The Monthly Report: May 2023
The Monthly Report: May 2023
It May be May
And so the time has come for another monthly report, with a mix of future plans and recaps.
This Month
Amezwar’s story is underway in Battles Beneath the Stars, and I’ve been playing this one more by ear. Which has led to a different kind of experience from writing the other stories, a more risky one writing wise. To be clear things were still outlined, but next story will probably lean more towards the kind of planning I’m used to. I don’t regret playing with looser planning though.
For the blog post I’ve been toying with various ideas, which means I’ll likely end up with a backlog I can fall back on for the following months. No promises for which one will go up this month as opposed to next month.
As for ‘Let Me Talk To You About,’ this month’s entry is mostly done, just needs some polishing. For both non-fiction sections I’d like to get a backlog running again, especially since I know some soon to come months will be rather eventful. It’s all a balancing act though, so I’m not too worried at the moment.
Last Month
The first of my one-off fiction pieces went live, complete with a new section on this substack creatively titled ‘Misc Fiction.’ This was an entry for the Lunar Awards, and it didn’t win, yet I’m still satisfied with it.
I’d also like to take this chance to ramble about my thought process for the story now that it’s had a bit of time to stand on its own. If you’re the type who both doesn’t like spoilers and hasn’t read The Swordsmen but plans to, scroll until you hit the line break.
The byline/sub title, ‘A Tale of Arms and Men’ is intended as a play on the first words of the Aeneid, Arma Virumque Cano. The exact word choice of translators vary, but one translation of it that’s stuck with me is ‘I sing of arms and a man.’
The Swordsmen’s invocation of it is meant more literally, as it’s about weapons and men becoming one. There’s also a thematic connection between them, as The Swordsmen ultimately reveals itself as the origin story for a tribe, while The Aeneid is all about Aeneas’s destiny as the one who lays the foundation for Rome.
The first draft was given the working title Totally Not Soul Edge, because the inspiration was Soul Edge from the video game series that started with the game of the same name.
What fascinates me about Soul Edge the entity is that it’s a weapon that behaves like an organism, to the point that its plans and actions either directly involve or are paralleled to sexual reproduction. Yet it’s still a sword.
I wanted to explore something like that, having a character that blended the line between sword and human. Less of a cyborg ‘man or machine’ approach and more exploring a symbiotic relationship.
When describing the new form the Abrams take when they become one, I was very much thinking of Soul Edge and Nightmare. However as actual characters there are some pretty big differences. Soul Edge has a manipulative parasitic relationship with its ‘wielders’, the two Abrams have a mutualistic relationship.
And while Soul Edge is the overarching villain of its story from ancient times concerned only with its own hunger for souls, the Abrams are the heroes of their story who become the first of a new race.
Moving on to the not fiction, I wrote about my visit to Super Nintendo World. I’m happy that this section has turned out to be more than just talking about random video games I like that nobody else seems to.
Meanwhile I decided to hop on the ChatGPT train late because I was curious about how wrong it would be about the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca. ‘Banal’ is the key word used to talk about ChatGPT now I think, for good reason, but it was surprisingly amusing.
This is less of a piece about the potential and failings of AI and more playing with a trendy toy. That might lead to me writing Mary Tyler Moore Show fanfiction.
[I didn’t like how it looked with the embed the other links used so I changed the style. Please accept it for its differences.]
And to wrap up the recap, yesterday saw an interview with St John Starling, the author of What Manner of Man, an erotic vampire romance with some key connections to Dracula (the book not the character). Interviewing him was fun both as a fellow author and as a fan of What Manner of Man. Considering the content of his work, publishing the interview on Sunday felt a little ironic, which makes it better.
And that’s all folks. Thank you for being subscribed to The Warthog Report, I hope I’ll keep writing things that you’ll enjoy.