Tag: Authors

How I approach topics that I don’t have knowledge of.

What do you do if you haven’t had an experience like homeless or PTSD as a writer? Your character is homeless; how do you describe their emotions, actions and thoughts? This is something that I have been thinking about ever since I started writing: being male, how would a woman react to a situation? Or what does it feel like to be a homeless person? Or how someone would deal with racism? I will review the steps for addressing this and other situations.

One of the things I deal with gender is asking someone of the opposite gender about how they would react to my proposed story. I start with the character being a person, not male/female/non-gendered, as the base personality is unique to every person, even more so if they are of a fantasy race. I then create a scene and express how this character would react. Then, I will reach out to a few people of the same gender and ask them how they would tell me. I would do that for any gender or race, as I will not make up something that isn’t a real emotion in my stories.

Next was a coincidence for my main character in ‘Journal of an Adventurer’, Lone Solo/Orphan. He had a huge drinking problem, borrowed money from loan sharks, got into fights, was arrested and had a destructive attitude. I just thought it was an exciting flaw of his, and his character would grow through the book and series.

A reader/author of mine, an ex-soldier, came to me and said he related to Lone, as he too has PTSD (and he wrote a book about it). He asked if I did do that on purpose. I did not; it was an accident, but I, too, had a traumatic past and reacted in the same way when I left that situation, drinking to excess and being cold with emotions. In this regard, I used my own experiences, by accident, to create a more whole character.

The new thing I am dealing with is homelessness and gangs in Savage Rebellion. I have seen movies and read fictional books about these topics, but I want to know how a realistic person deals with this. I have a few sources that I will ask for. Still, in this regard, I will have to research as it is vital to me to represent this situation with the utmost care, respect and knowledge. Going in half-cocked or making the topic into some fantastical idea.

It matters to care about using fundamental ideas and people’s experiences for my books, even though they are set in a fantasy world. Racism, sexism, war trauma and homelessness are real things that we humans deal with daily, and how can I ignore that in my books? As in the real world, I want to show that even the most broken soul can be a hero.

Things that make me happy!

Daily writing prompt
When are you most happy?
View all responses

I have been enjoying doing a few of these daily writing prompts. Of all the questions, I thought asking when I am most happy would make my day.

Many things make me happy, from reading to spending time with family and friends. Even writing this answer allows my creative juices to flow.

I will start by finding a new book by a favourite author in a bookstore. There have been times that I didn’t care if I had the money, only that I needed this book. I would then devour it, not stopping until every word was imprinted into my imagination.

Next would be a walk either near water or surrounded by trees. It makes my soul jump in joy to be in my mind. The air was crisp and vibrant. Early morning is my best experience walking on the Broadwater in Southport, QLD. Then it was walking a hiker’s path in a rainforest. The massive trees with vines and foliage hanging from them. Seeing critters running around in their natural habitat makes me joyful.

Then there is spending time with friends or family, from playing Dungeons and Dragons with my nerdy friends to spending time with my eldest sister and discussing things. I am at peace surrounded by those special people in my life.

Finally, creating stories. I have been grabbing ideas from the depth of my imagination, pulling them into the written word. I don’t think I ever regretted the bliss of writing something fantastical that would bring delight into others’ lives.

My weakness is books. What should I do?

Daily writing prompt
What could you do less of?
View all responses

This question is a hard one. To look at yourself and reflect on flaws or habits. One thing I do have to admit is listening to audiobooks too much.

I love reading and have fallen in love with audiobooks since I became a caregiver. It allowed me to experience fantastic books while doing all the jobs that being a carer entailed.

Since the death of the person I cared for, I have found that habit has made people around me annoyed as I am immersed in incredible books, like The Wandering Inn, Beware of Chicken, Awaken Online, Belgariad, The Dresden Files and many more.

I could cut it down now, but I am listening to a book as I write this blog. So, I might be a lost cause. Still reminding myself that I have people who want to chat with me, I will curb the need always to be lost in a fantasy world.

Going from RPG to Novel, my experience.

Wow, four blogs in a row, I must be on a roll. No, not really, but while I am writing my next novel, Savage Rebellion, for NaNoWriMo (I am currently on day 13 at 32000 words). I explain why you should never adopt a Dungeon and Dragon/Pathfinder game into a book. To head off the first question, yes, Journal of Adventurer and the World, Favinonia was based on a role-playing game. I built this world over ten years ago with the help of my friends, but the books are played out in this world; the characters of the Rejects and the city of Lake Merrin were completely separate from all the games I created.

