Feel a lot better today, just had a chance to de-stress and play a bunch of free procedural games. That and things got a little bit better in the last 24 hours that I don't feel like I'm in a garlic press all the time. Mmm, garlic.

So, while playing other games, I decided that I'll add one major feature to Running Bomb for every vote it gets in the final competition. No votes, it gets trunked. More than no votes, then I'll work on it and keep on polishing it.

Other than that, I'm doing a bit of world-building...

I'm looking forward to writing next week, but I really do need this break to decompress. Though, I seem to switch gears to thinking about writing programs to help me make maps of my fantasy world, because that would make things "easier". At least get the relationships between the various parts of the novel more in focus (a steam-powered train leaves one town at X km/hour, how long would it take for the plot to get started?).

Another thing I keep coming up with is languages. I love Tolkien's thing with creating languages. I do that, at least to some degree, with all of my fantasy worlds. However, there is a problem of readers. Even Tolkien has most of the text in English. :) Because you shouldn't force a reader to learn a fantasy language to read the book; though writing a bilingual book would just be artistically awesome.

As she rubbed the splatter of fruit juice from her cheek, Talisa said, "De caf doi esso evolik."

Instead, you get flavor words, little things throw in the text to give it a fantasy feel but still using English.

As she rubbed the splatter of fruit juice from her cheek, Talisa said, "I think you are a bloody evolik."

And then you get the "everyone speaks English" approach to fantasy:

As she rubbed the splatter of fruit juice from her cheek, Talisa said, "I think you are a bloody idiot."

If I could, I would have picked the first one every time. Why? Because I love languages, but they are hard to integrate when you are writing for an audience. I mean, if I wrote a book that used English, German, Lojban, and Klingon based on the characters, I'd have maybe 4 readers.

Still be cool though.

I'm happier with my decision to spread out the characters in the beginning of the book. It seems like a better approach and I might make things less stressed in the beginning. The key part, is of course, making a really kick-ass first chapter that makes people want to read the book. I'm not sure why I can write some stories that have that and some that don't. It is very... inconsistent on what I write. I know that I can do it, I've done it, but I can't put a finger on exactly what makes DL (the novel with fan art) so popular and Wind, Bear, and Moon so not.

I was also thinking about the naming of Wind, Bear, and Moon. Mainly to see if a different title fits better (and doesn't have the comma problem).

• A Father's Pride: Obviously dealing with the major plot line.
• Wrenches in Gears: A lot of the story is about plans interacting with each other... poorly.
• Awakening of the Moon: More of a focus on Welf.
• Three Scions: This is more of a reference to the other books that I could follow as sequels. Also "Three Cions" for a slightly archaic spelling.
• Flight of the Scions
• Awakening the Scions: More of a reference that this is an introduction and the beginning of the powers thing.
• Tricions: Okay, that is just combing words, but sounds cool.

Hrm, not sure if any of those sound right. Actually, I like a couple (Tricions in the next minute), but its one of those things that I think needs to change.