Ah, my writing holiday is almost over, as I get the developmental edits on The Killer and The Dead back tomorrow. I have one more night of imagining I’ll get a note of stunned awe, and thanks for writing such a thing of searing beauty. And writers out there, you do hope for that kind …
Tag: Advice
The Hammer and the Fall
In creative life, many do not appreciate the time taken between the hammer and the fall. Now I’m going to be all metal and talk about hammers and striking and forging, but the metaphor could just as easily be the time taken between the seed and the flower, and be about soil and water and …
The Writing Life: Taking a Writing Holiday
So I had this plan (not for a giant wooden badger) to start writing the first draft of my next book while The Killer and The Dead is off getting developmentally edited. You know, use the time, maximize my word counts, get the first few chapters of The Slavegirl and the Traveller banged out and …
Why I Write Fantasy: Morality, Culture, and Character Creation
So folks, while it is fresh in my mind I thought I’d reiterate what I thought was one of the central points discussed during our panel at Denver Comic Con. (Thank you once again to my fab panelists!) And that is this: I feel that paying attention to the culture a character grows up in, …
Continue reading Why I Write Fantasy: Morality, Culture, and Character Creation
The Writing Life: Sometimes Sleep is the Answer
The list of things to do in the writing life never seems to get smaller. Not only that, but as you move forward and learn more about what you can do to improve your writing and further your career, you can’t help but run into things you probably should have done earlier. Much earlier. It …
Continue reading The Writing Life: Sometimes Sleep is the Answer
The Writing Life: Definitions of Success
It’s a long road I took to publishing my own book, and being comfortable with calling myself a writer. A longer road than I would advise most other folk to take. But the good thing about taking the scenic route is I’ve made sure by now of what I want, and what I’m prepared to …
The Writing Life: Everything Requires Research
The title pretty much says it all, folks. When I’m writing, I’m constantly needing to research things: medieval clothing, swords of various eras, ships, rigging, rope names, sewer system management, tidal estuaries, mercantile societies and the role of guilds within said societies, pre-industrial food staples in different parts of the world, the burial rites of …
Continue reading The Writing Life: Everything Requires Research
Why I Write Fantasy: The Recurring Ideas That Won’t Let Go
I write fantasy stories because ideas for them keep popping into my head, almost always when I am in no position to write them down or record them. Life’s ironic like that. When I’m half-awake is a classic, that’s when ideas for dramatic situations come to me, cliffhangers without the set up that my still …
Continue reading Why I Write Fantasy: The Recurring Ideas That Won’t Let Go
Why I Write Fantasy: A Question of Morality, Part 4: A Clash of Codes
You can check out earlier discussions of morality in fantasy writing here, here, and here. This one goes long, as I felt the need for examples to make sense of what I was saying, so saddle up! This week let’s talk about something a little tricky – the minefield where morality and ethics meet, because …
Continue reading Why I Write Fantasy: A Question of Morality, Part 4: A Clash of Codes
The Writing Life: Doubts Part 5: How I Made My Peace with Doubt (Or: How I Reduced Doubt to the Guerilla War Option Only. Or: Be The Shark)
That’s a lengthly title. But for me an accurate one. I have not defeated doubt, I have not cast it into the outer darkness to lie impotent and weeping. I have, like the demon in my book, cut it down to a manageable size, and reduced it to fighting me at the page by page …
Roderick T. Macdonald 