Back in January I decided I would try out a writing advice from the famous novelist Stephen King, who talks about how you should write a thousand words each day, and to not even worry about quality, and then go back to edit it later. The idea being to get words written down, damn quality or any other factors that are stopping you from writing.
From time to time, I like to take a look at the stats for my blog.
It can be both fun and useful to see where my site visitors get referred from, and in which country I have the most readers.
I just finished reading ‘The Last Wish’ by the Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski.
The book is a collection of several short stories about the witcher Geralt of Rivia, a traveling monster hunter for hire.
Like all witchers, Geralt was trained extensively from a young age, and forced to undergo several mutations to transform his body and mind into the ultimate weapon against ghouls, vampires, giants, and other monsters.
The witchers utilise magical signs in combat, consume elixirs to gain an extra edge, and carry two swords on their backs. Silver for monsters, steel for humans.
The mutations also caused him to lose all body pigmentation, earning him the nickname The White Wolf.
But these mutations also cause the common folk to distrust the witchers, almost as much as the monsters they hunt.
When they are needed, people call upon them. When they are not, people shun them.
Despite his gruff outer shell, it becomes apparent that Geralt is much deeper than it seems at first glance.
In fact, things not being what they first appear seems to be a recurring theme in all these witcher stories.
From certain monsters being more kind than the people who fear them, to the way Sapkowski twists classic fairytale tropes.
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Since this book has seven separate stories, I figured I would write a little about each:
This is the framing story for the rest of the book.
During this, Geralt thinks back at certain events in his life, which we get to read as short stories.
There is a sense of regret to this story, as if Geralt wishes he had spent his life differently.
Geralt has to cure a cursed princess, by surviving a night in her tomb.
But before that he has to navigate the politics of the court, avoid angering the king and figure out who cursed the princess in the first place.
In a twist on the ‘Beauty and The Beast’ story, Geralt finds a monstrous looking man living in a mansion in the middle of the forest.
The man believes that he will be freed from his curse if he finds true love, and has consequently paid off several men throughout the years, in exchange for a year of their daughters lives.
When Geralt arrives, he figures out that the latest beauty living with the man is a blood-thirsty vampire.
In this twist on the ‘Snow White’ story, a wizard attempts to hire Geralt to kill a “monster”, a woman he had once hurt, justifying his acts with the claim that she had been born under the Curse of the Black Sun.
She had escaped as a girl, and went on living with a thieving band of seven gnomes. But now she was back for revenge.
This woman later attempts to hire Geralt aswell, to kill the wizard.
This leaves Geralt in a moral predicament, while trying his best to stay out of it all.
Geralt is hired by a queen to pose as a nobleman at one of her swanky dinner parties. But she will not let him know why..
The party is being held to find a suitor for the young princess of the kingdom.
But it soon turns out that she is already taken.
This story uses elves as an allegory for real native people of various colonized areas, but mixed with the sense of superiority elves are often represented with in fantasy.
The story sees Geralt and his poet friend Dandelion getting captured by a group of elves. The bound witcher tries to bargain with the elf leader to let them go, while at the same time scolding them for not trying to live in peace with the humans.
The elf leader compares the situation with a louse trying to get a person to share their coat with the lice.
The Last Wish
A few days ago, Ruth from Silver Screenings held The Silver Screenings Awards over on their website.
This is an award that they hand out to various bloggers they like, from time to time.
When it comes to awards in the blogging community, one has to be specific.
This is not a chain letter interview-award.
I do appreciate getting those aswell, as it can be fun answering questions, but I don’t think that those should have been given the name “award”.
How about “chain-interview”?
No. This is a more conventional award, with several winners in different categories.
And I won in the Pop Culture category! Thanks Ruth 😀
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Since part of the reason for getting this reward was my varied output of posts, I decided I would link to a few of my pop culture posts about various forms of media.
Of course, if you are more interested in one subject than another, clicking on a posts category tag should help you find even more of what you are interested in.
I hope you enjoy.
Art: The Art of Theodor Kittelsen
Comics:
The Scrooge McDuck Origin Story
Years ago, I was enjoying my regular stroll though my local shopping-mall, when I suddenly saw it.
