It's Finally Here!

Oh my gosh. I finally, just now, got the book The Name of the Wind in. It feels like I've been waiting forever! But I guess that's what I get for having to get the one from England. I haven't started reading it just yet since it just got here but I will read it in just a minute, I'm just trying to draw out the anticipation for as long as I can before I start reading. . .


I also got in those alchemy books that I talked about last post and, again, that is a subject that has defied my expectations. Alchemy is actually really interesting, like way interesting. I had not expected to get sucked into the subject for much more than a bit of research but I'm getting invested in the subject. If anyone has ever wanted to learn about alchemy I highly recommend The Complete Idiot's Guide to Alchemy. It's jam packed with information and easy to understand; I find that most of the Idiot's Guides are pretty good books for whatever subject you want to learn about.

Anyway, off to read that book!

Research

I have officially begun to research things for my book. 'Officially' meaning that I have got books about certain subjects and am reading them to generate ideas for my books and world. Namely, I am reading books about witchcraft and runes, divination and all that stuff. And witchcraft, or Wicca, is far, far, from what I ever expected it to be. From my understanding of it so far, it's (almost disappointingly) about order and balance and good stuff. Maybe I was naive to think otherwise but that's not what I thought it'd be about. Anyway, it's giving me many ideas on different ways I can go with the magic system in my books, which is really really good because I had absolutely no idea how it would be before. The subject I can't wait to read about though is alchemy and I'll have to wait until tomorrow for those to come in the mail.

I've also got a load of writing books that will be here in a few days, most of them are recommendations from storyfix.com. I found one of the books he recommended at the bookstore, it's called The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler. Oh my gosh. I wish I had this book the first time I decided to write a book! It's like the best thing in the world! It explains the different character roles that come up in books and the structure and everything and I can see it all now; next time I write a draft I will actually know what goes in the middle! I can't wait to get my hands on the other books now!

I'm also getting The Language Construction Kit by Mark Rosenfelder since I may want to create my own language. His website here gives a lot of information about how to create realistic languages as well, so, if you've ever wanted to create a language go check it out, it's got some very useful information.

Also, you may have noticed the word count chart in the sidebar (from here). Those are my goals for each month! 25,000 words a month, I have no idea if I can do it. Though I'm sure that NaNo will catch me up if I'm behind ;) And yes, I really haven't written a single word this month. I'm still developing everything.

And you might see the blog background and templates and stuff change a bunch until I find something I really like.

So, what books have helped you with your writing and idea generating process?