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  1. Sagacious_Punk

    is it still possible to be author?

    The question the OP probably asks isn't whether writing itself is saturated or not, but rather the readership base available to writers. Which totally is today. OP just worded their post poorly. You know, you may think you look funny or cool, but this just demonstrates your ability to...
  2. Sagacious_Punk

    Backwards progress in fantasy

    Not necessarily. You could simply write a good, well-thought "medieval"* fantasy without the "past era of glory" bullshit. As I said previously, that's one of Tolkien's worse legacies. Second, you could write a fantasy where society has progressed far into the future, but instead of magical...
  3. Sagacious_Punk

    Backwards progress in fantasy

    Yeah, "backwards progress" happens a lot because A) most fantasy writers since Tolkien are stuck in the same rut he set the tone for "Ah, the good old times, they were better", and B) because most writers in general have poor extrapolation skills on a macroscopic level (hence, it's easier to...
  4. Sagacious_Punk

    is it still possible to be author?

    Yes, writing is not equal to being a writer. A writer is someone who has skill and talent (and more importantly, discipline and persistence) on a level good enough to earn a living through writing, or at least with the capacity to reap financial gains from their creative output. As for an...
  5. Sagacious_Punk

    is it still possible to be author?

    People above have already made the usual platitudes and variations of "Yes, you can do it, just keep doing it!", including a little real talk. But only a little. Well, I'm here to give you some actual real talk. Yes, everybody is an X (writer, artist, musician, "content creator", etc.) these...
  6. Sagacious_Punk

    When you are the only one holding out a candle:

    That's strange. Perhaps you haven't searched in the right academic circles? The Byzantine Empire have a lot of surviving records; most of Bulgaria's medieval history is in fact inferred from their chronicles, because almost nothing of ours has survived Ottoman rule. Churches from Byzantine...
  7. Sagacious_Punk

    I need an EPUB converter, mobi and PDF too, please help. Found it!

    Calibre. It is extremely powerful, supports a ton of conversion options and customizations, and it is free. Oh, and it doubles up as a desktop e-book reader too. The downside is that it has some learning curve. I had to make about a dozen attempts when I was converting my sci-fi novel from a...
  8. Sagacious_Punk

    When you are the only one holding out a candle:

    Yes, sorry if my post seemed overly emotional. I guess I was somewhat triggered by the "Bulgaria overshadowed by X" part. :D As for stories, a few years back we had a very cool trilogy of CYOA (Choose Your Own Adventure) books about the Tsar Kaloyan, another great Bulgarian ruler (the one who...
  9. Sagacious_Punk

    What would your MC do for a Klondike Bar?

    Nanofabricate it, or conjure it with a spell, after having obtained a sample. All of my MCs are either metaphysically gifted, or live in the far future.
  10. Sagacious_Punk

    Your favorite couple in fictional media.

    If we count all types of media, I absolutely adore Yu and Kay from the videogame Haven. I also like very much the chemistry between Temeraire and Laurence --even though they are not a couple-- from the His Majesty's Dragon and its sequels. Julius and Marcy from Nice Dragons Finish Last...
  11. Sagacious_Punk

    When you are the only one holding out a candle:

    Bulgaria isn't prominent in world history books only because we (or rather, our politicians and "intelligentzia") go at great lengths to self-sabotage our cultural heritage. If it wasn't for Khan Tervel in 8th century, Eastern Europe would've followed the same fate as Spain, falling entirely...
  12. Sagacious_Punk

    how to reach more people to read my novel

    Have luck. Something you don't really apply any control over. What the others have said above is all valid and true. However, even if you do any of those "signal boosting" steps, there is no guarantee your story will be a success. You may have a perfect title; you may have a beautiful cover...
  13. Sagacious_Punk

    Not posting is too hard :(

    80k words worth of backlog?? That's a whole damn book... in traditional literary circles, anyway. I keep getting amazed at the social dynamics in the web novel world. I wonder where the rabbit hole ends.
  14. Sagacious_Punk

    Aim while writing

    Ideally, a writer writes stories that are enjoyable both to them and their audience. Since this isn't an ideal world, here's what Kurt Vonnegut said on the subject: "Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia."...
  15. Sagacious_Punk

    You can go back 100,000 years to a cave that will be discovered by archeologists, what do you write on the wall to mess with them?

    Like any self-respecting globe-trotting Bulgarian, I'll write КУР on the wall and go back home. It's a cultural legacy as old as time itself.
  16. Sagacious_Punk

    Word Counts

    The "too many of the same word" isn't universally a bad thing. Sure, many times it is, but in advanced fiction writing there is the concept of "vocabulary range(s)" where a careful selection of a specific set or sets of words/expressions/phrases/etc. can enhance the story and narrative through...
  17. Sagacious_Punk

    You get to be Isekai'd with three wishes

    I like how this harmless thread escalated into a full-blown discussion of ontology, philosophy, fundamental physics, and semantics. Shame that I'm too tired atm to contribute. If I have to distill my two-cents thesis down to a single sentence: This is basically one (not all) of the central...
  18. Sagacious_Punk

    You get to be Isekai'd with three wishes

    A nice assumption, but it wasn't mentioned in the OP's post - therefore, it's not "official". If we go with that limitation only, it still leaves a lot of leeway, as the goddess in the OP's scenario has literally no descriptors attached. So, you can make a counter-assumption, that being that...
  19. Sagacious_Punk

    Interesting news: there is 60% chance ChatGpt is gonna crumble in coming days

    As Corty said, this drama will become barely a footnote in history - if even that. These days there are many smaller models that can function in a "garage setup", literally runnable on high-end personal computers. As one leaked internal report at Google stated last year, the innovative space...
  20. Sagacious_Punk

    You get to be Isekai'd with three wishes

    Game, set, match. End of story. That's the problem with such scenarios. If you can wish for anything, anyone with a bit of critical thinking and above-average worldview perspective will basically answer "Make me unto God". To be interesting, the scenario in question needs constraints - a...
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