"In order to graduate next fall, you need to take chemistry and computer science this summer." These were the words I dreaded. But even still, they were said. My academic advisor just condemned my summer to a summer full of the world of Georgia Tech I've been living in the last few years.

In retrospect (even if it is just going on week 2 at this point), it was a very useful sentence placed upon me. Even though I'll have to miss out on a lot of summer activities, my summer isn't wont for boredom due to the assignments due. So far, for example, I've actually enjoyed the work I've done in my CS class. Chemistry? Well, I could do without that necessary evil.

Now, this might seem like a "woe is me" type of post, but it's far from. In fact, it's more of an encouragement. Even though it can be annoying, tests are hard, and it's constant school, It's a blessing I get to be able to take these courses, and if you truly want to succeed in life, sacrifices have to be made. But in the long run, what's 8 weeks out of your life if it saves you a semester that takes up 4 months? Not a bad trade-off in my opinion.

But so far, it hasn't been too bad, grades have been good, and I am optimistic. I only pray my persistence pays off this time, and I don't burn myself out for the tough lineup I have for this upcoming Fall semester. I learned my lesson on how you can truly hurt yourself (even if you try to make that not happen... Life happens, you move on), and just deal with the pain involved. After that, you suck it up, and try again where you failed before. I just don't want a repeat on that pain in ANY of my endeavors for my future.

I guess I just wanted to get some thoughts out there. Ultimately, this post is about priorities. If you want to succeed, if you've failed, keep pushing on. That's all that it takes. A little time in your life is nothing compared to the fullness of a persons life. Suck it up, deal with it, push on.

"I want to write a fantasy book! It will have magic in it!"

These are words that haunt me now. Why is this so? Because magic. SCREW magic (well, not really). It's awesome some of the things you can do with it, but it can be painfully annoying to flesh out the rules of magic systems. Why you say? Because balance. Everything must have balance. Let me explain...

Say you have a magic system where heat is your main source of energy (oh wait! that's VERY similar to what I am coming up with! But not fully). Well, you can say that you can get heat from basically anywhere. But to really throw things for a loop, why doesn't the magician just look up at the sun, and draw his powers from that?

Well, this is where balance comes in to play. Having a magician gain basically unlimited power from the sun (as described beforehand) causes a few issues.

1. The magician has a basically unlimited source of power.
2. The magician is instantly overpowered, causing for cheap writing.
3. There is no air of mystery to how the magic system works.

There are a lot of other problems involved with this, but these are some of the primary problems you face. It seems like with every brilliant idea on how things interact, instantly 50,000 problems arise that lead to overpowered magicians, cheap loopholes, etc. As a writer, one must KILL any, and all of these loopholes so the reader later on doesn't have the thought "well, why didn't the magician just do this or that to get around those issues?"

One of the things I have learned in life (and this applies to myself), is when you are writing fantasy, you get die-hard geeks who read these books. These geeks are from every walk in life. As such, typically, these die-hard fans DISSECT EVERYTHING. Thus, this entire idea of balance becomes almost as important as the story itself (as half the story is the main character's development or interaction with these magic systems). In some ways it feels as if I am programming a video game. One character in the game might have some awesome ability, but unless if you want the game to be lopsided, you want it to be balanced, so you give the other characters certain abilities to counteract this one character. This is my problem.

But, as much as I say this problem sucks (and as an over-analyzer, it truly annoys me how much I think of loopholes), it's also fun because it means that what I come with, I can truly write a fascinating story with some great interactions. So, balance then becomes a necessary evil.

On a side note, there might be the possibility that I'll be having two more people work on this project. More information will soon be posted regarding that.

Until next time!
-Ryan

I love fantasy. It is probably one of my favorite book and television genres. If I get a book with a fantastic story and a really good magic system, it is absolutely amazing. I can barely set it down. Some of my favorite books range from Eragon, Name of the Wind, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Way of Kings, etc. These are all fantastic books and when I am reading them, I can barely put them down.

The best thing about all of this is that most of my friends like the exact same genre/series. My friend Cassidy is even going so far to write a book with her brother Blake. Seeing her take the initiative to start to write about what she loves, inspired me to finally get started on something I've been wanting to write about for a while.

The book that I am wanting to try to write over the summer (and probably the rest of the year) is inspired by a bunch of different sources. First off, it is loosely based off of the history of the United States.

Quick summary:
The story is set in a land that has developed weapons such as guns, cannons, steamships, etc., but still retains slavery. The government forces slavery upon the land of New Prospects because it wants to maintain its control over a certain group of people. The thing is, these people (name yet to be decided... Naming is HARD, especially when you are trying to come up for names for all the characters you want in the book), have the ability to use magic. But the information is suppressed by a very few as it took thousands of full moons to repress the information (in this world, a full moon occurs once every 50 days, and the dates are based upon the passage of a full moon. So a comparison would be that we keep track of the days by the time system based upon a year, they keep track of time based upon a full moon. So a "year" for them is 50 days, or full moon to full moon).

A very small group of people within these slaves is a group of natural magicians. They know what they can do, and they can do it easily. But they can't say anything because if they were to speak out, the slaves have been repressed so far that a. they wouldn't believe them, and b. they would be put to death.

But on the Continent of New Prospects, the cities along the Southern Ocean hate the way the slaves are being treated, and because of this, southerners who support the freedom of slavery are commonly referred to as the Empathist. A small group called the Gernium have been attacking trade routes, army groups, and forts in the north, and the Capitol is starting to get hostile towards the actions of the Gernium. Due to the nature of the south supporting the freedom of slavery, the Capitol sees the entire southern region a threat, and if the Gernium continue their attacks (which are increasing in escalation), it will declare Marshall law of the south, send it's armies in to punish whoever stands for the slaves.

Through a series of events, war breaks out between the North and the South, and it is similar to the Civil War of the United States. But the twist is, the group of magicians end up fighting for the south, so a quick summary of the story is the Civil War with magic.

Now mind you, the map I posted, and the a lot of the story is still in the idea phase, and it needs to be fleshed out so I can truly start writing it, but still, it's an exciting project to have during the summer.

I'll try to post the updates to my work here, and who knows where this new, exciting world I am building will lead?

And on that day when my strength is failing
The end draws near and my time has come
Still my soul will sing Your praise unending
Ten thousand years and then forevermore