Prima

Entry posted by Vibius Tiberius Costa September 12, 2007

909 views

This is my blog then, I will try and write an entry 1-4 times a month, I hope you will enjoy my musings. This particular entry is about how and why I ended up here at UNRV.com. It is quite uplifting to be able to write a blog so please comment .

Well, here it goes. Romans have become a huge part of my life, almost accidently I stumbled on this site while searching for Rome: Total War. I had a peek, didn't think much of it and moved on by hitting 'back' :angry: hehe.

A few months later I had just finished a small book that was - frankly - awful, my characters were weak and wet. They had no emotion and their were far to many of them, but I learned from that so much when a month later I read it. Noticing my own mistakes was a big turning point for me. After this I struggled a bit with general life and ended up in a bit of a predicament. During this time I came to the decision that I would write as professionally as I can, not just an extended piece of work.

I sifted through some possible ideas and eventually settled on a Roman orientated novel. Some minor research, early august 2006, on rough setting and timing brought me here again. I formulated a few time eras. Punic, Middle Republic, Julius Caesar, Augustus, I never wanted to pick an imperial time because all the previous roman knowledge i had was before that.

I read Emperor by Conn Iggulden and found out that Adrian Goldsworthy amongst other authors had already done Caesar. I scrapped Augustus at this moment. The Punic war era I also got rid of for the sake of overkill on the subject and I wanted to make create my own character rather than retell the story of another eg. Hannibal or Scipio. By almighty powers of deduction I ended up in the middle republic. I drew a lot of sketches of romans and maps of Rome during the period. Because I was still not confident in myself that I was going to make this book a reality i contacted a friend to see if he would do it with me. *For all the authors out there* I had no idea what I was thinking. Anyway, he said he would and at this point I specified the time frame and a super-rough plot (basically a few lines on one all of my maps). I also gave my character a name.

With name in hand I prepared myself for a few months of serious research, planning and other work. Third time lucky I hit this site and found the forum... and... begrudgingly signed up (september 4th) under the alias of my character name that i changed a bit because vcc isn't as interesting (for wont of a better word) than vtc. I blurted out a few random comments and kept up with my research.

Yours blogfully