out on! Just click the Four Realms book cover on the Anarcy Books website to be taken to the book’s page and PDF download link
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My First Guest Post: The Worldbuilding Of The Four Realms
Someone recently told me that New Salisbury was ‘a bit like Chester’ in the way it put modern shops into old buildings. They’re not far off. I’ve been to Chester but it wasn’t the inspiration for the fictional city. However, over at The Civilian Reader today I’ve done a Guest Post on “The Worldbuilding of The Four Realms”. Hopefully it should be a good insight into how the rather unique world of Venefasia and the city of New Salisbury came about.
Be sure to check it out. If you’re a worldbuilding nut, it should be an interesting read!
2012 Review
Traditionally amongst my friends, we get to the end of the year and say “well that was a shit year.” Except, for me at least, 2012 wasn’t. It was a good year, a great year even, especially given the year before. Even when you ignore the fact that 2011 was Shytus Maximus, 2012 will go down as one of the best.
Achievement Unlocked
I know the Kindle edition of the book was out a little early but today’s the ‘official’ release date so
The Four Realms Arrives Early For Kindle
I’m beginning to think that bringing a book to publication is a bit like a wedding. In your head, you have this perfect image of what it is going to be, and no matter how hard you work, reality chips away at that image changing it into something different. Like the bride in all those Wedding comedies, the author desperately holds onto the dream of an event they’ve been waiting their whole life for, whilst chaos reigns around them. Eventually, they give into reality and learn that it’s just as good, just different.
Business Trip
Just to let you know I am off on a business trip with the day job for the next week. I’ll have limited access to web, email and social media so non-urgent correspondence will have to wait until I return.
On the plus side I’m hoping the lack of communication stuck in a hotel will help the evening’s word count on the novel! Play nice until I return.
Calm Before The Storm
I have just a couple of days rest between finishing one major project and pushing forward with the next. In an ideal world maybe I’d want a couple of weeks to switch gears but there are many reasons why the short break is an advantage.
I’m proud that I’ve always been someone who wants to build on their strengths and continue to learn and evolve as a writer. So it’s no surprise that with this next project I have ideas of things I want to achieve.
Fantasycon: A Tale of Hellmouths & Earthquakes (& Level 90 Unholy Death Knights)
There’s this theory that as a creative person you need to cut down on your time consuming content and put it into actually creating content. It’s not a bad idea but my creative process is a little different. See, to recharge my creative batteries, I need to consume. I need to consume on a large scale, devour, bury myself in consuming content so much that the real and the fictional almost seem to change places.
And with the latest World of Warcraft expansion released at the beginning of last week, I’ve been doing that. I took 2 weeks holiday from work, played for 26 hours straight, and still took another 10 hours the next day to hit level 90. Between then and Fantasycon, I have been playing pretty solidly. Fantasycon acted as a good buffer to allow me to go crazy but still force me to take a break after a few days.
It seemed like the perfect plan.
The Olympics Opening Ceremony
On Saturday an entire nation woke with a cultural hangover. Even those who’d entered into Friday evening full of cynicism, woke up asking themselves, “did that really happen?” and “It was rather good, wasn’t it?”
I’ve never been anti-olympics, but I can understand why some are. I have, however, been against elements of the event – the sponsorship, the censorship on urban comment through the whitewashing of graffiti, the missiles on people’s houses.
Establishing New Habits
I would never describe myself as someone who is naturally organised but I am a creature of habit. As I’ve previously written, the last few weeks have been turmoil. In fact, this entire year has been turmoil. But with the final move of items into storage at the weekend, I’m hoping the turmoil is now behind me.
You only have to look at the frequency of recent blog posts to know that my writing has been impacted . My reading also (which is particularly annoying when you are half way through a book you were really enjoying).
It’s not all been bad. I’ve made good progress on a new writing project, but even then, the progress has been more erratic than I’d like.
So the plan now is to start to put a bit more structure into my writing and reading. I’m hoping that blog posts will become a little more regular as well, even if they’re a little focused initially on word counts.