You can read about what I was doing while writing each of the novels in
Behind the Books
in the Sholan Universe section.
This page updated
25 May 2003
25 May 2003
 |
 |
 |
This is the place to come if you want to learn about some of my hobbies and interests.
By profession, I trained as a teacher so I'm
interested in everything. Learning is an on-going experience for me. My writing
has taken me down many an interesting thoroughfare and alley of research. My
main interests are in paleontology, ancient civilizations, particularly the
Minoans and Ancient Egyptians, and the history of the Old testament times, which
I studied at college.At college, when we did a survey on our leisure time, I was accused of cheating. The tutor concluded I was one of the few lucky, or unlucky ones, depending on your view point, for whom my work was leisure! :)
I used to read a minimum of 8 books a week plus do my day job. Now I read when I can, but it's so easy now to be influenced while I'm writing that I don't read nearly as much as before. It's mostly SF I read. Genetics, the workings of the human mind, how memories are stored and accessed, how religions evolve to fulfill the needs of the community to which they belong, and of course, the care, developmental stages and behaviour of Cats, both large and small are just some of the on-going interests I study in writing my current series for DAW Books.
I thought you might like to see
where I sit when I am writing. Behind me you can see one of my several swords
and the banners for our local Viking group, Norvik Hrafnswyrd, and for myself as
Jarl, or Group Leader. They were presented to me by Tony Sayer, Chieftain of
'The Vikings', the national re-enactment society that I have belonged to for 24
years this summer.The painting behind me is by my father and the one on the far wall is a print of 'Venus Prime' by Jim Burns.
I have a son, Kai, who is now
nearly 18 (he was 15 when this photo was taken), two cute cats, and dog. She's
cute too, as you can see from the photo. She's mainly a Bearded Collie but with
lots of Irish Wolfhound, Deerhound and some German Shepherd in her. I hope to
add a general photo page in time. More About me
TV watching
I ration the TV I watch but always try to catch new series to keep abreast of what's happening in the genre. "I am really enjoying the new Star Trek and noticing who they got which tecnology from.
Films
I love action films. Arnie films, Jean Claude van Damme, Steven Segal, but the two favourites nowadays have to be Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. Always in good movies.
Computer Games
My Games have changed. I was utterly entranced and WOWed by UNREAL. It was just that, Unreal! And being able to switch on God Mode and go for a walk around the levels - like exploring an alien world it was so real. My only criticism was they suddenly made the bad guys too powerful, and as for the Titans!
Well, I knew I'd never have the time to finish it if I didn't use God mode, I kept getting killed so often! I did discover the choice of skin helps a lot. It wasn't me who was dreadful getting my character to jump on boxes, it was the skin who didn't have much in the way of jumping skills. I found that out when I changed him for another male.
I got the RETURN TO NA PALI MISSION PACK and UNREAL TOURNAMENT and when Kai and I deathmatch or play a team game, we beat the BOTS. We make a good team.
UNREAL has an Editor to make your own levels. It would be wonderful to do some for my own spaceships and buildings for the Sholans, but once again, there aren't enough hours in the day. Getting round to updating this is difficult enough.
I deathmatch Unreal 2003 now & then with my son.
I've been playing Dungeon Siege recently, which I enjoyed enormously. I liked the way that if you used more magic than combat, you went up levels as a mage, and vise versa with the combat. It made it very flexible. I was disaappointed that when I finished the game, my Hero with his great armour couldn't replay the game again at a different difficulty level as you can in Diablo 2 Lord of Destruction. I am also now and then toying with Neverwinter Nights. I realized what I didn't like about it when I found out it was based on 3rd Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. I am a dedicated AD & D 1st Edition fan! Apart from that I am enjoying playing the City Building game called Pharaoh. I like micro managing a small or not so small settlement and making sure the food gets to the bazzars and the monuments get built because the population is large enough. I also enjoy making my houses evolve as high as possible with the resources available in each scenario. It lets me understand better how our early communities did evolve.
I'm also a Dark Age Re-enactor and have been for 20 years. I'm a Jarl, a leader of a small group, I was pretty good in my time with my double-handed Magyar style curved sword. Archery is my thing, though. I fought as an archer using rubber blunt tipped combat arrows. I also ran a a display team which depicts the history of archery and shows what damage the different types of arrow heads could do. I have a really neat little recreated wooden laminated recurve bow of the type used by the Russ in the 10th Century. I also did a year going round English Heritage sites as a 1st century Celtic archer with a small display unit of Roman soldiers from the legion of the XIVth Geminii. We had the only mounted legionnaire in Europe at the time.
The Society I belong to is called The Vikings! and is the largest in the UK. I have run the local group for the last 11 years, called Norvik Hrafnswyrd, and, as I said, been a member for 20 years. The Society has a strong Living History membership as well as Warriors. I have to admit I joined because I enjoyed the skills involved in learning to use a metal sword, spear, Dane axe and quarterstaff. And archery, of course!
You will find links to my own group and our UK pages on my Links page. Our UK page has a fantastic set of Living History photos up and info on the locations of all the UK local groups. Currently the society has 800 plus members now.
Top of the page© Copyright 1999/2000 Lisanne Norman