Anyone has views about me posting my serials here?

[cjleeagain]

Hi everyone!

I'm a longtime forummer. Went through several accounts over more than 10 years, so probably would have a post count of over 1000 cumulatively, with very substantial word count.

I'm now on the verge of going into full time writing. Probably by the end of next year, I'll quit everything and just write.

It is a risky thing for me, so I now have a Patreon account https://www.patreon.com/zzo?fan_landing=true, a Wattpad account https://www.wattpad.com/1066504556-the- ... troduction and am building a simple website to promote my writing. Hopefully I can find enough contributors to keep me going as I finish the works I've always wanted to write. I'm doing serials.

I'm not a social butterfly and have no facebook/ twitter account (!). Since I need as much exposure as I can get, I'm hoping to post some of my work here. Some of you guys have been very supportive and friendly, and I hope to entertain you also. After all, the purpose of writing is multifaceted - entertainment, communication, edification, and so on...

As far as I can see, there isn't much that might contravene the posted rules on this forum.

However, my work is very diverse. It is in a genre that I invented in the early 2000s called Global, since there isn't a real genre word to cover what I'm writing. The themes and subject matter is very broad. Since they do involve politics, sex, fighting, ethnic tension and fact-fiction social sciences (not to mention so many other things), so there may be some controversy.

So before I actually post anything on CelestialHeavens, would like to see what members think.

[cjleeagain]

My series is set in 2050. A group of political risk consultants get together and travel the world in an airship. They encounter all kinds of political, social, economics issues and take on missions to help others. Along the way, they gain experiences, network with other consultants and hone their skills, so they are able to take on stronger and stronger opponents.

None of my characters are superheroes; they're more like traditional Chinese kungfu heroes, who are able to beat up petty villains at the start, but not change the destiny of entire countries. However, they have 520 chapters to level up... and I even have plenty of material for side stories to continue after the main series is done...

160 missions. Around 520 chapters. I'm targeting to post 1 per week for the next 10 years. 10% has been written and another 15% drafted. This is a serious commitment. There are over 200 named characters representing ethnic groups from all over the world.

The Politics:
Less than in a standard political thriller. But the characters operate in a realistic political environment, so in most missions, a country or government may be portrayed in an unflattering light.

The Sex:
No explicit sex or rape. My characters aren't promiscuous. However, there are suggestions, puns and innuendoes, so not considered kid-friendly.

The Violence:
Nonlethal violence is an important aspect of my work. There is some treatment of themes that we consider important currently - eg less police violence. The leader of my team is a black African woman who studied in the US, and she is quite against guns.

The Representation:
Representing the under-represented is a big part of my work. This means I deliberately select characters from countries not seen so often in literature - eg Congo, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania. I have black African heroes, non-binary heroes and special needs heroes.
I like non-archetypal characters, so I have a non-religious Tibetan character for instance. He's not a monk nor a nomad nor a political prisoner - but a mad scientist who experiments on the roof of the world.

The SJW/ Political Correctness:
None/ not politically correct. In the course of my work, there are often tensions or quarrels or misunderstandings caused by people with different cultures and value systems. Someone hoping to read a woke-progressive series might be disappointed. Sometimes people are chauvinistic and sometimes they are ignorant and sometimes they offend and insult each other for fun.
In the course of writing this series, I have actually gone back and changed some conversations between characters to be more prejudiced. As the author I have perfect information. But my characters should be imperfect so they can learn and level up as they travel all over the world!

The Science:
I do my homework. A lot of it. I don't pretend that it's PhD level, nor can my work be academically perfect. But largely speaking, the geography is right.
The climate change is likely to happen by 2050.
The political environment, the economics issues, the culture and language are realistic.

The Fantasy:
What is not realistic, is the kungfu and magic being brought into play.

[Pol]

Kung-fu - for this we have here our Panda
Climate change - why so late, according new and more precise calculation, it's just behind the corner. Later I seen 2024, that's not even remotely distant future

Myself I love good stories. Though having mad monk scientist is probably a different genre. You may have very distinct heroes even without marking them as blue genie non-binary ex-kenofeminist but it's not so big fun.

Of course I can't foresee, what will be exactly in the stories but you certainly can fit them to comply with board rules

Hey, welcome back chap!

[cjleeagain]

Hey, welcome back chap!

Hey Pol, thanks for the welcome!

You deserve a substantive reply!

The environment takes a long time to change dramatically.

My Global approach to writing means there aren't any real barriers in my writing.

I'll wait a few more days before I start posting. I'm thinking of doing 1 mission per thread, since if I post everything on the same thread, after a while it gets very messy and when people post replies or comments you won't know which mission it's referring to. Each mission is like 9000-13000 words.

