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Guy's Blog

Guy frequently keeps this blog updated with thoughts, challenges, interviews and more!

Category: Books and Writing

Good news for Fiore fans: Longsword Mechanics is ready!

The Fiore Translation Project is growing apace; I'm almost through the zogho largo section already. I compiled the translation, transcription, commentary and video clips for the Sword in One Hand plays into a pdf some time ago: you can get it free as a PDF by subscribing to my mailing list below this post. But I have also released it in Kindle and Epub formats on my Gumroad shop, and on Amazon.

Part two comprises the footwork, ways to hold the sword, blows of the sword, and the guards, and I have compiled and edited those posts into a 116 page book, Longsword Mechanics. You can get the print PDF (for printing at home),  epub and Kindle formats as a bundle from here:

Longsword Mechanics on Gumroad

It is also available to pre-order from Amazon, though you only get the kindle file from them.

Yes, you can get pretty much all of the information in the book from the posts on this blog, and you're welcome to do so. But wouldn't it be so much more convenient to have them all together in a format that works on your e-reader of choice, or all nicely printed out?

This work depends entirely on support of people like you- the few, the elect, the elite who understand that Fiore's art of arms is the quintessence of martial awesome, and find my work a useful adjunct to his. By buying this book, you make the next one possible. Carry on!

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Books in the Wild

There is literally nothing more satisfying for a writer than seeing their books in the wild. Normally this happens to me at seminars or events, but sometimes my readers are kind enough to send in photos from far flung places.

Dan Weber, for instance, took The Medieval Longsword camping with him (definitely easier to pack than an actual medieval longsword!)

Tom Farmer in Colorado went elk hunting in the mountains (with a flintlock!), and took The Art of Sword Fighting in Earnest for company:

And Tomáš Venhoda is clearly a man after my own heart. He disdains ebooks, and took the free pdf of The Fiore Translation Project part 1: The Sword in One Hand (catchy title, huh? You can get your own copy by signing up to my email list below this post), and had it printed and bound as a hardback.

In this he anticipates me by some degree: when I've completed the entire longsword on foot out of armour section, I'm planning to compile the work into a book. But it is beyond awesome to see my work in such enthusiastic hands.

Thank you, Dan, Tom, and Tomáš!

And yes, if you have photos of my books in the wild, I'd love to see them.

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How to Sharpen Pencils: an Appreciation

Approximately every 365 days there falls a date celebrated for many things, but in my household principally as the anniversary of my birth. Yes, you have anticipated me: it was my birthday.
As is delightfully customary, I was showered with gifts, chief among them a tome that has, quite simply, changed my life.
How to Sharpen Pencils, by David Rees (henceforth referred to as “The Master”) sets out in clear and pellucid prose the principles and practices of that once-exalted, now sadly under-appreciated craft, the sharpening of pencils. He includes a complete theoretical underpinning, and much sage and practical advice to the novice, not omitting (which gladdened my swordsmanly heart) a thorough warm-up. Because, let us face this truth unstintingly, pencil sharpening is primarily a physical craft, to be mastered before approaching the metaphysical sharpening of graphite encased in fragrant cedar.
The Master is clearly a man of surpassing patience and precision, but he does not neglect the aesthetics of his art: interleaved throughout this meisterwerk are “Reveries”, miniature photographic essays of appreciation for early mechanical pencil sharpening devices. These are included, I think, to raise the reader to a state of consciousness better suited to a deeper appreciation of the perfection that is tantalisingly visible in the crafting of a pencil point, yet will ever elude us.
Just as perfection must ever elude the author of any book. I might point out that The Master, whose veneration of accuracy verges on (but never quite o’ersteps the bounds of) pedantry, would under no circumstances have written “site” for “sight”, as appears on page 96. I suspect some publisher’s minion, jealous of an attainment that will forever be beyond their grasp, of deliberately inserting this homophonous error. Perhaps the same saboteur that misleadingly and entirely erroneously placed this book in the “Humor” category. (I apologise most profusely to my readership for the appalling lack of a ‘u’ in Humor, here. I am quoting directly from the back cover of the book and cannot be held responsible.)
Yet there remains one baffling omission: nowhere does The Master address the pressing issue of pocket-sharpener maintenance, other than simple cleaning of the egress slot. It is surely necessary to, as occasion demands, remove the blade with a small screwdriver (of a type common to jewellers and electricians), and polish the flat of it on a suitable whetstone, re-shape the bevel on same, and return it to the sharpener body, being careful to replace the screw snugly to prevent it falling out, thus freeing the blade with potentially serious consequences, but not so snugly as to render future removal for re-sharpening unnecessarily laborious. This simple process can in many cases transform a lacklustre sharpener.
Here, I also must point out that in my time as a cabinet-maker, I was wont to sharpen pencils with a very sharp chisel, and for the finest point, a small hand plane. This is, I admit perhaps beyond the scope of the specialist pencil sharpening professional, but I would, if pressed, be willing to demonstrate these techniques for the edification and delight of fellow enthusiasts.
Neither of these lacunae are sufficiently serious to detract from the overwhelming excellence of this book; I mention them in the spirit of the ambitious pursuit of perfection that so imbues this work.
This book is not just for Christmas: it is, like puppies, for life.

