Category: World Building

Rings of Power: impressions of Episodes 202-203

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Disclaimers: Spoilers below the cut for anything that crosses my mind, from Tolkien arcana to details from later episodes confirmed by reviewers, to the weirdest rumors about the later stages of the show.

Short summary: There’s still clunkers big and small, at a writing level, and there’s at least one major screwup in the choice of music to score a particular scene. But I enjoyed these, felt like these worked well overall, with the “earthier” 203 maybe being somewhat less good than the highly philosophical and mystical 202. I also feel like I’m getting a better sense of which first season choices in story-telling were justifiable, and which weren’t.

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Weird Wednesday: Worldbuilding the Empire of Noricum

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My main model for Noricum, where Wolf’s Trail takes place, was the Hapsburg Empire, especially the later, more decentralized version at the end of the nineteenth century. But the more I dug into it, the more I discovered that the Hapsburg Emperor had a much more hands-on role, even in that era, than I really wanted the fictional counterparts to have. So here’s the situation with the Emperor of Noricum in the books…

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Writing Vacay, Day 3

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Slept in dramatically, felt much better, got some stuff done around the house. Still got a late start on anything writing adjacent:

  • Some brainstorming
  • a lot of research on the less feudal bits (Switzerland, Frisia, etc) of medieval Europe, vaguely connected with one of the plot bunnies
  • 100-200 words adjusting earlier scenes in the WIP
  • 972 words moving forward on the WIP
  • lower word target met! yay?

Writing Vacay, Day 2

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So, here’s what happened on day 2 of the writing vacation:

  • Couldn’t focus on writing due to AC issues, now hopefully fixed. I have no patience with people who diss the Industrial Revolution and even less with the air conditioning haters who were fashionable a year or two ago
  • Cut 170 words I wrote yesterday on main WIP
  • Tweaked some other bits of the WIP for continuity issues; mostly related to the structure and layout of the airship in the WIP
  • wrote 116 new words
  • Target word count not achieved

Weird Wednesday: Doctor Who and the 7 Golden Vampires

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To those who are not familiar with the movies and tv show being referenced, no explanation is possible. To those who are, no explanation is necessary. To those who whine about how awful the source movies are: I have so little respect for your opinions that I am not even doing you the courtesy of putting these beneath the fold.