In the land of my birth the bells are soon to ring announcing the New Year. Scotland has a rich tradition of celebrating New Year's eve (Hogmanay) and day, exchanging presents, first footing, the whole thing, much of it now fading into history. I did get to be a dark haired youth as is traditional …
A Christmas Post
I could have said Holiday Post, and been PC, but for me, it is Christmastime. Which feels like a dodgy word, doesn't it? I thought it was made up for the song "Feed the World". Is it real and recognised by dictionaries? I should look that up. (It is in Merriam's apparently!) I like Christmastide …
Time and Money
Time is perhaps taken for granted too often, frittered away on frivolities. We know our time is theoretically limited, but live in a seemingly endless bubble of the mostly unchanging present. Money is always there in our calculations of what we can do with our time. Our time can be prisoner to our available money. …
Deadlines and Delays
I had a plan, a desire to be done with my editing and ready to go with my book by October the 31st. That is now a few days ago. I done missed my deadline. I knew I would. It did, however, make me work and advance my project significantly. Not as far as I'd …
Critter 1.5: The Waiting Game
Waiting for responses to your writing is a writers lot. Pieces you send your friends. To your editor. Finally, and most heart-stoppingly, to an agent or publisher. Or out into the world as an e-book. The ritual, I would imagine, remains the same. You tell yourself it is done, that you need to stop fussing …
The writer and the pool player. 10 similarities.
This could have ended up as one of those Chuck Norris style lists of things that would look great on T-shirts, but there are paragraphs. I could have cornered the market in pool players who write and writers who shoot pool. My retirement plans remain on hold. And without further ado... 1) Almost anyone can …
Continue reading The writer and the pool player. 10 similarities.
Critter One: Critiquing others
So I'm writing this book. And I think it is pretty good. I have written books in the past. A couple when I was in my mid teens that were energetic, in an unstructured and made up as I went along kind of way, which were fun to write until I ran out of steam …
Who are you? What do you want?
With credit to Babylon 5 and the heady days of the Shadow War when intergalactic elder races asked key characters these very same questions. (Incidentally, said war infeasibly ended just six episodes into season four after three seasons of build up. Incredibly the show just got better for it, at least through to the end …
Deadlines and Decisions
I have, in these last few months, been trying to work out a schedule for myself that allows me to work most efficiently on my book. In my fantastically procrastinatory fashion, I have spent more time wondering about how to efficiently work, than efficiently working. Stuff keeps getting in the way. Things keep happening. Highly …
The Madness of Poets. (No offence)
Funny thing happened on the way to the forum... That line used to mean something and anyone who read it would know what it meant and what it alluded to. Now some folk - no-one reading this, of course - could be forgiven for looking at this blog site and wondering where the forum tab …
Roderick T. Macdonald 