Guest Blog Post: “Martial Arts and Me: 5 Reasons Why I Love ’em”
I currently have a guest post, Martial Arts and Me: 5 Reasons Why I Love ’em, featured on the Orbit blog—Orbit is my UK/AU/NZ publisher for The Heir of Night and The Wall of Night series. Here’s the intro for the post:
“Recently, I was invited to attend Natcon, New Zealand’s national Science Fiction & Fantasy Convention as a guest of honour. As such, I was also asked to put forward some panel suggestions. One of the first that occurred to me arose out of an earlier post here on Orbit about the grand symbiosis between fantasy and history. But I didn’t want to just repeat that discussion, so I’ve added in an extra wrinkle, focusing on weapons and armour, battles and military tactics in the historical context—another fascination that arises, not just out of my love of history, but from my martial arts background …”
To read the rest, rock on over to Orbit and and check out the full post, here.
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Very coincidentally though, yesteday I was working on a chapter in The Gathering of the Lost, The Wall of Night Book Two, titled The Sword Ring. It’s all about a tournament—in quite another part of the world of Haarth from the Wall of Night—and in particular individual contests of arms, in this case with the sword. (The joust comes a little later, in another chapter.)
The coincidence made me think about my enduring love affair with both martial arts and fantasy, and it occurred to me that martial arts may be part (maybe even a big part) of why I love writing epic fantasy so much—because epic fantasy gives me the chance to write about duels and jousts, tournaments and battles and feats of arms. And armour, and different kinds of weapons, and horses—and the colour and dirt and sweat, and yes, blood: the sheer physicality that I talk about in the Orbit guest post, as well as the camaraderie and sense of duty …
And tomorrow—tomorrow I’m going to be working on a chapter where the sneakiness that I also talk about in the guest post become rather more important for one of the characters in Gathering. But which character and under what circumstances—well clearly I need to hurry up and finish revising it so you can read and find out! 😉
I love epic fantasy for the same reason. And now I’m curious to read The Sword Ring chapter! 😀
‘Mruu-ha-ha’, my nefarious authorial work is done! And I’m having fun with the stealthy chapter, too, now …
I see the release is next year – waahh, not fair, , I have to wait.
Us older 2 sisters did Judo cause our friends were, the little sister couldn’t wait to start & ended up representing NZ as a kid, and the dad as taking us to all our lessons and got hooked. He ended up a blue belt before mum made him stop – he dislocated a hip after landing wrong.
You’re right about the friendships – though some of the parents at tournaments were scary!
Yes, “I know” re the waiting—but I offer earthquakes as an extenuating circumstance, plus the need to get the story ‘right.’ The latter at least, I feel is happening—the earthquakes remain outside my control! In fact I’m probably due another earthquake report soon …
Ohh, yes! Wanna read! 🙂
I shall see what I can do … 😉
What a great post. Its awesome to see a diverse set of people that can come together in such a way to help others only being united by one simple interest.
Thank you, Donna—& the strong sense of community was definitely one of the ‘silver linings’ of an otherwise very bleak time.