Issue #1
February 18th, 2024

Hi all,

Welcome to the second issue of Fantasy Sunday, the newsletter where I share the progress on my books, my recent learnings and life hacks, and introduce new blog articles.

For anyone who noticed, yes, I am counting the issues beginning from 0. That's how we count in Software Engineering! So the first issue is #0, the second #1, and so forth.

This week, I've spent a beautiful weekend in nature with my partner and her family, caught up on my day job, and completed my recent blog post, A Guide to Narrator Types and Points of View in Fantasy Fiction. The article covers a lot of ground and comes in at roughly 2,400 words. This is a bit over the usual word count for my articles, but the topic was quite expansive and, being highly technical, required many examples and explanations.

In it, I speak about what narrator types and points of view are, and how to use them in your novel.

If you're not a writer, understanding these concepts may help you make sense of the movies, series, and books you love most.

Moreover, we all tell stories in our lives: to our loved ones, to colleagues, to family, to an audience. By understanding the angle through which you tell these stories, you can help the people connect with what you're saying better and drive home the points you care about!

I highly recommend checking it out, whether you are a writer, a reader, both, or neither!

Also, the second chapter of my upcoming Novella, A Wizard's Hunt, is currently in progress and will be released on the website soon. Look out for updates in next week's Fantasy Sunday issue!

📖 Novels

A Wizard's Hunt 🏹

Progress: 14%

This week I spent some time looking at the feedback received on my first chapter, which I greatly appreciate!

I've written a few hundred words of new material for the second chapter, which will be released soon.

At this point, I'm making sure the new material is in line with the vision I have for the plot and storyline, but I'm not worrying too much about the quality of the individual chapters, as I'm aware they might change drastically during editing, or even be deleted completely.

In the past, I've made the mistake of over-fixating on the quality of my first few chapters. This has single-handedly prevented me from completing my first drafts.

Although I'm still putting lots of care and attention into releasing chapter drafts that are written to the best of my ability, and enjoyable to read, this time around, I am firing through with new material and will re-evaluate the overall quality once the first draft is complete.

🗞️ Blog

Newsletter Kick-Off 🗞️

Fantasy Sunday, the official Newsletter of andreacerasoni.com, has officially been kicked-off! 🎉

How to Make Perfectionism Your Friend

Learn how to turn Perfectionism from an obstacle into a powerful ally.

A Guide to Narrator Types and Points of View in Fantasy Fiction

Learn how to implement different narrative styles and points of view, being intentional with how you reveal information in your novel.

✒️ Writer's Circle

Our discord community, Writer's Circle, is currently being built out. Look out for updates on future Newsletter issues!

🎓 What I've Learned This Week

Text-to-video AI is coming, and it's much scarier than I thought.

​Sora is a new AI model released by OpenAI. It generates videos of up to 60 seconds in any resolution. On Sora's homepage, you can find dozens of examples with different animation styles.

What's crazy about this is that the subjects interact with each other realistically, and the model seems to have a sort of memory that allows it to remember what happens throughout the video and generate footage accordingly.

Although imperfections can be found in the videos, it's still incredibly powerful. I've felt a slight uncanny effect with some videos, but overall, it blew my mind.

It makes me wonder whether in the future we'll be able to sit down on our couches and generate entire TV series and movies based on how we feel at exactly that moment.

It also makes me wonder whether tools such as Unity and Unreal Engine, which have reached incredible photorealism, will be made obsolete by AI video models.

The danger that comes with such a technology is immense, and for now, Sora is restricted and cannot be used by the masses.

Cool (but scary) stuff!

💡 Life Hacks

Treat yourself like a robot.

This one comes from Youtuber, Podcaster, and author Ali Abdaal.

When we come home and are feeling burned out, but promised ourselves we'd go to the gym, we should look at ourselves as if we were a robot.

"Does the robot have enough fuel to go to the gym?"

If the answer is no, according to this philosophy, we shouldn't go.

Have you let yourself down? Have you broken your streak? Have you invalidated your new year's resolution? No. You've made the best decision for yourself at that moment.

After all, we don't want the robot to malfunction or break down. We need to let it recharge.

But it doesn't end there.

We need to understand why the robot is out of fuel. After all, when we set the goal of going to the gym after work, we assumed that we'd have enough energy to.

"Why was the robot burned out at 5 pm?"

Perhaps, we went to bed too late because we picked up a habit of drinking coffee in the afternoon or watching TV series too late.

In that case, just like a robot can be re-programmed, we have the power to re-program ourselves and leave behind those nasty habits.

This is an extremely powerful technique that can help us step out of our shoes and treat ourselves like we treat others.

And it can help us make the right decision without seeing it as a failure.