Nathalie M.L. Römer General Posts

Writing is risky to dinner preparation!

Tonight instead of cooking a meal, I spent the time instead doing more editing…

I think the one person who notices the impact the most of all this work, is my partner. And yes, writing is a full-time job but I am starting to realize that it can also have an impact on when and even how you eat.

I am sad this seems to happen as I love cooking, and consider myself a good cook, which why a copy of Getting Started In Food Writing by Kerstin Rodgers now lies on my desk, because of the simple fact that I want to start to write down in a methodical way all the meals I make, and put it in a cook book to self-publish as my little cook book, perhaps one of the few non-fiction I’ll do.

Tonight I consciously made a decision to set up a very structured work schedule to know when to write, and how much do in that time too, and therefore know how much time I had left to do other things important in my life.

Such as the ability to indulge in the preparation of a well-prepared dinner for my partner and I…

Instead of having no time left for anything else, I found a minimum of six hours of spare time. I don’t watch much television – find it distracting mostly, and if I do watch it it’s for one good movie or catching up with news – so it means I can actually cook. But it also give me some time to get working on the other pastime I enjoy which is drawing, painting, doing crafts…

Maybe after a dozen or so books are written I’ll slow down a bit. At the moment I am still in this “catch up on lost time” mode, as I only started writen in November 2014, and as my career choice in June 2015, at which time I started doing it more seriously. This “lost time” relates somewhat to how my life was until the end 2007, when I dealt with a whole other gameplay in terms of how my life was from day to day. I am divorced, and a survivor of an abusive relationship, and the old adage of “life starts at 40” applied to me the moment I was free from that life. It took a while for me to get it out of my system that there was no such thing blaming others for what had happened, and to rid my mind too of blaming myself.But that’s probably a subject for some sort of memoir when I am old and grey…

However that said, the moment I did rid it of feeling blame or giving blame, life started looking up again. It was a month or so later I met my partner, who is one of the most supportive people you could ever ask for, and he became the driving force that keeps me going.

He was okay with it tonight, when I told him I forgot to cook. It prompted me to work out a schedule for myself – military style almost – to make sure I get my work as a writer done in time, in the quantity I want to achieve in a given day, and to the standard I am setting for it now.

I love to write. I found my passion late in life (at age 47), and yes, I could have started sooner if I had had a different outlook on life one or two decades ago. Howver, I remember something I heard said “You write about the things you’ve experienced emotionally and around you…” (heard this said by an author, whose name I can’t even remember now as this was stated perhaps two decades ago. I never forgot those words, and as I went through the motions of dealing with the life I was living, it also gave me other values which I treasure deeply now – empathy, concern for others, compassion, better understanding of trust, forgiveness. And in turn they gave me the ability to write words that mean something to me personally (you’d have to read my books to see in print what they are).

So what has this all to do with not being able to cook dinner, you ask. Everything really. If you don’t control your life, especially your work life as a writer, I found that it can give less ability to do other equally important things you might want to do with that time – like be with your family, visit friends, go on holidays (already tentatively planned one for autumn 2017 to Curaçao to visit my family there I hope), and other pastimes…

Visit this blog entry at my blogging site https://nathaliemlromer.wordpress.com and leave a comment or two about how you balance work as a writer and your pastimes. I would love to hear from a few out there…

Nathalie M.L. Römer General Posts

Word play…

While editing a variety of stuff… like my book, web pages, book outlines, I came across some interesting information.

Everyone is familiar with the “trilogy“… right?

Well here’s the other versions I found today…

Dilogy… A series of two related works

“I got a dilogy planned and plotted so that’s a valid word I can later include on my website…”

Trilogy… A set of three works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, or video games.

“I think most people are familiar now with Divergent series which is a perfect example of one of these.”

Tetrology…A set of four works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as four individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, or video games.

“Not got any of these in the list of book ideas… but it won’t stop me coming up with something…”

Pentology… A set of five works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as five individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, or video games.

“Something fishy here… It seems I could be looking into this in a serious way… Yes a hint!!!”

Hexalogy… A set of six works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as six individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, or video games.

“The six expansion of the game World of Warcraft could be considered this… also a contender as a word on my website…”

 

For the following words I am quoting Wikipedia…

Heptalogy…

  1. (rare) A set of seven works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as seven individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, or video games.
    The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling. The Dark Tower by Stephen King. “The Keys to the Kingdom” by Garth Nix.

“I think they’re missing something in that list… Oooh another hint!”

Octalogy…

  1. (rare) A set of eight works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as eight individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, or video games.  
    • 1886
      The Shakespearean octalogy which begins with Richard II. and ends with Richard III.

Enneaology…

(rare) A set of nine works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as eight individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, or video games.

  • 1992, Andrew Lawrence Markus (English quoter), August Pfizmaier (German author), “Über den Text eines japanischen Drama’s” (1870), page 115, quoted in The Willow in Autumn: Ryūtei Tanehiko, 1783-1842, Harvard University Asia Center, ISBN 978-0-674-95351-2, page 76:
    These works appear, upon closer scrutiny, to be dramatic, and are actually the seventh and eighth parts of an “ennealogy” (as it were), perhaps “polylogy,” for dramas in Japan frequently are protracted to such lengths.
  • 2009, Roger Cooke, “Review of Naming Infinity”, page 11:
    George Passant, the protagonist of C.P. Snow’s second novel in the Strangers and Brothers ennealogy
  • 2011, Ralph Raab, The Tamerlane Trap, iUniverse, page 1
    Of course, nobody in their right mind would want to commit to an octalogy, ennealogy, or decalogy—or even more!— unless you were a fan of, say, Lemony Snicket

Decalogy…

A set of ten works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as ten individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, or video games.

