Writing update, Way of Kings illustrations, Skyrim and Star Trek/A-team videos

There’s good news and bad news regarding the latest redraft. I’ve done most of what I set out to do, and decided to add a world-specific calendar to help make it a bit more immersive (it’s a pretty minor change, actually, as the names of days are rarely mentioned and the festival names of Belisariad and Valerian remain unchanged). On the downside, I underestimated how much I’d make up in the word count by the changes I’d planned.

So, I’m going to finish working through the finickity stuff (mostly continuity, at which I am shockingly bad) and then embellish one part of the central plot (it makes sense presently but would be more realistic with something extra) and build on one of the subplots. I am three-quarters or more of the way there, so although there’s a bit to add it’s not a case of writing reams of stuff.

Once that’s done it’ll be time for a final mini-redraft (mostly about checking it flows well, continuity is good and the new bits don’t contradict the older material). I’ve made a little progress on the boring technical stuff of self-publishing, but finishing the book is obviously the first priority.

In other news, I was checking a few authors’ blogs and noticed that Brandon Sanderson (whose The Way of Kings I very much enjoyed) has cunningly put up the illustrations of that book on the internet. Whilst e-readers are excellent in many ways, you can’t zoom in much for pictures (admittedly, this is rarely a problem), so it’s quite helpful for Mr. Sanderson to put them up. Reminds me, actually, I must remember to get the Mistborn Trilogy. I was going to buy it next, but decided to go for Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Empire in Black and Gold first.

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/blog/1012/THE-WAY-OF-KINGS-interior-illustrations-now-uploaded

Skyrim news:

Bethesda have released 20 minutes of largely seen demo footage of their forthcoming game. Whilst most of it’s been seen before, it is nice to see it free of background noise or a Q&A, with the actual in-game sound track and effects.

http://www.bethblog.com/index.php/2011/09/12/20-minutes-of-skyrim-action/

Lastly, here’s a Star Trek/A-team spoof title sequence that I rather like:

Thaddeus