Hello My friends and the occasional relative! On a wall, in a bathroom, lived a laminate. Beneath that laminate the chipboard swelled, and grew warped with time, but for years I beheld the message that laminate traced for me, and like it or not, some of the phrases never left me, or versions of them …
Author: rodericktmacdonald
Writer, pool player.
Find me at rodericktmacdonald.com
53 problems and managing the cascade of consequences
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative. No exclamation point this week, because I am in the middle of it. This is the hard work. Getting down from 855 to 53 was easy. And 53 to zero would be fine if 10-15 of the 53 did not have to be solved by rewriting the opening. …
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855 Problems
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! So yes, I have compiled some feedback files and have 855 problems to address, aside from the need to significantly upgrade the opening chapters, which are much as they were when I first vomited them out in order to get started, and adjust some aspects of the finale …
The Dog Days of Summer
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Strange to use this title when for the first time in many weeks I needed more than a sheet to sleep under last night, after noticing that already the days grow shorter, and on my work days I rise in darkness once again. *Looks up dog days* Ha! …
A Quiet Week and SPFBO 8 cohort #9
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! This week has been a slow one in terms of achievements and deadlines because my next deadline is August 12th, when all my feedback on The Slaves and the Djinn (still debating that title, by the way) is due back. I received more feedback this week, and it …
Time and World Building
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! I’ve talked about world building before. And today I’m going to talk about it again, because I’m trying to get a solid outline of my next book drafted before my deadline for receiving feedback on The Slaves and The Djinn. (August 12th, btw.) Now I intend eventually to …
Story Fragments #1: Hallucinatory Future War story
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! This may become an occasional series: scraps of writing I have mostly probably discarded as the basis for a larger story (one I will share I still have hopes to use - will you guess which one?), but think are worth letting folk have a random look at. …
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Vague Readings of my SPFBO 8 Cohort, #8
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! So in my hiatus from frenzied deadline achievement I have finished the short story I started last week, though it needs to be polished. It is funny, but with a short story you do get a sense of how much you can alter the story by the sheen …
Post-Deadline Musings
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Ah, the period after you send off your work and before you receive any feedback is a magical one, filled with dreams and delusions, words like ‘perfect’ and ‘incredible’, the yearned-for fare of the affirmation seeking author. A golden hour stretched out into days or weeks, to be …
Deadline achieved
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! I have one problem left and I’m leaving it in, for my lovely beta readers to weigh in on directly. Partially because I did not want to say there were no problems left. Because there undoubtedly will be: the ones I can’t see. I felt it, at the …