Now let me respond to one of your points, because PC and SJW are huge bugbears for me. I absolutely hate them (even while being completely committed towards minority representation).

Wokefolks like identity based approaches. But they seem to have a homogenous mentality towards identity, which crushes and dismisses any real differences.

People with different identities LIVE differently. It's not just about swapping in someone of a different race or culture and expecting everything to function the same way.

When you swap in a black man in the place of James Bond, a lot of dynamics change. People react differently to him. A black man in a luxury car will get more attention from the police.

Also, special needs people are different. Someone who was blind, or in a wheelchair from birth, reacts differently from someone who became blind or wheelchair bound later in life. These are not homogenous categories. It makes sense to specify what someone's identity is: wheelchair bound for life, or just suffering from a temporary condition.

In fact, special needs people have certain kungfu that ordinary people don't.

A guy who is wheelchair bound from birth, has a much keener spatial awareness in tight spaces. Able bodied people live in a world where they can move or adjust their positions easily, so you don't develop such a keen sense. Wheelchair bound people have to be precisely able to judge distances or else risk being stranded. Will the wheelchair fit? Will they be able to turn? Can they weave between obstacles without catching anything? By developing his brain since young to handle this information, it becomes second nature to him. Someone who got hurt last week and is now in a wheelchair, has to process the information consciously and without the confidence of experience. He is not used to the idea that suddenly his body footprint has become much bigger, that certain movements are impossible, etc.

Anyway, because my missions take place in different geographical locations, there are interactions with different people and they face different problems. So someone might be labelled Tibetan because he is there, facing issues that people who live there face, and my consultants are visiting him.

All popular Western representations of Tibet inevitably involve monks and monasteries, which I feel is very irritating and stifling. I have zero plans for Tibetan monks.

I mention Tibet only because that's roughly where my airship is right now, nearly 50 chapters down the line, and I'm working on this chapter. It's a lot of work and a lot of material. Tibet is very interesting because climate change there is a game changer in the lives and identities of the people. You are not going to see that kind of game changing in the Netherlands, where climate change is part of a continuum where it will get slightly warmer and sea levels get slightly higher. However, because Tibet has too much material, I am thinking of truncating the Tibet mission and leaving lots of material for other side stories.

[cjleeagain]

Wonder if anybody remember my posts about a more realistic Heroes game and battlefield?

I can't remember exactly what I wrote last time, but I had some considerations that are worth repeating:

Caravans have been treated as free in Heroes. But of course you need money and time and have terrain considerations when moving troops.

Resupplying your troops is generally taken for granted. But as I pointed out from Warcraft 3, there is a high upkeep consideration.

If you move 1000 soldiers around most places in Europe, China or India, that's not a problem generally. Agricultural areas can generally feed a modest increase in population for a limited time, without requiring extra food transports. You can just send your men out to buy supplies.

If you move the same 1000 soldiers around in Western Iraq or Tibet, you might run into serious supply problems. And often the result is terrible. The soldiers plunder the locals who themselves have very little spare food. The locals are wiped out. And your soldiers only get enough food for another day. All this leads to lower morale, angry attacks from other locals, etc.

So terrain matters when it comes to resupply.

And I was also talking about things like direction of wind and sun. It's very significant.

The Mongols for instance, didn't do a whole lot of killing by standing hand to hand. They usually fought ranged using hit and runs. But Mongolia has some of the strongest winds of any country, because it's severely continental. So when you have an army that relies on ranged attacks, you can't actually ignore sun and wind. Because you can't fight well when shooting with the sun in your eyes, against a strong headwind.

So my writing actually has such considerations in mind.

[Pol]

All true but games are usually simplified. Human like it better that way.

[cjleeagain]

OK, I've started posting. Let's see what people think!

[wimfrits]

Currently busy with the final book in the Aspect-Emperor series by R. Scott Bakker, which easily is the most challenging read I (as a non-native English) had for a long time.

As a short break, reading your introduction is by comparison a smooth and easy read. Refreshingly short and to the point language. (You might want to do some proof reading to take out duplicate wording)
Main character and starting scene were very interesting.
Universe and related events, and Banana Ben especially, reminded me of Dragon Ball Z

I think you wrote a good piece here

[KayBur]

Is this book in electronic form? I have nowhere to put my usual paper editions. To read something new in comfort, I bought an Amazon Fire 7 tablet, just an inexpensive device for reading. Reading is quite convenient, you can do it anywhere. True, charging is enough for 6-7 hours of the always-on screen, but this is enough for daily reading.