Writr

So I’ve started reading The Novel and it’s surprisingly okay. Not blowing me away, but that’s just because the actual word by word writing sometimes falls flat on its face and has numerous typoes. But that’s to be expected when I’m… well, typing something.

But it’s not horrific, aside from the first two chapters. It’s well structured, leaving me a neither a nervous wreck nor sending me to sleep (which the first draft actually did at points - it was so high tension for the most part that when I let the tension off I fell asleep).

Must do some more work on the Daily Flash I’m currently engagin in a touch of brinkmanship with it, writing a post and then editing and posting it the next day. It’s not ideal, as things won’t work if I fall ill or something. So my plan is to write a hojillion flashes (well, fourteen) and get them in a post queue. Two a day for a week should do it, and should also provide an interesting challenge.

So I’ve been looking into values for personal development a lot lately (detailed over at my other blog HifeLacking), and I hit on something - values and value conflicts are perfect for characterization. If you make a list of a character’s values and then look for difficulties, you can then throw them into a situation where their values contradict one another and watch the fun start. Or pain, if you prefer the term. But pain can be fun when watching a character.

Oh gods, I think I’m turning into George R.R. Martin…

Google have released a bunch of old maps for Google Earth, they’re available now in your Featured Content layer. Just to give you an idea of just how awesome this is:

That’s the ‘World Globe 1790′ map. There’s a bunch of others that are country specific and very cool.

I’ve always had an odd fetish for old maps - unfamiliar maps in general, in fact. I think that’s what started me off reading stuff like Lord of the Rings and Treasure Island. So yes, maps are yay.