Timewaster's Guide Archive

He actually didn't see his shadow this year--the first time since 1999.  That means an early spring, by the way.  Is anyone else holding Groundhog Day festivities?

That's right.  Sorry about the confusion.  Slovak has a name calendar, as Ookla pointed out.  Thus, finding proper names is a breeze; there are only so many you can choose from.  (Slovaks think our way of making up names and spellings is ridiculous.  Don't get my wife started on it.)  The trouble I've been having is finding a good Slovak word for a type of magician.  For example, the regular words for magic users in Slovak are mag (mage), carodejnik or carodej (wizard), mudrc (wise man) and kuzelnik (magician).  At first I had hoped to use one of those in a compound Slovak word . . . until my wife pointed out that Slovak doesn't do compounds, and they typically resist coining new words.  Thus, to do "mage killer," I couldn't really do magvrah or vrahmag--those would be nonsense words (and the first sounds too much like Mumra (the villain in Thundercats) to me).  You can't put two nouns together.  So I could do maga vrah (killer of mages), or something like that.  (Actually, that's one of the new words I'm thinking about).  This initial poll was to give me an idea of which way to head in the naming process.  My apologies on the confusion of what I was asking for--I'll reword my initial post.

Yikes.  That's more than I'm ready to handle at this fledgling stage.  I've figured a bit of a workaround for now--I just have to finish toying around with it.  The more I work on this, the more I think I'm just going to have to do something for now, and then hone my skills and put up a new and improved site later on.  Is that too much of a pain when later on comes?

I completely agree about names needing to be pronouncable, etc.  Hence this poll.  I speak Slovak, making me tainted from deciding what works and what doesn't--I know how they all sound.  Thanks for the input--keep it coming.  I'll probably post some new ideas in a bit.

So I'm trying to come up with a name for a type of magic user who essentially focuses on killing other magic users and mythical creatures.  The thing is, it's for a fantasy book that takes place in Slovakia, and I'd like to use a Slovak word for it.  But a lot of Slovak words look just plain old wacky when they go into English.  This is where you come in.  Do any of these look good?  I'd rather not tell you what they mean at this point.  Maybe I will once the discussion goes on for a bit.  Vote in the poll, or just post your thoughts here.  Thanks!

edit: added "type of"

Hi all.  I'm currently in the midst of setting up a website for me, and I had a couple of questions I was wondering.  First of all, I'm planning to use GoDaddy for the hosting, but that's just because it's the only company I know.  Are they good?  Should I look elsewhere?  As I  look at their site, I notice a slew of options--what should I go with?

Linux or Windows-based--what's the difference?
How much disc space?  How much data transfer?  I don't anticipate hordes of people invading my domain, so is 5GB space and 250 GB transfer plenty?

I don't know--there are way too many options listed.  I can upgrade later if I need to, right?  What are the essentials I need to know before I go in to this?

I've done some dabbling with html, and I'm going to pick up Dreamweaver 8--is it worth it to get the entire Studio 8?  Since I'm a student, it's $180 vs. $280 (Dreamweaver alone vs. Studio).  Are there any manuals/guides for those programs ya'll would recommend?

Obviously I'm clueless.  Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks in advance.

It seems to me that Salvatore can get away with that because his worlds are stock fantasy worlds.  "Dragon" means dragon, yes.  On the other hand, a new writer trying to create a new world needs to do more work, in my opinion.  It's easy to just fall back on the standard fantasy fare, but if you put the effort in to creating new creatures or new races or whatever, you can be rewarded.  Of course, "new" means more than "just like X, but with Y."

That said, I definitely agree that pacing and description have changed tremendously since Melville's time--and even Tolkien's.  But I don't necessarily think it's due to the shared images concept Salvatore describes--I'd say it has to do with the heavy filmic influence on novels.  People are more used to having things thrown at them quickly, and a lot of description can bog things down, especially in the fantasy Salvatore writes.

I think Pullman's a great writer, but I think he lets himself get in the way of his writing.  I stopped reading His Dark Materials halfway through the third book, because I felt like it had been one big gimmick.  It frustrated me that he made a certain sort of promise at the beginning of his first book--what it was going to be like, etc.--and then he changed the meaning of the series as it progressed.  It was like it was a trap to sucker people into listening about his rants against religion.  Heavy handed, underhanded, and mishandled.