I have recently been watching booktube videos addressed to authors: readers expressing their opinions on what they do and do not like in fantasy, what they would like to see in new books, and what just won’t cut it anymore. Of course these are just opinions, and if an author tried to satisfy every desire …
Category: Writing
The Writing Life: Ain’t No Way But The Hard Way
So it has been a while. I was going to call this Breaking the Silence II, but I decided to share this song with you instead. When I am in the guts of a pool match, and I or my team are a long way behind, I think of that song, and dig in to …
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Why I Write Fantasy: 30 Minute Fiction Edition
Okay, I have a stopwatch, and I'm not afraid to use it. I'm going to give myself 30 minutes, no more or less, and I will stop when the alarm goes off and post the result. Check out this post to get some background on the piece I shall be presenting to you. Ok, time to …
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Why I Write Fantasy: To be Stymied by a Power Outage.
All right then, so I'm going to have a go at belting out something that might approach an idea I've been toying with: to write fictional commentaries on my next novel, The Killer and The Dead. Now before you decide I have disappeared entirely up my own fundament, TKATD is structured as a first person narrative …
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The Writing Life: SPFBO Time
Hello everyone, This time last year I didn't pay attention and missed out on entering The Thief and The Demon into the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. This year I did. As of time of writing there are 163 entries into the competition, so if you have a self-published fantasy novel out there for sale which is …
The Writing Life: Chopsticks and Dust
Sometimes you just have to start writing in order to get anywhere. This is another made up as I go along blog - welcome to spontaneity land! I am still editing. That basement full of dust covered tables? I'm working on them with chopsticks, one tiny clump at a time. I can't say it's ideal, …
The Writing Life: 107 & 1/2 steps to go…
Yep, I’m not making it up. In the two weeks since I last posted a blog I have managed to get just over halfway through step 1 of my intended 108+ steps to victory and final completion of The Killer and The Dead. I’m rethinking some of the steps. This is the rabbit hole folks. …
The Writing Life: 108+ Steps from Victory (Or – Keyword Search Hell Awaits!)
You know, I really wanted to be done with The Killer and The Dead by now. I haven’t fallen victim to perfectionism, honest. What has happened is I have realized in the course of reading the book again, that in addition to making semi-final additions to the manuscript for clarity, plot, and theme advancement, and …
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Why I Write Fantasy: To Explore the Meta
To be honest, in writing The Killer and The Dead I didn’t set out to explore aspects of metafiction, which I define as fiction that interrogates itself, and that can operate in a separate space in the reader’s mind beyond merely the ingestion and understanding of the narrative: it just kind of happened. In meta …
The Writing Life: Imagining Success
Hi there folks! I did finally finish my vocalization of The Killer and The Dead today, and many improvements have been made, and a mere thirty two notes to self generated. You know, changes, continuity checks, questions for proofers and beta readers, that kind of thing. I’m still a few steps away from hitting the …