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Amazon gets the middle finger

If you use Amazon (and most people do), then you may have noticed that they have changed the “Also Boughts” section on the product pages. It used to be a pretty reliable way of seeing what other people, who like the same things you do, have found interesting enough to buy. It also worked as free advertising for the producers of those things. Recently, Amazon decided it wanted a bigger chunk of the online advertising business (currently dominated by Google and Facebook), and got rid of the “Also Boughts”, replacing that section with paid adverts. This is worse for you (the recommendations aren't ‘natural'- they are chosen for you by whoever is willing to pay the most for your attention) and much worse for all writers: most authors are reporting earnings drops of between 30 and 40%. I'm not down that badly, but it's still a very noticeable drop in revenue.

This is annoying. I thought it might help matters to get some more reviews, so I just sent this request to my email list.

In my opinion it is unethical to offer incentives for reviews. How can other readers be sure that the review is genuine, if you've been paid for it in some way by the author? So I have a simple favour to ask. If you have read any of my books and not yet left a review, I would be very grateful if you would do so. You can find all of my books on my Amazon Author Page. If you'd be so kind as to click on that link, find the books of mine that you've read, and spend a couple of minutes rating them and writing a review, it would help enormously. Reviews sell books, and the more books I sell, the more people get a good start in historical swordsmanship, and the more money I have for research trips, writing time, and so on. It's a win-win.

But that got me thinking. Why, if Amazon clearly doesn't give a toss about me or my work, should I be sending them all this traffic? So then I looked into possible alternatives. It turns out that the print on demand service, IngramSpark, that I use for almost all my books, has a direct webshop facility. At the moment it is only available to US residents (damn it), but I have thrown one together at great speed, which has all of my books that I have distribution rights to, as well as a bunch of others that I have read and enjoyed or found useful (or both).

I need to add a lot more books to it, of course- is there anything you think I've missed? I've got books on woodwork, and fiction, and HMA resources. Unfortunately a lot of great books are published using other POD and distribution systems (eg I can't add books by Freelance, which would include my own Dagger book, as well as a bunch more really good titles), but the Ingram catalogue runs to the millions of titles.

And I need to add proper product descriptions and such like. This is very much an early-days work in progress, and I'll put more effort into it if you all think it's a good idea. And even more if Ingram get off their US-centric behinds and open it up to the rest of the world's readers.

Let me know in the comments or by email…

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Rapier Workbook #1 print-at-home files now free or pay what you want

Volume 2 of the new Rapier Workbook series is back from layout, and looking pretty spiffy. It will be going to the printers next week. Huzzah!

Volume 2 won't be so useful if you don't already have volume 1. You can get beautifully printed copies from the distributor here, or buy the print files to have printed locally or print them at home. I've set the pricing for the print files to “Pay what you want“. You can have them for free, or you can pay a million dollars for them (go on, I dare you), or anything in between. Just put the number in the price box, and that's what you pay.

You might think I'm mad for doing that, but here's my reasoning:

1) My readers are honest. If they say they can't afford the book, then they can't. But it costs me nothing to allow them to download it anyway, and that way they will get better at swordsmanship, which is the point of writing this book in the first place. Win-win.

2) My readers are generous when they can be. Some people will pay *more* than the suggested price, because they want to support my work.

3) Printing books at home is ok, but professional printing is usually much better. So some people will download the files for free, and then decide they can't live another day without the printed version.

4) This is the first book in a series. If you like the workbook format, and like my writing and teaching style, you're likely to go buy volume 2 when it comes out. Then volume 3, and 4.

So, not mad at all, I think!

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Editing woes

Good writing advice often includes ‘get rid of all unnecessary words'. The awesome Zinsser says as much in his must-read On Writing Well, and he's right. But one can go too far.

Why is it that editors these days, especially the ones that live in your own head, want to pare everything down to the barest possible minimum? Imagine this:

“A rippling shade of spotted fur prowled across the Throne Room floor, towards where the Maharajah was ensconced in royal splendour. A fat, slack-jawed man, with the petulance that comes from having every whim obeyed since birth, and the ruthlessness needed to get and keep a throne in these troubled times. The leopard padded silently to her accustomed place. No bare stone floor for this pampered favourite, no. A dozen artisans had slaved a year to make the carpet that she would lie on. A delicate pattern, pleasing to man and the Gods, woven in silken reds and blues. Arriving, the leopard, muscles undulating under the glossy pelt, turned around once, twice, and then settled her haunches down. Head high, she surveyed the room, the courtiers and servants, silks and cottons, all falling beneath her gaze. The light streaming in from the high filigreed windows caught at a jewel on her collar, any one of which could grace a crown.”

