cornerofmadness

It will be a relatively short one as I wrestle with the my limitations. While I'm fond with the opening I put up for the faux-Viking story, most of the scenes in my head are not so much plot points as they are character development ones.

That's not my problem. Actually it's two novels I'm reading, both fantasy, both about warring kingdoms etc etc and I realize...I just don't like the subject matter. I didn't mind back in my LoTR days but I was blissfully unaware of the harshness of the real world then and I'm wondering if that's my problem. Or have I just seen it too many times? I hated Jim Butcher's attempt at it for example. I barely made it through book one of his fantasy series and I really like Butcher's work.

evil_little_dog pointed out that having a mage trying to take over has been done to death. My response to that was one kingdom attacking another is practically the oldest story in the book (looking at you Gilgamesh). But as I was dragging through these novels last night (I won them in exchange for a reviewer) I realized I have almost never finished a story I've started with warring kingdoms as a plot. I did finish one with evil_little_dog but not the rest of the books in the series and it has now languished untouched for over a decade. The second series we started was never finished. Voluntary Nightmare has been dead in the water for a couple years. Another had a piece of it published as an erotic short with Circlet Press years ago and that's the last I ever touched it. Echoes of the Dying which wasn't even a full on battle book died the moment nano ended.

I'm not sure I can finish a war-based story. So that leaves me with this question and I'm throwing it to you all because you have been so helpful in the past, what else could these two countries be doing (other than renewing their alliance broken a decade ago because that's not inherently that interesting but will be happening as a side story) that would involve battle scenes at least? I'd hate to waste a perfectly good little Berserker but I'm not really up for a full on battle book because I know I have very little to bring new to the genre.

I know I danced around this a few weeks ago but I'm hoping someone will have some ideas, go peek at the character posted up a couple days ago etc. Thanks!

Also I just found out I did NOT place in the Rainbow awards. And you know what, I'm okay with that. I was a finalist with my first novel and that's really enough. Also, and I admit it, I'm okay because the one part of my competition did not place either. I would have been upset if that story had because I read it and wow....I couldn't believe it finaled.

I got BOTH of my tests done and graded all the papers for parasitology. I even pulled some of the questions on something we ran out of time for off my other test. I have @ 25 more papers to grade by tuesday but now it's looking more doable.

And I thought house hunting sucked here hysterically bad.

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