Recent content by LanternHolder

I remember buying a PC game from a bargain bin back when the internet was young. In Memoriam - you are on the trail of a serial killer and you had to follow clues across the internet. You'd get emails in rl to point you in the right direction. From memory, it was a disturbing experience (one...

Dreams. My best story ideas tend to come to me in my sleep. I'll have a great dream, wake up and while I'm still caught up in it, try to get as much down as possible. I'm currently fleshing out a dream I had a month or so back - it's going to be my November project.

Wow! Wing Commander brings back some memories. I would visit a buddy who had the gamer's PC setup - I think it was a 486, with a massive 15" monitor - sit around drinking and watching this game. I remember being totally blown away by the graphics... ;p My go to for years was Fallout (the first...

50k by Lanternlight — a free November writing challenge For writers who still want a shared November goal, 50k by Lanternlight is a free, independent writing challenge centred on reaching 50,000 words during November. It includes: A daily word-count tracker Progress graphs and milestones...

I used Evernote for years for this purpose. I would jot down notes on my phone whenever inspiration hit. Eventually, there were so many notes with zero coherent structure I didn't know what I had nor where anything was. I had to create a piece of software to import and manually categorize and...

I have written on multiple platforms. Word, Google Docs, Evernote, yWriter... But the thing I’ve increasingly struggled with is the blank-page feeling of most writing software. I know that sounds slightly ridiculous — writing obviously requires a blank page at some point — but I’ve come to...

I tend to start with a scene. I'll imagine something - let's say a port city. I'll then paint in what sort of ships are there. Maybe small coastal traders and fishing vessels. Who do they trade with and what is their principal export (and import)? What do the locals do for fun? What power...

I use AI in a professional capacity all the time. It composes emails and technical briefs that previously would have been the bane of my existence. But for creative writing? As close as I'll go is using AI in writing exercises where it will generate a prompt that I'll use for a word sprint -...

Hi everyone — I’m Dan, from New Zealand. I’ve been writing on and off for years and have a particular soft spot for fantasy, worldbuilding, and all the wonderfully impractical questions that come with inventing places that don’t exist. I also tend to get interested in the tools and habits...