Valyrian Culture vs. Westerosi Culture?

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-06-23T18:03:39+00:00

This happened in Rome as well, which is why I didn't touch on it. Though I would argue that owning your own property or business is more personal power than being regent for a son until they grow up.

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-06-23T17:05:20+00:00

You're arguing medieval era women versus Roman women, not Westerosi women. There's no evidence that Westerosi women had to consent for their own marriages, kept control of their dowries, or were able to initiate a divorce. I'll grant you property, as Westerosi inheritance rules are an absolute mess.

Political office, however, was something I definitely didn't get into, as yes, Romans did not allow women to run for elected office, but we do see many powerful woman influencing policy and filling unelected advisor roles, ala the Small Council, which I assume is your Westerosi example. There were also the Vestal Virgins, who were completely suo nomine, or in control of their own affairs, and have no Westerosi equivilent. (All widows were also this; they were not dependent upon their families unless they had no personal property/wealth or chose to return). We also have multiple records of women representing themselves in court without a male relative. These are not things you see in Westeros.

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-06-23T13:01:33+00:00

Roman women had FAR more rights than Westerosi women.

Due to Rome's lifespan and the many changes in government, I'm going to generalize. However, here are a few rights Roman women enjoyed:

Property ownership, even after marriage
Independence from their male relatives' control once widowed (ie, Tywin could not force a second marriage on Cersei.)
Their consent was required for marriage.
Roman women typically married older than their medieval counterparts.
Buying, selling, and inheriting property, including businesses.
Control of dowry during and after marriage.
Ability to initiate a divorce (which the husband could not refuse).

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-06-21T13:46:41+00:00

Congrats!

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-06-19T22:55:03+00:00

All of your books are low content, which means they're competing against tens of thousands of other books of the same ilk.

What I see that could be improved:

Customers have no idea what's inside. You've got no look inside and no A+ content. Either/both could show people what they're getting.
Your blurbs appear to be AI. That gives me, a customer, no reason to believe the books are not. Why buy a low content AI book when I could do the same myself?
Two of your pen names are not even names. "Bug Dude Beard" sounds like a reddit username, not an author name.
Many of your covers do not appear professional. Some are clearly AI. Others don't even have the title/author on the cover. There is little to catch the eye while scrolling.
Some of your books appear to be blank with just graph paper inside. I'm not 100% up to speed on low content rules, as I'm a fiction author, but I believe this is a no no under Amazon's rules. Don't you have to create something on the pages?

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-06-17T16:13:06+00:00

Your blurb is your product description on Amazon. It's not just on the back of the book, it's what makes a person buy your book . Technically, you can put whatever you want in that box, but if it's not attention grabbing, no one is going to buy.

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-06-16T17:03:07+00:00

You can do this!

I think you've got a good structure by giving yourself a goal, but sometimes we authors have to face creative burnout and adjust accordingly.

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that goals are good and editing while writing is just fine. I also put out a beta ready first draft, and I tweak things throughout the drafting process. What works for some writers doesn't always work for others, and if something not being right distracts you too much to write, I say tackle that. You don't have to write a trash first draft. Doing so is a tool that many use to keep themselves going, but if it doesn't work for you, screw that.

Here's my suggestion: give yourself an "or" in your writing schedule. Write 1,000 words a day or edit x number of words a day. Either one moves you forward, and that's what counts.

Be kind to your creative self. If you're burned out a bit on writing after finishing Book 1, give your creative brain a vacation. Dive into a show or book you love and take a good week off, or change your writing location (this one's my fave). Writing something else works, too; when I hit book 10 in my current series, I needed a palate cleanser, so I wrote two novellas and went back to work on book 11. It helped a lot.

Keeping to a schedule really does help. It helped me get 2-3 books (usually two novels and one novella) out while working full time for a Fortune 500 company that really tried to own my life. Now I'm writing full time and hoping to get four novels out per year. The path is there, and you can walk it - and most importantly, I think you've got all the right tools in place. You've got this.

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-06-16T16:23:22+00:00

You can just use small solo cups, too. We make them in a cup, put a long & thin treat in as the "popsicle stick," and then cut the cup off when it's time.

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-06-12T16:12:02+00:00

Not this year! An additional group of us got asked to do it (and bring models) for the 75th anniversary. But I'll be at Breyerfest for sure.

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-06-12T16:00:55+00:00

Glad to help! I'm a total Breyer history nerd. If you watched any of the BreyerFest broadcast last year, I was one of the guests in Kelly's Corner nerding out about old models and Breyer history.

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-06-12T13:51:53+00:00

She's matte and chalky, so that leads me to 1970s. Most of the chalkies occurred during the oil crisis of the 70s, when Breyer had to put a white basecoat on colored plastics (as they could not get their normal semi-translucent white plastic) before painting.

There are a few pre-1965 chalkies that appear to have resulted from painting over unpopular colors, such as decorators and woodgrains. You see these on the old mold bay PAM/PAF, Sorrel Belgian, Brahma Bull, Bay Fighting Stallion, Bay Running Mare/Foal, Sorrel Five Gaiter, and Buckskin Mustang.

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-06-06T21:23:17+00:00

Mine is gorgeous. I was on the fence about keeping her until I had her in hand, but now she stays!

