May 2020 | A.S. Akkalon - Fantasy Author

Contemplating a collaboration between writers

I never thought I’d write a comedy or collaborate with another writer, but it turns out I might be doing both. Here’s how it happened.

I’ve finished another round of structural editing of my WIP and I’m currently doing a once-through scene-by-scene edit. Once I finish this, I’m trying to decide whether to send the draft to beta readers or let it sit for a month and have another read through myself.

Either way, when I finish this edit I will start drafting something new.

I’ve been thinking it will be the sequel to my current WIP, but I’m a long way from having planned enough of it to start writing, and it’s being inordinately stubborn about falling into shape.

So I’m open to ideas.

How it happened

It started with a tweet (@micah_chaim‘s not mine).

How to make cooking more exciting

If you’re bored with the same old cooking routine, here are some suggestions on how to make cooking more exciting. I don’t recommend any of them.

I’m not a fan of cooking. In fact, I believe eating should be optional.

Sadly, the Great Cat hasn’t implemented that idea yet, so I’m stuck with bumbling my way through the kitchen and failing to improve my diet.

I was talking with the delightful @Bky_The_Geek on Twitter recently, and she had some excellent suggestions for how I might have more fun cooking.

That is exactly what I did. Cooking is more fun when you chuck your food around 🤣
— Rebecca White (@Bky_The_Geek) May 26, 2020

Look! That’s me talking to Rebecca. I got pretty purple stars by my name. That’s to help people who, like me, are terrible at remembering faces.

In which I celebrate small victories

Pandemic times are tough, and it’s important we celebrate our small victories. Here are some of mine.

Some days are more epic than others.

Some days you might summit Mount Everest (or at least Mount Rolleston) or complete your solo sail across the Pacific Ocean.

Other days your victories are smaller.

In these pandemic times, I’ve been having a lot of the small victory type days.

But even small victories are worth celebrating, so that’s what I’m doing in this post.

Older women in fantasy novels

I’m planning a sequel to my current fantasy novel, and its going to have a more diverse cast. Older women will definitely feature. Here are some of the things I’m thinking and worrying about.

You might think from the title of this post that I’m about to take you on an intellectual exploration of the roles and representation of older women in the fantasy genre. Or you might know me and expect nothing of the sort.

I don’t study literature, but I read, look, and think, and occasionally I have enough thoughts about a topic that I want to share them.

Or I realise it’s 5:30pm and I’m supposed to write a blog post tonight, and I have no idea what I’m going to write about.

Let’s agree I have no good reason to write about this topic, but that I’m going to do it anyway.

Dragons from Micah with love**

Micah Chaim Thomas (Writer. Artist. Difficult to explain.) honoured me with some dragon art loosely inspired by my fantasy novel in progress.

** Yes, I added the “love” part, but giving a person a dragon is a form of love, so I don’t apologise.

The talented and enigmatic Micah Chaim Thomas (@micah_chaim on Twitter) recently deemed me worthy of receiving dragons from him. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to deserve this honour (since I don’t have a dog).

The first challenge was to explain the dragons in my book without having to share my first draft prose. (Yes, I know I’m on the tenth draft, but I rewrote so much that most of the scenes aren’t.)

Big, scaly, wings, claws. They’re not evil, but they’re not fond of humans. And they have oppressive minds. You meet a dragon and you want to worship it.

Somewhere in the middle of explaining I got an effusive “yes!”.