If we follow that advice to the letter, we would end up with this:

The cat sat on the mat.

Really. Pare everything away, and you end up with what, exactly? A shopping list? An email to someone you don’t like enough to describe stuff to?

Call me prolix if you will, overblown even, but really, people don’t go visit the Louvre for its pared-back modern architecture. They go for the bling.

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Progress Report

I'm back from an excellent trip to the USA, to speak at the Hero Round Table conference in Michigan. I'll write up that event properly when they have uploaded my talk to Youtube; the whole thing was live-streamed, so you may have seen it already.

I don't dare watch it.

This weekend I'm dashing off again, to Ireland, to attend the ISHC event near Shannon. The event page is Facebook only, so apologies for my FB-free readers.

I'm cracking on with editing volume 2 of my new Rapier Workbook series. The videos are now all edited, done and dusted, and I'm about to send the text off to the editor.

I ran a poll, as you may recall, to find out what my readers actually want: the choice was: pay extra for good printing and more expensive shipping, pay less for cheaper printing and distribution, or buy the print files. Here's how that worked out:

I'll be very interested to see whether 55% of sales are actually for the print files. There's usually quite a lot of discrepancy between what people *say* they want and what they'll actually buy. (And that's fine, normal, I do it too.)

Volume 1 is available to buy in best-print-damn-the-shipping from here

And if you prefer to print it yourself, you can buy the print files from here.

See you in Ireland?

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Rapier Beginners Workbook is now in print!

Right-handed layout. The QR code works, btw.

I received the print proof of the new rapier workbook, and it looks great. The paper quality is much better than at Lulu (the other printing option), and the printing itself is excellent. I have put in the order for a limited print run, which will be distributed by Fallen Rook Press. That's for the Right-Handed version only; there was a slight issue with the Left-Handed cover file, so that will come about a week later, all being well. You can still pre-order the left-handed version, of course.

For my long-distance readers, what makes most sense to you:

  1. Paying the horrid shipping costs to get the ‘proper' version of the book
  2. Sacrificing some print quality for cheaper distribution (eg through Lulu)
  3. Buying the print files to print at home or locally (so you would be able to order whatever kind of paper, binding etc. that you want).

I've put together a Google form so you can tell me… I'm planning to do 3 anyway, but I need to know whether 2 is worth the extra costs to me (Lulu's margins are terrible, and the lower-quality printing might be disappointing to some readers).

Please share the form with anyone you think might want the workbook!

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Unveiling the new workbook format!

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to teach swordsmanship through books and videos. It’s not a simple problem, not least because every student is different, and has different needs and preferences. How the material should be ordered and presented, what photos may be needed, how much explanation is sufficient (oddly, more is not usually better — just enough for them to be able to start playing with it is usually much more effective). 

When it comes to organising the material, there are basically two options: the organisation that best suits modern practitioners learning an unfamiliar physical skill, and the organisation that best suits modern historians learning an unfamiliar theoretical construct. For the former, starting with basic motion the student can do, then giving them good practical reasons for modifying them in the direction of the desired style gets the best results. For the latter, an annotated edition of the source text is my preferred approach (such as The Art of Sword Fighting in Earnest). 

When it comes to learning movements, video is of course vastly better than static photographs. Nothing beats in-person instruction, of course. But at least on video your mirror neurones can go crazy copying the feeling of the motion. 

I’m an avid note-taker, to the point that I make my own notebooks because I just can’t get them the way I like any other way. Moleskine? Crap paper. Leuchstemr? They’re ok, maybe, but the layouts are never quite right. A good notebook must lay flat, be made of archival paper that takes fountain-pen ink nicely, be robust enough to throw in a pocket or bag, and so on. At my seminars, I see lots of students taking notes- on their phones, on scraps of paper, even in beautiful leather bound journals with purple ink. 

So I have been thinking about ways of combining the virtues of a notebook, a text book, and video courses, and have come up with a workbook format that has it all.

  • Clear references to the source? Check.
  • Links and QR codes to video clips? Check.
  • Option to download all clips to go train in places with no wifi? Check.
  • Plenty of room to take notes? Check.
  • Left-handers are covered too: every video is shown both ways, and there will be a version of the workbooks that have the space for notes on the left-hand page.

I’m working on the assumption that this format will not work for everyone: some will just prefer proper books, and some just want 100% video. But I think there is a large number of people between those two extremes for whom this will be a game-changer in terms of learning swordsmanship without a formal teacher in the room.

