All posts tagged: sunday update

Sunday update!

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I hope you have been enjoying the series on The Lord of the Rings this past week.  I started off with a post on my own memories of when I first read the trilogy and followed that up with a piece on what separates Tolkien’s work from other novels.  I could leave it at that, but I would like to write one more post on how our perceptions on the three books have changed since the films have come out, and what the legacy of The Lord of the Rings is likely to be, since the three film’s incredible success at the box office.  I will also try and look ahead, at other fantasy novels that may one day be considered classics and take their place alongside The Lord of the Rings at the top of the genre.  This will come out on Wednesday. Roman Mask An update on my own novel Roman Mask.  I still haven’t managed to work out what has happened to the three missing reviews from my blog tour which were supposed …

Walking along the Wall and through History…

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This may be my last Sunday update for a while, as I will be driving up to Northumberland next Sunday so I doubt I’ll be able to write my normal Sunday post.  I am very fortunate that my family own a small cottage up in the Nortumbrian hills, somewhere I can go to write, relax, and a be inspired. Anyone familiar with this beautiful part of England will know that Hadrian ’s Wall runs through the county.  It one of Rome’s most famous engineering projects and not only divided the British Isles but also continued to shape its history long after the Roman’s left our shores.  Would England and Scotland have developed separately without the Romans dividing their lands before either nation existed?  Who knows, but I doubt it.  Either way, it is an amazing example of their ambition, as well as their military and engineering might. George R R Martin says it was whilst visiting Hadrian’ Wall that he started to form the idea for the Wall that divided Westeros in his magnificent Game …

Roman Mask Sunday Update

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Okay! Almost there now!  The map is now done- Hooray! I wasn’t sure at first whether I wanted a map for my novel or not, after all we’re all familiar with the general geography of Europe.  However, the names of the countries have obviously changed and I decided I needed to at least display the locations portrayed in the narrative of the book.  It is not an all-encompassing version of the Roman world, I could have gone into a lot more detail, but I thought that might make it difficult to locate the important destinations discussed in the novel. I thought long and hard about whether to add the mountains or not – the map is just a reference point for the reader, so was this necessary?  I decided that as one section of the Alps plays a not-insignificant role in the novel, I had better put them in.  However, I thought drawing small little trees to represent the Teutoburg forest was a step too far, and instead just marked it on the map. There …