Well, here we are in the post Lamplighter release phase of my plans for world domination (did I just say that or think it..?) I thought I might do a little Q&A for folks to mull on.
1600H (not their real name) - over at the Myspace page for MBT asked me via email:
"... does the H-c still evolve in your mind? Do places, people, monsters, etc. still change, or are they a bit more fixed since you began writing the books?"
And my reply:
The whole H-c and the land beyond is very much a growing thing: as you can see above, you yourself have had an effect on it with your query. Another good example would be trying to decide what to call the whole world that the H-c exists within; it was the Alltgird at one point, though I am thinking to make this the name of the entire continent of which the Half-Continent is but a portion, Harth Alle - or maybe more properly, harth alle (a common noun instead, perhaps) - is the current notion I am rolling about my noggin. So many things are fixed and thunk up, but much is still unfolding, writing novels certainly shows me where my previous ideation was lacking detail, and this makes it all the more exciting for me, because I explore the H-c when I write and discover more on it than I first conceived or, sometimes, even thought possible.
1600H also pondered (more for themselves than me, though I answered anyway):
"I was just wondering whether the H-c is currently in the midst of it's own industrial revolution?"
And my reply:
"As to notions of an industrial revolution, well that question had me thinking and scribbling notes as just how the H-c works technology-wise (what were you thinking asking such provoking things?! ;) The answer is not simple, but firstly I think the folks of the H-c innovate much more slowly than we, that gastrine "technology" has been about for a little while now and insinuated itself of society gradually but steadily. The H-c does not boom like our western society does, it is cautious with innovation and suspicious of the new (lahzars have been a feature of the world for just over 200 years - first appearing properly at the Battle of the Gates HIR 1395 - yet they are still regarded as modern innovations and distrusted as such). Such a technological marvel as a ram are built slowly, a few at a time, taking many years to complete, then treasured and preserved when at sea. Great gastrine hammers slowly pound out the iron-cladding but not on the steam-powered scale that we expect from our own world's period of mechanisation.The people of the H-c and beyond think differently to us, have a take on the world we would find somewhat foreign, their co-existence with monsters being a large influence on this. When thinking of the folks of the H-c it is important not to impose our own ideas of how things are on to them, their perspective is vastly different."
Today's other feature:
My current definition for discipline ~ being prepared to hurt in order to get to a better place.
Easy to say, hard to do...
