Recent content by Prince of Spires

Story is that the first HP novel was rejected 12 times before being accepted (note that she didn't pitch the idea, she wrote the book first and tried selling that, which is how it goes for fiction unless you're famous). It also was only accepted because the 8 year old daughter of the publisher...

I just don't buy the Piracy = exposure so it isn't all bad argument. I'm fine with exposure and even willing to pay for it, but only when I chose to do so. I can't buy groceries or pay my cover designer with exposure, which makes it pretty worthless as a concept. I've also come across...

One interesting thing I find is that by censoring things, you're making it worse than it actually is. If you censor something, people notice and they get taught (even subconciously) that it's a bad word. You shouldn't say it or write it. As a consequence, it becomes a bad thing to say. Of...

How did it go?

I generally take a "death of the author" view on the matter. As in, once a piece of literature is out there, the piece and its interpretation belongs to the public, and the author and his or her views no longer matter. It's why I can read H.P. Lovecraft without any issue. So I judge HP on the...

It happens to a lot of writers. Brandon Sanderson has mentioned several times that he regularly makes a few attempts at his opening chapters, trying different people as protagonist just to see which one works. In general, you only really know where you need to start once you have finished. From...

I'm currently reading the first few Harry Potter books to my kid (target audience at 9 years old), and they still remain magical to her. They'll outlast us. Having said that, books age as styles change. A couple of books I read as a kid are hard for kids these days to read. Especially books...

Even Game of Thrones (the novel, not the whole series) is very low on magic. And it's a good portrayal of how you can do it. Going from memory, there are about 4 fantasy elements in the novel, which paint it as fantasy. In the prologue, there are the others who kill a couple of watchmen. You...

It's an okay cover. The image feels out of focus, like it's a low resolution picture that's been stretched to fill a larger space. The font doesn't do it for me. It doesn't match the image somehow. Your name is too small, an in that color it just completely disappears when you look at it...

Sounds like fun. Not for me though. I'm knee-deep into my current project, and try to write each day already. Good luck with it.

I find either a writer Discord server or Youtube / Twitch live streams from authors work best for this sort of thing. I usually join a Youtube writing sprint. It's a nice way of having to be accountable and having a chat with other authors.

This very much depends on the type of edit and the quality of the editor. Some editors focus solely on the big picture and the broad strokes of the manuscripts. Others focus on the specific way you say something. And others still focus only on the typos and grammar. And then everything in...

If it's just an idea you're having that it could be cool to have teh guy's POV included, then ignore that idea and just keep writing. In my experience when you're writing, there are always ideas that seem like they're better than the current one you're having. It's simply because writing is hard...

In my experience everyone has a unique approach to writing. Everyone's different, which is why all we can do to help someone is suggest things they may try. In the end, you need to find your own unique approach. And what works for Mad Swede of PMMG doesn't work for me. And if I force myself to...

It lied or was mistaken about its own methods. An LLM isn't trained to reason in the same way a human is. It's taught to give the most pleasing answer to its user in a useable, human sounding form. This is especially true of the large, generic models like Gemini. They get given data to ingest...