There have been three authors I know of that based their books on a game they created; they are Raymond E Feist, Margret Weis and Tracy Hickman. They did a brilliant job; I don’t know how much it carried over. Still, one quote from Margret Weis about the character Raistlin Majere, whos character was a good friend of Tracy Hickman, Terry Phillps’ betrayal of the character Raistlin in the game, gave not only the character a personality but breath life into the complexity of Dragonlance and Krynn itself. Mr Hickman says that Raistlin was Mrs Weis’ character, and the books The Soulforge and Brothers in Arms show the complexity created by the Phillps’ roleplaying.

If you read Dragonlance Chronicles, Legends and the above books, you can see that with help, you can translate roleplaying games into a novel. This is when the ‘but’ comes in. Not all games will adapt, and not all characters will adapt to the page.

My example was that I would do a short serial on the party of Shadow’s Bane (here is a link to the story). I started to introduce each character with my interpretation of each; it was not perfect, but I tried to capture the essence of the character. This seemed to be going well until the last one I introduced. 

I will not name my now ex-friend, but I will describe her character as best as I can remember. The character’s name was Raven, and she was a summoner (this is from the Pathfinder RPG). Her eidolon was called Night Fury. You can see that one name of her summons was named after the movie How to Train a Dragon. This is fine for a private game with many friends, but publishing a description of the summon as Toothless the Night Fury from the movie would be dangerous for me and my blog.  Raven was independent with a powerful but not fully understood ability. I think she could be a bit domineering, but that is my interpretation.

So, I changed the dragon’s look, shape and name and softened Raven’s personality. To keep it somewhat the same, I found a name that meant Night and or Fury. I then wrote the characters’ arc. In the game, my ‘friend’ roleplayed between Raven and NF, and I think it was one of the best sessions I have ever run. I tried to emulate that feeling, but somewhere, it got lost in translation, and I lost two friends because of my interpretation of said character and her summons.

This hurt me dearly, and I stopped writing for four years. Only now, since the death of my mother, have I come back to the keyboard to start to write again. Could I have done something different? Yes, but that would be hindsight. I can warn other fledgling writers about adapting a game to a book, as it is more challenging than you think. Do not lose friends over some simple words. Still, use the world, but make new characters that are yours and yours alone.

Shadows Bane short serial story [Link]

My Next Journey as a Writer.

My journey on the NaNoWriMo has made me remember how to write again. I didn’t realise I had lost touch, as it has been nearly five years since I published my last book. So, I thought I might drop some things I have re-learned while on my writing adventure.

First, I was dragging out the words when I started the novel. I didn’t know why each sentence and paragraph was a chore. I listened to my writing music playlist, chewed chewing gum and even walked around the house to get my juices flowing. I was caught up not saying ‘he said’ or ‘she said’, so I found a few blogs to help me with alternate words. Even this didn’t help until I remembered a piece of advice from a fellow author, ‘Your first draft will always be rubbish, but you need to get the story out onto the page.”

So, with that, I changed my approach to writing the novel. Without needing to ensure I had the right words or concepts, I went into just writing. That made me go from barely keeping up with the daily quoter of NaNoWriMo to nearly tripling the number. In the last four days, I have written over 13,000 words, which isn’t my best speed but is much better than dribbling out the novel.

Secondly, I found that I was editing as I went. Some people do this, but I prefer something else to this method. Because I am getting back into it, I am obsessed with polishing the first draft as I go. That stops the creative process, as you are stopping and starting to make sure that everything is perfect or near perfect. This is fine when you do it once a week or something, but as you are writing, every hour is too much.

Lastly is simple passion. I didn’t have the passion for writing as I did with my other novels. With my mother dying a few months ago (And I being her full-time carer). Also, having to move because of her death and that I couldn’t afford the rent at my unit, it shook me. I am now scared for my future and don’t know what will happen.

So I decided to write the next book in the Journal of an Adventurer series. It was harder than I thought, grief, depression and need to be like you were before. Not only that, but the years of caring for my mother made me isolated, and I lost a lot of my support from friends and author colleagues. It makes it hard to have that passion for something when your method of writing includes interacting with the writing community. I was a part of the Gold Coast Writers Association and ran my writing group. This hasn’t improved, but I am working on this last hurdle.

So when writing a book, just remember it shouldn’t be perfect. Don’t worry about editing as you go, and find a great community to bounce ideas off. With that, you will limit your chances of giving up. Just remember that you are not alone.

My hardest decisions I have made.

