"Ragnar the warrior king stared out upon his troops and laughed at the puny forces of his laughable excuse of an enemy. The horned helms made his army look like an ocean of oxen." Vikings are somewhat interesting but I like dabbling into the supernatural(nothing to do with that.... show WHATSOEVER) with my writing.
Haha, cool. And.....I don't pose to know the slightest thing about viking history...but, I heard somewhere that Viking's didn't actually have horned helmets like that, and that it was just a fictional representation of them based on the fact that they used horns and tusks for weapons/tools, but never for helmets... Maybe I dreamed it? TO WIKIPEDIA! *zoooooooooom...* - (Taken from wikipedia) - Horned helmets Main article: Horned helmet Apart from two or three representations of (ritual) helmets – with protrusions that may be either stylized ravens, snakes or horns – no depiction of Viking Age warriors' helmets, and no preserved helmet, has horns. In fact, the formal close-quarters style of Viking combat (either in shield walls or aboard "ship islands") would have made horned helmets cumbersome and hazardous to the warrior's own side. Therefore historians believe that Viking warriors did not use horned helmets, but whether or not such helmets were used in Scandinavian culture for other, ritual purposes remains unproven. The general misconception that Viking warriors wore horned helmets was partly promulgated by the 19th century enthusiasts of Götiska Förbundet, founded in 1811 in Stockholm, Sweden. They promoted the use of Norse mythology as the subject of high art and other ethnological and moral aims. Wow.
If I use a penname, the first name would be Rei. I haven't decided on the last name. Can't think of anything that would sound good with it that isn't Japanese, and I don't want it to be Japanese.
When I wrote for my local newspaper, I used my legal name. If I ever publish my fiction, though, I'll probably use a pen name. I always hated my last name. NO ONE pronounces it right. DuPuy (doo-PWEE). Think of it as saying Dupree with a speech impediment. More recently I've started to appreciate it, but I think it would be a difficult name under which to publish my writing. If I publish before I'm married, I'll probably use my boyfriend's last name, Oliver. Mallory Oliver, that sounds okay, right? Edit: I don't know, maybe that's too many L's. I don't want to use my initials, though, because my middle initial is D. Then I'd be M.D. Oliver, and everyone would think I was a doctor. However, he'd also considered having his last name changed to Kafka, which is his mother's maiden name (if you're thinking Franz Kafka, you're right, they are related to him). I don't know if it would help or hinder me, though, to have the same last name as an already famous author.
That's a lovely name. I like how the L and O sounds in each name flow off the tongue, almost musical when paired. Not too many Ls at all. I prefer the sound of Oliver, myself. You have a very memorable name there, Mallory; it's pretty and easy to pronounce, and there's something about the harmonious sound of it, like a catchy song you can't forget.
Jealous of you meeting Iain Banks. I've been reading his stuff for about a year now and, Matter aside, I've really enjoyed what I've read. Shields? Or would that be far too cheesy and geeky?
LOL! He was brilliant. I asked him where the idea for Frank, from The Wasp Factory, came from, and got all sorts of tales about him building bombs as a kid
If building bombs as a kid is one of the requirements for being brilliant then at least I've got one down.
It's also a book I've been toying with lately. Thanks to a backlog of books, I've yet to touch it, although I may buy it for going on holiday in the week after next.
I got that one for Christmas from a lovely online friend who knows exactly the type of books I read. Amazingly well-written, but I was fantastically disappointed with the ending. I felt that it was too much build-up for not enough payoff.
^ I understand what you mean there, but oddly enough I still felt satisfied after what was quite a mundane ending. It felt to me like i'd been allowed to see a snippet of somebodies strange life just for a little while...and it felt so real. I'm not sure what dramatic ending could've really taken place in what was essentially just a tale about a quietly psychotic boy and his openly psychotic brother in their everyday lives. A part of me really believes that since the book ended, Frank and Eric really are living out their lives somewhere in Scotland. The guy is just pure Genius and another thing that's wonderful about the book is that he really did just let it right itself. He had no initial plans to begin with, just an idea and a pen to write it with. I learned alot of lessons about writing from that little book.
