Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Spoiler alert: what follows below is an additional apprentice's report upon the story told by Stahl in The Killer and The Dead. There are seven already present at the end of the novel. Yep, I included commentaries on my story at the end of the story: I thought …
Continue reading The Killer and The Dead: The Jaded Apprentice’s Report
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! It is story time once again. BUT, before I get to that I want to let those of you waiting with bated breath for a book update: the book is complete. Proofing is go. We are into the next, one step closer to final, phase. This week I’m …
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! It is story time once again. My series of old ideas rolls on. #1 here, #2 here, # 3 here, # 4 here and #5 here. These are scraps of writing I have mostly probably discarded as the basis for a larger story (one I will share I …
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Yes it all gets rather confusing now, doesn’t it. SPFBO 9 is now up and running, but I’m still doing my vague reviews from SPFBO 8 and I’m on my 7th book. Voracious reader, me. (Too much internet, too little book is the truth.) Book 7 was better …
Continue reading Reading my SPFBO8 cohort #7, with finishing rant about AI (again), and 19 problems
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! So yes, I have 43 problems to solve in my rewrites. 43 questions or comments left to myself in the text. Some are thankfully minor, a note to self to change a sentence, or even a word. (Yes, one word changes can be a nightmare, just let me …
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! This is my sixth attempt at writing this column. I'm not saying this is the best, it's just the one I'm willing to share right now. Once I was a boy with shining dreams. Fantasy fiction, of my own making and the stories I enjoyed reading, were an …
Continue reading Why I Write Fantasy: Managing the Disconnect.
Hello friends and the occasional relative. Unbelievably, I am sick again. Kicked in yesterday, and now I have a hot head full of cotton wool, where thoughts sluggishly drift and dissipate. It is a huge pain in my backside, but for today, medicated up to my eyeballs to manage symptoms as best I can, I …
Hello friends and the occasional relative! I know, weekly update, don’t expect this to be a long-term thing. I’m having a burst of consistent output, which is fabulous, I have a deadline, which is motivating, and I’m writing, which is the whole point. So I’ve written another couple of chapters of The Slaves and The …
Continue reading Coffee-Fueled Digressopedia, and Book Update
Hello friends and the occasional relative! (yes, I may use this as a tag line from now on). I have been asked to give you all an update on my progress in the wonderful, if grim, World Belt. The Slaves and The Djinn (a slightly more upbeat title than The Killer and The Dead I …
It is happening! Find the fun community on Facebook here! My plan is to read all of the books drawn into my group of 30 before the axe starts to fall. Ok, before the end of phase one. I've read one so far. I liked it, but it was somewhat tonally uneven. There were some …
Roderick T. Macdonald 