The site is new (2011) but is already proving to be an interesting place to visit every day as there is always something new.

If you are a fantasy fan of fantasy art, fantasy books, fantasy fiction then head over and have a look. Users are encouraged to upload their own creations so if you write or illustrate or have anthing to show off then do so.

DicingDangers

Recently I have been reading up on Rocket Mass Heaters, a very nice and super-efficient wood burning heater. The problem with most wood burning stoves is that a lot of the fuel and heat goes straight up the chimney. All that smoke and heat is just wasted.

According to various sources the Rocket Mass Heater burns 5 to 10 times less wood for the same amount of heat than a standard stove. It does this by re-burning the gases and then soaking up the heat into a lot of mass. The examples I have seen use cob (clay earth mixed with sand and straw) for mass. It lets off quick heat from the fire and then slow heat taken from the flu.

The Rocket Mass Heater has a rocket stove at its heart but then an oil barrel is placed over the stack forcing the gas down the outside of the stack. The stack is insulated so inside it gets super-hot, re-burning the gases. The gases then travel along horizontal pipes where the remainder of the heat is soaked up before being released into the air. What comes out is mostly warm CO2 and steam.

It looks pretty amazing and it is something I would very much like to try.

There is a book about them called: Rocket Mass Heaters: Superefficient Woodstoves YOU Can Build

There are also a few websites that talk about them. A good one is http://www.permies.com/

I am 95% sure that everything is going to work out just fine. I think the future is going to have its ups and downs but in general mankind will make it to some distant future.

95% – What about the other 5%? Should I ignore this?

The answer is, I could, but then again I can’t. You see, I have kids. In fact there are a lot of kids out there, and it is my job as well as any adult’s to see to it that they have a future. If we want to mess up our own lives and world, that is fine, but we have to think about the kids who do not have a say in the matter. They will inherit this world, and the world and they need to be looked after, so suddenly that 5% is important and I can no longer ignore it.

So what am I going to do about it?

The first thing to do is avert disaster and as mentioned before, that is done by being prepared. I will presume and hope for the best, happy in the knowledge that I have prepared for the worst.

The second thing to do is tackle the problems of the world at their source. These problems are many and varied and include war, epidemics, draught, economic meltdown, terrorism, social meltdown, global warming, environmental meltdown and more. I will start with the first point though.

I am in no way an outdoors kind of man. I like the outdoors, but I don’t particularly enjoy camping, let alone surviving off the woods or any such thing. I think I look stupid in camouflage, and I don’t want to learn how to use a gun. In other words, I am not the outdoors survival type who gets a kick from living off the land and perhaps even distrusts government. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing bad with that kind of guy, it is just not me. The point I am making here is that that guy’s skills and habits are what I need to look into even though it is not to my taste and it is what I will probably be writing about. I am an average guy who likes TV and computers and cars and reading and a bit of DIY. I am probably a lot like you.
5% is not much but it is enough. This is for the kids.

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PHP add days to date is simple. The variable $newdate gives us the changed date.

I have spent the last couple of months writing. I have a full time job as well as part time work to make ends meet. I have a wife and kids. Time is hard to come by so the idea of writing a novel is not just a matter of perseverance, but logistics.

I have managed to squeeze in an hour here and there. I don’t get much sleep these days but the good news is that I have reached the first major hurdle which is a full story, written down from start to end totaling around 60,000 words.

What I have done, is just write. I did not stop to correct it or edit it. I just went from start to end and I am done.

The story now, apart from the very last chapter, is done. It’s just a sketch, and needs to be filled out with further descriptions, but now I can honestly say that I have written my first, full novel.

The next phase is to flesh out the characters and make sure the story flows well. I also need to do basic stuff like check the grammar and spelling.

I think the final word count will probably be around 100,000 words after this including the final chapter which I have left till last because I am undecided as to how this will pan out. We will see.

Recently though I have discovered OneNote which is part of the basic Office package from Microsoft. It is for taking notes and organizing them. It is also perfect for both writing my novel and organizing all the extra research and notes I have made for the novel.

Using the tabbed system I am able to keep each chapter in its own section as well as notes on people, places, history, the world, religion etc. It just makes it a pleasure to both write and quickly check my notes.

If you enjoy writing and want it to be an organized affair, I would strongly recommend you give OneNote a try.

For this reason before writing anything I like to jot down what the plot is, who the people involved are and events are of importance. In fact I go into a lot of detail such as listing character traits, place names and people names. Clothing, history… anything I can think of about the story and it’s setting.

For Dark Seas, I spent weeks just taking notes and then hashing out the plot and characters before even starting up the word processor. During this time I worked out roughly what would happen in each chapter. I built up a list of the characters and places. I created the history of this new world, together with a simple map. I filled a large A4 notepad with notes and ideas. I also used a good friend to bounced ideas off. He could be objective and helped me see which ones were going to work, and which ones were just silly or needed changing. He would also come up with ideas and it all worked very well.

This was research, and I did a lot and boy was it worth it. When I finally sat down and began to write, the words just flowed because I did not have to stop all the time in order to think about direction. I knew where to go and what was to happen, and just let my fingers fly.

I am guessing that all writers have their own way of working. I know some just make it up as they go along, but I found the a lot of solid research before starting was by far the best method for me.

In a fantasy setting, preparation and research includes creating the world it is set in, in as much detail as possible. I gave thought to things such as religion, geography, politics, races, merchant trading and more. Everything that makes a world turn had to be thought of.

Then there were the finer details such as the clothing an officer would wear. What ranks are there in the “Imperial Navy”. I had to create a list of names that suited this new world and places. What weapons do people use? In my book, soldiers have muskets, so I had to research how they worked.

All this was done in as much detail as possible before writing a single word.

The reason it has taken me fifteen years is that I was not ready. Call it preparation or just plain idleness but it took me that long to decide that the time was right to sit down and write.

As a kid I found that I loved to write. It was a joy to sit down in front of the type writer (yes – a type writer) and hammer away at those keys. Later I purchased an Atari ST and continued, but I never took it that seriously. It was fun and people who saw my stuff would compliment the work I had done.

One day in my mid twenties, I decided to look into doing it more professionally and so went to an acquaintance of mine, the author Neil Gaiman who told me simply to write. Don’t stop or wait or procrastinate. Just write.

About fourteen years later I bumped into his father who was also a keen writer and I spent forty five minutes on the train to London with him. There we talked about writing again, and the conclusion was simple. Just write and so now, after fifteen years of inaction and procrastination, I have started in earnest.

The book I am writing is a fantasy novel set in a quasi Caroline/Georgian/fantasy era world where the classical high fantasy concepts mix with more modern steam technologies. If you had to give it a category in the bookshelves, it would most certainly be fantasy.

The story follows an outcast by the name of Lord Malspire Ronsteim who is the unwanted son of a Duke and the twin of the perfect hero, Ajator.

The book is tentatively titled Dark Seas for working purposes.