If this seems like a great idea to you, I have a question. How would you like the notes area to be presented? Currently I have left the space completely blank, as that’s what I would prefer. But should it have a box round it? Would you like it lined (for handwriting guides)? If lined, heavy, or light? Spacing?

Tell me your preferences and I can take them into account…

Let me know in the comments below, or by email to guywindsor@gmail.com

I’m currently working on three different series: Rapier, Armizare, and Fiore’s Longsword. 

The Rapier Series

Book 1: This covers the fundamentals, from holding the sword, footwork, guards, and basic actions. This is now done, in final layout, and I’m looking for a better print on demand solution.

Book 2: Complete the Basics. This is about half-written, and will cover all the basic actions, including passes, voids, feints, and so on.

Book 3: Skill Development. This is about turning your rapier knowledge into fencing skill, and will include a lot of material on coaching practice.

Book 4: Rapier and Dagger. Once you have a solid grounding in single rapier, you really should get your other hand into play…

The Armizare series will approximately follow the first four levels of the Swordschool Basic Syllabus, which includes wrestling and dagger plays as part of teaching the Longsword material. You can see the syllabus here: 

The Fiore’s Longsword series: this will be an annotated interpretation of the Longsword sections of Il Fior di Battaglia, going through the source play by play, with video clips of how I do each action, and detailed discussion of why.

I’m also thinking about doing workbooks on conditioning, and on teaching.

Many years ago, in the tv show Friends, episode “The One with the Princess Leia Fantasy” Rachel persuades Ross to tell him his fantasy (which you can guess from the episode title) by saying “if you tell me, I might do it”.

https://youtu.be/GhMPmt5hyVc?t=1m2s

Of course, it doesn’t quite work out that way for poor Ross, but if there are any elements of the format you’d like me to tweak, change, or add to, now would be a good time to let me know. And if there are any topics you’d like to see workbooks on, feel free to ask… if you ask me, I might write it…

The first workbook is currently uploaded to Lulu, from whence came the printed copy you see in the photos. The layout is not final- the book is being proofread at the moment, and it will be professionally laid out to improve the look, so don’t worry about that at this stage. My concern is the print quality. The paper stock is quite thin (60#, or about 90gsm), and while it seems to take fountain pen ink without too much bleed  through, you can see images from the other side through the paper. See here:

Finding better quality printing is not hard, but I do not want to spend any part of my working day packing and shipping books, so I needed a print-on-demand printer with distribution, that can do a better printing job than Lulu. Lulu do offer better paper, but only with a full colour interior, which is literally ten times more expensive (even if the internal print file is black and white- you still pay for colour). Ingram Spark don’t do spiral bound, and these workbooks must lie flat, so they’re out. Kindle Print don’t have better stock quality than Lulu, so they’re out. Blurb have the same colour-option problem as Lulu.

This has lead me to partner up with Fallen Rook Publishing, run by Keith Farrell. He uses print on demand with distribution too, but he also uses short print runs and distributes books himself. So when this goes live in a couple of weeks, there will be an option to buy the print files from my Gumroad account if you want to faff about printing them at home (or can print it out for free at work), or you can buy the printed books from Fallen Rook. While you’re there, they have a ton of other interesting books you might also want to pick up…

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The Art of Sword Fighting in Earnest Ebook now ready!

Good news for Vadi fans! The black and white paperback edition of The Art of Sword Fighting in Earnest is now at the printers- I expect to see a proof copy next week- and the ebook edition is now live!

I’ve put together an ebook bundle for you here. This includes the full-colour PDF, as well as the e-reader friendly black and white version (without the facsimile), in EPUB, PDF, and Kindle formats. It is the only place where you can get the colour PDF.

Previous buyers of Veni Vadi Vici (in any format from any platform) can get the bundle for free: just email me and ask for it, and I'll send you a link.

This volume includes a detailed introduction, setting Vadi and his combat style in their historical context, a complete full-colour facsimile of the manuscript, and a detailed commentary from the perspective of the practising martial artist.

You can also get the ebook on your book-shop-website of choice. Except for the pdf which is only available through the bundle, all ebook formats are in black and white, and do not include a facsimile of the manuscript, though they do include a link to a resources page that has the scans.

For Kindle or Hardback, you can try the world's longest river: Amazon US, UK, AU, CA. You can also find it by searching for this product code on any other Amazon site: B07F889KFY

It is also available on Kobo here, and will be on iBooks here.

Not a medieval Italian longsword fan? Fair enough. You might find the pre-release deal for my upcoming Rapier course more interesting…

Remember to share this with your friends!

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Guy Windsor: a website all about the Renaissance Italian martial arts expert who blends historical accuracy with practical training.