Back!

After a long hiatus, I am back doing what I love to do: write.

I have been immersed in my writing, in my work and also, doing some translations, that have kept me away from the blog, and I do miss it.

So let's get down to it shall we?

Again, I am going to make some changes. Anything related to the game, SWTOR, will now be addressed in a different blog. The game has been much more that I expected, and we are near, as a guild, of beginning to experience end game content.

Books I am reading, or have read, will be reviewed in yet another blog (I love this!)

In this blog, I will only talk about my writing.

This week's topic is literary influences.

When I began the wonderful journey of reading a book, I was immersed into wonderful worlds, created by authors like Tolkien, Stoker, Christie, Orwell, Poe and Hemingway. (My school's English Lit class was, and still is, one of the best in the country, if not the best). I fell in love with fantasy, but with literature in general, and began to devour books. One of the first series I remember fondly, and that I have read multiple times since, is Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. His work would get me interested in Sci-Fi and later into authors like Orson Scott Card.

However, nudged in between fantasy and sci-fi, the late father of one of my best friends introduced ne to the world written by Anne Rice.

I don't think there is an author that has had more influence on me than Rice, not only in terms of style, bur more importantly, in terms of ambience. Through her pen I was able to walk through the streets of Rome, Athens, Paris and her beloved New Orleans. I was able to live through the eyes of her fantastic characters (I mean, Lestat is THE vampire) and her fantastic stories. She was the first author I dissected, that I bothered to take notes from her books, that I tried to learn how she constructed her sentences. She was the first author that urged me, through her writing, to become an author.

My literary life has been influenced by many authors since, heck, we all are. I have my own style now, I have my own cadence and quirks, and crutches and such...but I have been influenced by many other authors.

Patricia Highsmith and her anti-hero, Thomas Ripley. How she makes us root for the bad guy is still a mystery to me, but her books are filled with tension and intrigue that one can only take so much.

Robert Jordan, to me, redefined the fantasy genre (and I am a BIG Tolkien fan, and Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms reader :D) He simply elevated the benchmark of what fantasy literature was about, mixing a superb, complex an endearing story, giving us richly detailed characters, and cities, and customs, and wardrobe, and architecture, and turning it into a wonderful whole.

What are your influences?

See you all next week.