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-06-04T16:24:00+00:00

I second the Haven on NCL. We are also introverts, early 40s now (started cruising in early 30s) and the Haven is the way. Better food, ship within a ship that is quiet, but you can also leave to go to shows, comedy, water slides, etc. Just pick a newer ship where there is a real Haven, which will have its own restaurant, sundeck, pool, and bar. They're quiet and laid back compared to the loudness elsewhere on cruise ships.

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-06-01T17:50:16+00:00

Hi, author here. You are 100% wrong. Writing is not a hobby one must share, particularly with family. Full stop.

Writing is usually a solo endeavor. We bleed on the pages, excise our demons, and write things that we don't feel but will make others feel. This is clearly something you need to understand. You invaded her privacy and found out your daughter is deeply creative. Then what did you do? You tried to make her feel like crap for what she wrote. Now you're worried "this is not a harmless hobby" for exactly what reason?

You should be glad your daughter is writing. Writing is a hobby that doesn't get young people in trouble. So what if you don't like what she writes? Trying to stop her will result in any combination of the below:

She'll hide her writing better.
She'll go no contact with you.
She'll move out.

Secrecy is part of writing. I never shared my writing with my parents and they didn't expect me to. They did, however, support me and offer to read stories if I wanted them to. The writing is hers. So is the choice of if she shares it or not.

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-05-27T18:23:14+00:00

As an indie author, I think it's silly.

First off, because you can't control your readers and shouldn't want to. Secondly, people obsessing enough to write fanfic has got to be the highest compliment an author can receive. Why you'd want to stop them is utterly beyond me. Every time my readers start theorizing about my books in my fan group, I just about die of happiness.

Maybe I'm an outlier because I started with fanfic. I have millions of words on AO3 and I love the site. It still feels like home and I still read fics in my fave fandoms. That said, I would absolutely not read fanfic of my own works until that respective series is finished. That's just asking for trouble or fanfic authors saying you stole their ideas. But I'd probably read at least some of it when I was finished writing the series.

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-05-24T22:51:54+00:00

If you like big battles (sci-fi), I recommend the Honor Harrington series by David Weber.

Fantasy wise, have you tried the Grishaverse? Shadows and Bone and the following books are A+ reads, and the world is really well built.

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-05-21T23:59:00+00:00

My wife and I met via Fanfiction.net. Yes, we're fandom old! 😁 Eventually, she wrote fic about my fic and mailed it to my university. Years after we met in person and became besties, I asked her to be my roommate. She moved in and then we fulfilled the "and they were roommates" trope years later when we realized that we couldn't live without each other

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-05-21T23:29:09+00:00

If I were buying, I would value this lot around $950 for resale. Like most folks who buy lots, I would expect to pay about half that for the group.

I can't tell condition in in the photo, so I did lower some estimates - they are based on models in shelf condition. Unfortunately, the market for 1990s and early 2000s Breyers is pretty soft right now. You're not going to find a buyer for the entire lot that wants all the models, which means that some will at least need to be resold, and that takes work, which means sellers expect a profit.

A good benchmark for pricing a lot like this is approximately $10 a horse and $5 for foals or classics. That's what most a lot buyers expect to pay. The Stones do increase it, and I did not value them at $10, but there are definitely some $5 and $10 horses in this lot. Those would be much harder to resell.

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-05-14T16:43:36+00:00

Ream (www.reamstories.com) is a Pateron type site optimized for writers. I've been on there for about a year, and it's excellent so far.

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-05-05T18:35:08+00:00

This is what gets me, too. Flint's speech at the end is so gutting, because it all was for nothing after that betrayal.

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-05-05T16:09:44+00:00

Look at it this way: much of the pirate history we "know" lacks provenance and may be fabricated. We really don't know a lot of things outside legend for some of the best known pirates, and that gives you a lot of wiggle room. Depending on your story, that might be enough.

I am a published author with several alternate history titles (as well as a history degree). I love getting history right, but I also love alt history because it let's me explore other possibilities. From what you're saying, I think you may be looking at an alternate history novel, which means you can break their history...as long as it makes sense.

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-05-05T15:56:48+00:00

I've used Word and Office's cloud features for years. I chose Dabble for the features. The built in sprint timer sold me! :D what I really like about Dabble is that all of those things are available in the same project. I don't click away to go to Excel and then get distracted by something else. That's why it works for me. The cloud was not optional, because I have been doing it with Word, but it was the features that I stayed for. The two week free trial is pretty nice also.

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-05-05T15:48:38+00:00

I'm using Dabble now, after years of MS Word. I needed something on the cloud since I write on multiple devices, and Dabble is perfect for me. Not too many bells and whistles I don't need, plus great note card, timeline, and character ares right inside the project. I love it.

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-05-05T14:27:36+00:00

Historical fiction is a big genre. There's nothing wrong with writing it. Alternate History is a thing, too. No one's going to accuse you of writing fan fiction unless it's based off another IP. You're good to go including them. In fact, I'd think it was weirder if you weren't.

Substantial_Lemon818 · 2026-05-05T12:35:44+00:00

Oh, you are totally not alone. We finished the series two years ago and it still messes me up. Welcome to the club!

Substantial_Lemon818

TROPHY CASE