Last week, I wrote about the green suitcase in our garage that yielded two world-changing books, the first of which was Nine Princes in Amber. The second book I found in that fateful suitcase (and now that I write about this, it is such a strange happenstance to have so impacted an impressionable child) was …
Continue reading Why I Write Fantasy: A Suitcase of Treasures, Part 2
In the mid 70s I lived for a couple of years in the USA. When we moved back to Scotland, a large green suitcase came with us. This piece of luggage lived in our garage for years, and when I eventually explored it, I discovered that among the many odds and ends it housed were …
Continue reading Why I Write Fantasy: A Suitcase of Treasures, Part 1
I tried for years to transform my writing from manuscript to novel on my own, and for years it did not work. Eventually, I recognized that I needed a team. Only through accepting this, that I was not equipped to do it alone, did I finally flourish…and I intend to do a whole lot more …
Like so many others, it is the tales that captured me as a child that have led me to this place where I declare myself a fantasy writer. There were fairy tale collections, those of Grimm and Andersen, and the Ladybird Well-Loved Tales series that each came in their own slim-line hard back with wonderful …
While I’ve always wanted to be a writer, for far too much of my life I wanted to write a first draft, be praised for my creativity, and have that draft magically transformed into a bestseller by some random alchemy that had nothing to do with me working on it myself. I wanted all the …
I’m not sure if I ever actually chose to be a writer. It seems to have always been with me, as natural as breath. If I had to point to one event that set me on the road, it would be my mother reading me The Hobbit when I was five years old. I was …
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 …
No surprise to anyone who has been there and done this, but the editing process tends to reveal more than it resolves at first. First you find superficial issues to fix, then you think of extra things that could/should be added and removed to make the story better. Then you realise how fat and lazy …
Continue reading Realisations of Reality (I have seen the Mountain)
Well, good morning and welcome to blogpost #1. An exciting day. More for me than you currently as I presently handily outnumber my readership. But nevertheless here the imaginary ‘we’ are, and on we go. I feel like I’m writing an essay for school, so perhaps I should should start by outlining the subject. I …
Roderick T. Macdonald 