Recent content by Theankh

Even now, I've not played for about a year and I've uninstalled the game, but part of me still wants very much to play again. I have a deep nostalgia for the halcyon period where my guild were one of the biggest, most popular on our server and people knew my name before I knew them because I was...

The most addictive part I found wasn't so much the game and the story as it was the people. I played for 2-3 years roughly and after I'd been playing for a few days I joined a guild. I worked my way up to second in command, but then the GM just disappeared and rarely logged on. Some of us...

My main character is the sort that you wouldn't get on with if you met her, because she doesn't get on with pretty much anyone. But as a character, the reader will mainly be seeing her through the eyes of the two other main characters, one of whom is in love with her and the other who has a...

The man in black fled into the desert, and the gunslinger followed. Aside from anything else, it's the only opening scene that I can remember :)

I haven't got much room for discipline - I write at work during quiet periods so how much I get down depends entirely on how the day goes. If I get lots of calls and my boss is in the office, I might not even get to open it. If it's just me and the part-time girl on a Friday, I can get through...

I have Word on my Mac. That's about all I need - I want three features: new document, save and word count :p That said, I hate Open Office. It's probably fine for casual use but we switched to it from MS Office in one of my last jobs, and it was hideous, very non-intuitive. Things that were...

These are in my list of books I will read over and over for the rest of my life :) I think I started in a lucky way - I borrowed the second one from the library but the first one wasn't to be found, so I wasn't put off by it. Now I've actually read the whole series, reading the first one because...

I'm not exactly an expert on punctuation I'm afraid, but I think you could reword the first sentence as: "With his knees bent, shoulders back and a glittering sword held high, the man known as 'The Ghost Killer' landed before him." Or even "The man known as 'The Ghost Killer' landed before...

I like traditional publishing. I guess e-publishing is a nice novelty but I stare at a screen all day as it is, I've no desire to do it when I'm trying to relax with a book :) Plus, books are atmospheric. I like the smell of my older books, the ones that are well loved. Whereas I've got no...

I don't even remember when it started. I always read, and I always wrote. I don't have any recollection of a catalyst or particular moment - this was just what I was born as :)

I find myself using he/she all the time as well, mainly because I don't want to be constantly repeating the characters names. I don't think there's any way around that one, apart from trying to restructure your sentences where possible as Sevvie suggested.

Reading other people's work helps - I read some Patrick Rothfuss recently and it sparked off all these ideas in my own head. Loads of people mentioned walks! I walk about half an hour a day to and from work, which is great for thinking in, and I have a playlist on my ipod of songs that I...

I tried having three different races once, but it didn't work for me - they were all just humans really but some of them had pointy ears and funny coloured hair, and others were really great at fighting or magic ;) it was a bit rubbish. I envy people who can juggle genuinely different races!

None, I just start writing :) Then along the way as a need for information comes up, that's when I do any research!

I agree, I think listening to others talk can be a help. Learn to talk yourself if you can. Most of the time when I'm writing dialogue, I'm imagining how it would sound if I said it. If it sounds unnatural, I change it.