Sunday 7 April 2002

Pic of the day: No spring yet, but it will come. I know it will come, waking the trees from their death-like slumber.

Quiet Sunday

It has been a beautiful sunny Sunday, and I could see from my window how the buds were swelling on the nearby bushes. Spring seems to be just around the corner, even though the trees are still dark and naked.

I would have been out there, but I wanted to give my foot some time. I'm not sure if it actually is a splinter, but it feels and acts like one, so I want to give the skin time to grow around it. So I have barely stepped on it the last couple days. With a day like this, it sure was tempting, but it would probably bring me more trouble in the long run.

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So instead I have stayed indoors. Slept at strange times - I had quite a bit of sleep to catch up on - and played Dark Age of Camelot a while. And downloaded another e-book from fictionwise.com, in the same series as the previous two. Well, series is not quite exact. It is set in the same world, but the books can be read in any order. Characters from one book make guest appearances in others, but they are well enough described in these roles that you need no outside information.

I found the official Ethshar website (yes, it is www.ethshar.com ... would be easy enough to remember if you could remember the name Ethshar. I can't, not from one hour to the next. There is some consolation in the fact that the natives of the Small Kingdoms have the same problem). Anyway, from this site I found lots of stuff on old books, new books, upcoming books, and other projects of Lawrence Watt-Evans. He seems like a cool dude and even has his own blog.

It must be kind of cool to write fantasy novels for a living. I would not like to do it myself, though. Not that I don't have lots and lots of good ideas, and a decent grasp on the English language; but I don't work well under pressure. And having to meet a deadline is definitely pressure. It would kill my creativity like a ton of bricks.

Anyway, the people I know of who write fantasy for a living are better at it than I am. Yes, that includes Piers Anthony. I admit that he relies heavily on puns and puberty level sexual innuendo; but he is quite good at it. Watt-Evans has a very different style, but he is still good at it. Either that, or he has a really good editor and is professional enough to listen. Which would be admirable in itself.

Incidentally, the guy orders his web sites the way he orders his books: You can start anywhere and end up anywhere, because they are all connected and they all contain enough redundant information to stand on their own. Even though some of the information is slightly out of date. Then again, so is mine. (I actually wrote "so am I" here. Oww.)

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I have enjoyed a couple of Chris de Burgh songs too, that I wanted to share with you. But they really don't mesh well with the rest of what I've written. I'll probably be back, if I survive tomorrow's dentist appointment. If not, I guess you can pray for my soul. Actually that would probably come in handy in any case ... I use my soul every day. And I would not want it otherwise.