Worldbuilding

  • Battarack Keep.

    It’s always amazing when I come across an image that makes me realize that some of the places in my head are actual places in the world. While browsing /r/castles, I discovered the wonder that is Lichtenstein Castle in Germany: Not only is this a marvelous piece of architecture and scenery, but this is almost…

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  • Islands in the Sky.

    I know I just did an inspiration post not long ago, but I came across this image (on reddit, of course) and simply had to post it. It’s breathtaking. Taken by Shane Kalyn, it’s a stunning image of an island that appears to be floating in Tumuch Lake in northern British Columbia. When I look…

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  • More Heartless Inspiration.

    Reddit is a complete mecca of all things Intrawebz, and I’ve found it to be an absolute treasure trove for inspiring photographs and images, especially in subreddits like Abandoned Porn (which is NOT what it sounds like to the unknowning, I promise…it’s like food porn, but with old, abandoned buildings), Earth Porn (same thing, but…

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  • So, a while ago, Infinite Free Time put up this post about ten awesome fictional female characters (all of whom I agree with completely), and I thought of doing the same, but I don’t know how I could possibly choose ten of my favorites, and another thought struck me to turn it into shameless self-promotion.…

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  • So, the boyfriend and I finally went to go see Captain America: the Winter Soldier yesterday, and it was really, really, really good. As usual, I left the theater feeling pretty charged and excited. Marvel movies these days have that effect on me, and I really hit the jackpot on figuring out why. This latest…

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  • Language Ex Machina.

    As far as fantasy goes, I’ve always been inspired by Tolkein’s scholarly breadth of detail in his worldbuilding, most notably his dizzying work with creating full, functional, quite honestly breathtaking structures of language. Naturally, this is something I’ve always wanted to weave into my worldbuilding for Aryneth, but, as one would imagine, languages are not…

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  • “It wasn’t a case of storming heaven. It was a case of letting heaven storm you.” “The Curse of Chalion” by Lois McMaster Bujold Reading through The Curse of Chalion, a tale about a soldier who finds a second life as a saint and secretary to a cursed princess, I came to a striking revelation:…

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  • “…it would be exactly like the Mycenaeans to draw it instead of domesticating it.” “Greece in the Bronze Age” by Emily Vermeule Anyone who knows me knows that I’m an absolute nut for books, especially old books that appear to have seen their fair share of use and enjoyment through the decades. When my fiance’s…

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  • When perusing through these marvelous reimaginings of Roald Dahl works via one of Annie Cardi‘s wonderful linkdrop posts, I got to thinking, “What would the reimaginings of my covers be like?” Promptly, I stopped myself to drop the reminder that one might need to have book covers in the first place before people can even…

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  • Welcome to Aryneth.

    For how absolutely essential and pivotal the world of Aryneth is to my writing and why I became a writer in the first place, it’s a little astonishing how little I talk about it here in this blog. I blame college for that; there was such a strong emphasis on avoiding genre fiction and embracing…

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