Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Updates and talk about stories. Formatting is go. It wasn’t exactly in place last week, which was concerning me. Now the text will probably be in place well before the cover art. I am relieved because I wanted to have the old gang back together for this third …
Continue reading Update and random thoughts about story creation and execution
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! I managed not to go see Alien: Romulus a third time this weekend. I did look at the times though. It was still in an Imax near me, I was tempted. I am a massive fan of The Crow. Saw the 1994 movie four times at the cinema. …
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! My apologies. I'm a big Alien fan, so I'm going to blather on about Romulus again. But this is the last time. For now. I have made progress on my targets from last week, will update you later. The second viewing of A:R. Spoilers Spoilers Spoilers. You have …
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Not a Tuesday? I just had to write and share this instantly, with little in the way of self-editing in order to provide a raw reaction. It's not short. I still ended up thinking about things not related to the movie as I talked, but here it is …
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! The dog days of summer are again ended. I wrote about that last year, and what a sweet summer child I was, thinking I would be done with rewrites in 4-6 weeks with grammar checks and proofing to follow. Well, a mere year later, those stages are done. …
I attended a memorial service for Loleen Ballinger this past weekend. Loleen was someone I met through pool. She was on the first league team I played in, and the last, and most of the teams in between. From the first day I knew her, I understood she had breathing issues as she was irritated …
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! How many times can a book be finished? Many many times. Given that, I have finished making the final proofing corrections. So from my perspective the book is done. I will still read it again, because the last thing I did was a specific word check, and as …
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Final proofing progress now 63%. Getting there. This meant sadly that my self-directed learning has slowed considerably, but hey ho, progress on the book comes first. I did find time to flesh out some more ideas for the next book, writing down what has been percolating in my …
Continue reading The Distraction of Ideas and the Need for Careful Construction
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! 19% of the way through updating my manuscript for the last time. Not long now, and I’m extremely ready to be finished with it. Having said that, I’m very pleased with this last pass – final improvements have been made. This is why writers can tinker forever – …
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! I have recently experienced an epiphany. I’ve always written fantasy. Soon # 3 will be out, (my proof of a printed version is complete, and many benefits to the text have been obtained by that tactile appraisal of the text) and again, like the first two I have …
Continue reading Finding Voice in a Language Neglected: the Long Road Towards Mastery of Scots
Roderick T. Macdonald 