Writing Babbling

The days are going slowly -- my writing is progressing, but I want to finish the map I made and flesh out the countries (I know a few of them, because I have major characters from them, but knowing who shares borders with who and whether or not they are land or sea is important). I also figured out a few things about the various nonhumans. I think the dragons in my current world are actually mammalian (most of their hair is adapted to scale-like armor, kind of like how hedgehogs and porcupiens have hair adapted to spines. Or armadillos). Which means, since I am loosly using evolution by natural selection, I need to remember to show at least vaguly similar creatures.

Also figured out a bit about how magic works, and more about daemons.

I am curious why so many of the religions I place in worlds have Eastern elements -- the one I am writing now seems to draw quite a bit from Buddhism and Shinto, though it still has a few Western elements. Perhaps because it seems like most fantasy religions are based on the few that the average American knows well (Christianity, Wicca, Greco-Roman, etc.) or are poorly mixed models of a specific religion (Ms. Lackey, I'm looking at you -- no, your monotheistic male sun god whose followers have had a bloody religious conflict with pretty much all their neighbors because the god apparently went on a coffee break and let a bunch of powerhungry megalomaniacs running the place before waking up, going 'Oh shit' and putting someone devout and diplomatic (and female) at the head doens't remind me of Anyone. And, no the goddess with four aspects, three of which are Very Familiar, isn't like an Earthly religion At All. For all that I have a strange fondness for Ms. Lackey's writing (probably because I apparently skipped the worst offenders of her Valdemar books -- The Vows and Honor duology had a very non-cosmic feel to it (namely, at least half of the short stories were life-and-death to the heroes, but not important in the grand scheme of things) and the Mage Storm trilogy featured a few promising ideas (I liked the nature-as-antagonist element, the fact that Duke Whats-his-face-that-invaded-the-country-with-an-H-name was portrayed as a three-dimensional antagonist (while he was an antagonist), and that she did not resort to a True!Luv heal-all for An'desha (and she let the guy end up single and happy -- fantasy authors that allow a character to remain single and happy or childless and happy, win points from me, regardless of the their other offenses). I'm told that the Last Herald Mage trilogy is famous for having a whiny-angsty main character and that the Arrows trilogy is known for a very sterotypical Girl-Power Fantasy Heroine.)

And, wow. I turned that into commentary on books. I better go look for the computer guy to install some functions to Excel so I can get soem work done.