Like most people, I have had to make several hard decisions that have shaped my life. I had a few choices that, through hindsight, could have led me on a different path, but I can’t change the past.
My first decision was to move states to run a kitchen. This should have been for only one year, but I stayed for the next twenty years. My boss offered me to move to organise the new kitchen, except when I arrived the manager and the staff thought I was there to fire or be the new manager. This was different, but trying to fix anything was stalled by the other employees and the manager. When the boss came to check out the kitchen, it was still a mess, and I was chewed out by him. I decided to stay at the job even though it was horrible to work there because I moved in with my sister. She had a new baby, and I wanted to stay with my family.
The next significant choice was going to university. After years of working the job, I needed to change direction and was talented in mathematics. This meant I left my job as the university was in a different city. I still wanted to work, but I need help with the travel. The drawback of the university was a social life. Being a chef, you only have a little social life, and that changed when you worked from 50 hours a week to 20 hours a week with full-time study. I then went hard hanging out with new friends, and this caused me to fail my course and get kicked out. It was my choice, and I don’t regret my path, as I also discovered that I am not much of a student.
The most recent one was choosing to become my mother’s carer and becoming an author. I still worked as a chef many years after trying to become a mathematician. This came to a head when I was doing errands for my disabled mother, but she was becoming more dependent on my help. So, I quit my job, and while looking after my mother, I started to write. During the first month of looking after her, I was kicked out by my housemate and lost my girlfriend. It took me months to get over these setbacks. I eventually moved in with my mother and became her full-time caregiver.
I finished the novel and three novellas while caring for my mother. Looking back at all my decisions, I ended up in the best place. Now, I have a new decision to make as my mother has passed away, and I decided to get training in individual support so I can take everything I learned from caring for my mother into a new career.

12 Days of Bookmas.

It is Christmas time again! Five years ago, I was part of an event called 12 Days of Bookmas, run by the brilliant author of Urban Fantasy, Rose Montague. I had so much fun with it.

I explained how the 12 Days of Bookmas event was run. It started on the 12th of December, and you brought or borrowed a book from the list every day until the 24th. You could register either as an author or a reader. If you are an author, you advertise your books on the readers’ post, and each reader was asked to choose at least 12 books on that list.

I registered both as a reader and author, and I did have a few sales and read some marvellous books. You try to tell people what genre you like, your age range, and other details like language or naughty scenes. 

The twelve books I read/brought to this event were:

  1. The Rose Thief by Claire Buss, link
  2. Hand and Talon by Melonie Purcell, link; review I gave it 5 stars.
  3. Dawn of Steam by Jeffrey Cook, link
  4. Techromancy Scrolls: Adept by Erik Schubach, link
  5. P.A.W.S by Debbie Manber Kupfer, link
  6. The Stone of the Tenth Realm by Eva Gordon, link
  7. The Coven by Chrissy Lessey, link
  8. Playing with Fire by Cris & Clare Meyers, link
  9. Angel: The Mithista Incident by Scott A. Borgman, link
  10. Light in the Night by Greg Alldredge, link
  11. The Werewolf Whisperer by Camilla Ochlan and Bonita Maria Gutierrez, link
  12. Jade by Rose Montague, link, Review, all books 5 stars!

Each book was terrific, and I bought more of the series with multiple books. If you are an author or love to read, set up your own 12 days of Bookmas and find some new and exciting books to read. Keep an eye out on my blog as I will put up some of my reviews of these books.

Woot, Finished NaNoWriMo! 50K!

This is the first NaNoWriMo I have finished since my last book, Lake Merrin. Lucky that this book is the next in the Journal of an Adventurer series. I am so excited to keep going. I still have at least 100k to go. I’m looking forward seeing where the journey of Lone Solo and his party, the Rejects takes me.
Here is a little summary of my next book:
Book 2 of Journal of an Adventurer.
Join Lone Solo and his party, The Rejects, where they try to discover what is happening on the frontier of the County of Merrin. Could there be an underlying reason for the mass destruction of farmland and livestock?

Here are links to my books: Amazon and my website, samuelcolbran.com.

What’s the first impression you want to give people?

A happy man with a kind heart. I prefer to be pleasant to people so that they can get to know me. I use my spare time to learn different topics and chat about anything. And if I need to learn something or someone is much more knowledgeable than me, I love to learn.
Curiosity is one of my traits. Learning about different cultures, subjects, and knowledge is one of my goals. That is what I try to do when I meet people. To be open, funny and willing to learn and listen.

NaNoWriMo! Samuel the Author is back!

Woot! It’s the 15th day of NaNoWriMo! I hope everyone is going hard at their keyboard/paper/whatever. I just hit 38k today. It is fantastic to get back into my writing. I have been on track to finish NaNo since 2016 with my 1st novel, Lake Merrin (which I am doing a rewrite too, so shhhh).

I will also try to put up some blogs as long as I don’t get behind with my writing.

Good luck with your stories, World! Wooo, NaNoWriMo #passioninspirecreate