“But it’s possibly just easier to say “polylogy” when there’s more than two books in a series, right…?”

That make a standalone novel an “unology“… and I can do those too…

Nathalie M.L. Römer General Posts

Today I am writing… everything except a book!

I’ve been really busy ever since my book got released…

THAT happened yesterday, but I am not feeling it is on release intil I got everything smoothed out. Which began with correcting a typo I found on the book cover that actually crept in during editing the “blurb” (back cover content of the book) from paper to computer… and I only spotted it TODAY during rechecking texts and so on.

It means a small hiccup in the road… to success I hope to say. But I am convinced that is better to catch it before the first sales happen than after it’s been sold many many times.

So what else is it I’ve done on the day after the BIG EXCITEMENT of the book release…?

For a start I’ve been working on making my website less sparse. It’s not yet updated, so don’t bother going to http://www.nathaliemlromer.com to see it… all I’ve done in the way of updates is correcting spelling errors found on the website and that was it. The NEW website will be launched on the morning of 28 March 2016… you’ll see the new stuff then! (the website isn’t sparse any more!

I’ve been going through checking OTHER books I have planned and then updating those appropriately with extra information each needed.

I’ve also started TODAY on the companion book I will release in Summer 2021 that explores in greater detail the history, geography, customs, people, places and traditions of the world where Keldarra exists, although some small pieces of information will be available on pages called Keldarra Library Archives on the my website. No link yet because I want them to be ready to launch in its entirety before launching it. I am scheduling this tentatively in the Autumn of this year although this is subject to change.

Not yet up on the website, but here’s a preview of other things I am doing too in the next few months…

Sound Bites – Small clips of sound files of how I pronounce names, nouns, places and things, etc from books.

Reference information for The Stone of Truth – Get the setting demystified and understand more of the world that Marrida and Alagur live in.

Map Interactivity – I will work between now and the middle of the summer on the map page to add clickable links on it so you can get a bird’s-eye view of what they encounter on the route that Marrida and Alagur took when they started their journey…

I think readers will be interested in knowing HOW I say words. Figuring out the phonetic pronunciation of names is something that has always been fascinating for me. I give one example now. The name Keldarra. Are you saying it with the emphasis ending at the ‘A’ at the end… if so you’re saying it wrong. It is KEL-darra… The KEL part has the emphasis on it. Anyway, when I do those Sound Bites you will hear it for yourself…

I think having reference information about a world in which I set an epic fantasy SERIES is important. I know there’s information about the world in which Lord of the Rings takes place for example. I plan to do similar minimally on my website. I won’t give away too much there as that will spoil the companion book planned.

Talking of Lord of the Rings… when I told my father (or Papa as I call him) about my book, he asked me, “Is this J. K. Rowling or is this Tolkien?” to which I replied “It’s  Tolkien…” and I feel it is. When you read the book, you will see why…

The only other work done besides this, was sorting out something a resemblance of a schedule because I know I will need one to stay on top of everything I want to write, that I have to do, and that will come my direction… such as book reviews, interviews.

Nathalie M.L. Römer General Posts

Blogging…

Never done it in my life, but that was the same when I started writing my first ever novel, which seems to be close to completion as I write this. I guess that I need make blogging a part of my weekly schedule and because I am still learning what it is to be an author, I decided to read up… and the general suggestion is to do it two or three times a week. So I decided to make Sundays and Wednesdays my blogging days. Well, it is Sunday right now, and a perfect excuse to do something else while my mind comes up with a perfect ending for my book…

I am very excited because the book is so close to completion. I am hoping already that people will enjoy it a lot, and fingers crossed that it gets a warm welcome.

So instead of writing I am doing the other things needed to launch myself into deep end of publishing… setting up blog… check… finish website… almost check… finalize book… ermm, okay that needs work on later.

Most of the metadata, that’s the bits of data that lets the world know details about your book – such as book size, number of pages, the plot blurb, and other stuff – are for the most part ready at Create Space where I am self-publishing my books initially. I guess I wasn’t brave enough, yet, to try find an agent to get my book at a traditional publishing house, and published the old-fashioned way. But hey, if I keep on writing (and believe me I will), I am sure that will come too soon enough.

I think I jumped the gun a bit with setting up my Twitter @nathaliemlromer (former home), my Bluesky @nathaliemlromer.bsky.social, and on my Facebook http://www.facebook.com/nathaliemlromer but I think it will lend presence in the long term and will let potential readers – FANS perhaps! – find me easier. If you’re on either (or both) social media site, connect with me for updates and news. They’re kind of linked so any posts I make on Facebook also trickle down to Twitter, and vice versa. You’ll find me more active on Facebook though.

I guess my extensive post writing I have done on the World of Warcraft forums for several years is proving to be of help. It’s a game I love playing (I play on the Shadowsong realm mostly), and whenever I post there I am prone to posting long posts… seems it’s happening here too. If I keep this up two times a week for a few years, readers will have so much to read by me that they won’t keep up with it… and that’s in addition to the many books I have planned…

Anyway, signing off here to go do other important stuff… such as working on completing my book for example. See you again for the next blog post on Wednesday…

Blessings,

Nathalie xx

Updated on 17 August 2025 for accuracy.