A Winnie-the-Pooh kiddie ride!
I had never seen it there before.
As I approached it, an ominous feeling crept up my spine. The air was filled with the otherworldly scent of rotten honey, and as we all know, honey doesn’t spoil.
Naturally, I jumped on!
I enjoyed a few moments of unaware bliss before it happened.
It seemed like a rift in the fabric of reality had opened, as the plastic ‘w
illy, nilly silly old bear’ was transformed into a living monstrous beast that was trying to kill me!
Most know that they should check their email spam-folder, but if you run a blog you also need to remember to check the spam-folder for your comments.
I just checked the folder for the first time in a month, and there were six comments from regular commenters, and apart from that there were only three actual spam comments.
I gave this post that title mostly so that I will be reminded to check each time I see it 😉
One of these comments was from the blogger petrel41, who invited me to take part in The Real Neat Blog Award.
Here are the questions, and my answers:
1. Where do most visits to your blog come from?
Reddit, and at the moment, one single post on Reddit, as I have over 6000 views on my Thanos post from there.
Reddit can be a good way to reach a big audience, but they will likely only read whatever is linked to before returning to Reddit. And you may have to withstand some snarky comments there, even when the post is generally upvoted.
Better to reach a returning audience. A few of them may return, so it could be worth it.
2. What is your favourite sport?
When I first started blogging, I read some advice that said I should find a niche, and stick with it. In fact, I have read a variation on that advice several times.
But by diversifying your writing, you get people with different interests talking to each other.
It can be interesting to hear about a subject from a person who don’t normally engage with the culture around that subject.
And I am not just my photographies, my taste in movies, my fiction-writing, my past, or my cooking.
I am all of these things, and much more.
I write about all the things I love and care about; be it games, art, my girlfriend, food or music.
My niche is me.
I have been spending some time lately setting up a Patreon-page for my upcoming comic that I mentioned here earlier. It is a lot of work figuring it all out, but I think it will be worth it.
Patreon is a crowdfunding website that lets people support creators who make cool stuff.
I have been signed up for a few years, mostly supporting some YouTubers I like.
I am one of many $1 supporters, which makes up the majority of the income for these full-time online entertainers.
I am making the Patreon-page more by necessity than anything else.
I have a very talented artist working on the art, but
I can only afford to pay him for one page each month
Between the summer of 2009 and 2010, I served my mandatory military service as a guard in The Royal Norwegian Air Force.
In Norway, when I was 19, all young citizens had to spend one year in the military.
There were easy ways to get out of it. From diseases, to ideologies, to responsibilities, to drug-use. So if you wanted to avoid service, you could.
As of March 2016, Norway currently employs a weaker form of mandatory military service for men and women, as now only those who are motivated are selected.
Probably a better systems, so they can avoid people who would rather not be there.
It started with a two-month boot camp in Stavanger. I was assigned to the airforce, but don’t get me wrong, I’m no top-gun. There are a lot of positions in the airforce that don’t require you to ever get in an airplane, and I served my time there as a guard.
Compared to the rest of the year, this period was more like a border-school/summer-camp than a true military experience. At the time I felt it was hard, but later I realised
this was a really soft entry
This is my contribution to the Time Travel Blogathon hosted by Silver Screenings and Wide Screen World. You should check out all the other posts aswell!
The film I am covering is the=&0=&, directed by the great =&1=& (who just released his new film ‘Mute’ on Netflix).
Admittedly, this is kind of cheating.
Source Code is not technically a time travel story, but it does work with =&2=&
I love time travel in fiction.
That is one of the main reasons why I love Doctor Who.
I love how this storytelling device can put ideologies from vastly different cultures, separated by decades or centuries, up against each other. By doing this, we can compare them, and find strengths and weaknesses in both. It can also just lead to funny jokes, or cool imagery, like a medieval knight riding on a velociraptor and wielding a laser sword.
I have previously expressed my love for video essays on YouTube, and I now have yet another great example in “Games as Lit. 101”.
Alan Wake is a game about creative creation, specifically writing.
Any writers who are reading this should definitely watch the video above, even if they have never played the game.
I loved the game when it first came out, but I feel like
the subject-matter hits closer to home now that I have started intentionally writing