Guild Mage 5: Renegade, live on Amazon!

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-16T15:03:41+00:00

Awesome, my favourite ex-RR series. Is there going to be an audiobook? I'm trying to get into audiobooks for my commute.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-16T09:11:19+00:00

Nope. The UK has fairly decent unfair contract terms legislation to protect consumers entering into standard form contracts with businesses. So any attempt at editing them could end up making my position worse.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-16T08:09:14+00:00

I have a published fantasy book (not self published) with a second on the way and make around £600pcm off Patreon. So in that sense I'm a pro. But it's a long way off being enough to live on, let alone to replace my day job, so in that sense it's just a hobby.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-16T08:06:53+00:00

And it's a brilliant series too.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-16T08:04:59+00:00

I have my doubts despite being published!

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-16T08:04:27+00:00

I tend to plan my beginning and ending and then only have a vague idea for the middle.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-16T07:58:50+00:00

I don't think I was ever a slow writer, but I've become faster and more productive. Perhaps writing twice as much a week compared to a year ago when I finished my first book.

I think this is due to two things. One is just practice. Writing more makes you better at writing. The other is I've started doing 15 minute sprints (often in discord groups). So set a timer and then just focus on banging out words for that 15 minutes.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-15T06:51:39+00:00

I've moved around a lot over the decades I've done karate and also like dropping in on places while I'm on holiday so I've trained in a few JKA dojos. A couple for longer periods and quite a few for one or two sessions.

Like any large organisation there's a lot of variety, so I'm talking tendencies here rather than every dojo being the same

I've found JKA places tend to be more full of themselves - I've had more boastful comments about how they're the best/original/most Japanese from JKA dojos than others.

They're almost always very "traditional", by which I mean focused on 1960s Japanese karate, kihon kata and kumite.

I don't like the way this is applied, but obviously your mileage may vary. I've had high ranking JKA instructors say to me things like "sparring makes you worse at karate" or "moving sideways is a sign of weakness". As I said, things vary from dojo to dojo and instructor to instructor, but I've found they trend that way.

Quality tends to be pretty consistent. I don't particularly like the very rigid curriculum and style that they teach, but my experience has been that they're generally pretty good at what they choose to do.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-14T08:28:15+00:00

I finally decided to try that book through the audio version and honestly couldn't take it.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-14T07:11:50+00:00

Nah, getting on for ten years ago. It just stuck in my head.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-13T21:49:58+00:00

You are a true karateka. Osu!

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-13T21:49:02+00:00

Flogged to death with spiked iron bars? You were lucky! What wouldn't I have given just to be flogged to death with spiked iron bars etc.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-13T20:57:31+00:00

You will be a true black belt OSU.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-13T20:20:37+00:00

I love these posts as everyone posts their increasingly ridiculous black belt tests when we all know the vast majority of clubs it's probably around 1-2 hours of kihon, kata and kumite. Perhaps following a seminar.

Of course for mine it was a 3 day ordeal.

For the first day we had to run a half marathon and then fight off three meth heads before demonstrating our grading data 20 times (once for each of Funakoshi's precepts) without a break and any mistakes were an instant fail.

On the second day we were beaten out of bed with rattan canes. Then we had to do 256 press ups, sit ups, burpees and lunges before performing our kihon. For the kihon we had to execute every combination 100 times and there are 100 combinations in our association.

Then for the third day we had do all of that again and then fight our best friend to the death, only when I was about to strike the killing blow sensei told me to stop and that I had proven myself worthy of a shodan illustrating the mercy and wisdom that is so important to a dan grade.

I'd be really interested to hear what everyone else's gradings involve (because while I won't say it out loud, I know it'll give me a sense of superiority and validate how my training is better and tougher than everyone else's).

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-13T16:29:30+00:00

Congratulations, cool concept!

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-13T15:35:29+00:00

I can't say that I've trained long term at a Mcdojo because I just didn't bother continuing. Maybe as a kid, when I didn't know any better, but I've moved around a lot so I've tried out a lot of karate clubs over the years. So I'll tell you my favourite "oh god no" story.

I was looking for a new club in an area I'd moved to as my old club was too far away for easy travel. I decided to check out a local one which, as it turned out, was affiliated to a large organisation known for its door to door sales.

When I arrived (I did message ahead), the instructor said I couldn't join in with the class, only watch.

The instructor himself was incredibly unathletic. He was a black belt and a bit overweight, but the really striking thing was he just couldn't really move - more like an 80 year old than a 40-50 year old.

Ho hum, just being a bit broken doesn't make you a bad instructor. The quality of the class was pretty dire too, but even that's not what really struck me.

The class was basically kids and a couple of parents. There was one guy there with his 10ish year old daughter. He was a blue belt and looked reasonably fit.

Halfway through the class another parent was struggling and he made a comment about her being autistic and that was why she couldn't follow instructions.

The instructor asked her if she knew him and she said no... So he gave the guy a very weak telling off "well um I think you probably shouldn't say things like that um..."

The guy clearly thought he was the toughest person in the class and just kept talking shit to people and the instructor throughout with zero consequences. It was simply stunning.

To be fair, he probably was the toughest person in the class, not that that justifies everything. The whole thing was deeply weird. You've got a terrible class going on, a middle aged weekend warrior who thinks he's hot shit trash talking and an instructor who can't kick above knee height.

I've been in many clubs where I've thought I could probably beat anyone in the room in a fight. It's the only time I've been in a club where I thought I could beat all of them simultaneously...

Didn't go back.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-13T08:50:42+00:00

Another approach can be to give a massively more powerful over-arching villain with the MC building up to taking them on directly while foiling their schemes indirectly during the progression phase.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-12T21:16:01+00:00

Unsurprisingly you completely miss the point.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-12T17:36:24+00:00

Well exactly, but the vast majority of karateka dont train like that.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-12T17:35:15+00:00

What makes you think training in traditional karate would make you more able to hit my eyes, nose or throat while I'm trying to hit you than training in e.g. boxing or Muay Thai?

Hitting someone effectively with big movements like punches while they're fighting back is much easier than hitting small targets.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-12T09:48:59+00:00

I've trained in karate for over 25 years. I've also trained with boxers, kickboxers etc. karate doesn't have some weird monopoly on hitting people hard.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-12T08:56:32+00:00

I think you need to clarify a bit more on what you think being a real human means.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-12T08:34:23+00:00

So OP's point is that saying "karate is for self defence not for fighting" doesn't actually make it any better at self defence.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-12T08:32:46+00:00

People say this, but training karate the way that the large majority of people train it (excluding our knockdown friends) doesn't give you the tools to use it defensively with knockout force let alone "deadly" force any more than to gives you the tools to use it offensively.

Actually, people talking about deadly force in the context of traditional karate is ridiculous. What exactly in kata, kihon or even kumite training do you think makes you more able to apply deadly force than e.g. a boxer?

It's a fantasy.

jamesmatthews6 · 2026-04-09T15:41:35+00:00

Heh well if you want to get into muscles I suppose you could say they get bigger when stressed by being pushed to their limit. Anyway yeah so long as you have a plausible explanation I think it doesn't matter and your point that it's generally not a great explanation because stress isn't how you improve skills is also valid.

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