But for now I'd like to say I'm "Today's Featured Indie Book Review" on Kirkus. Find it here. I'm pleased with what they have to say. Bottom left of the page. Check it out. EDIT: now that my day in the sun has passed, you can check out the review directly here. And if you …
Tag: Creativity
The Writing Life: Gathering Your Thoughts, or Dealing with Developmental Editorial Feedback
So I received my developmental notes for The Killer and The Dead last week. These notes were a collection of thoughtful comments and suggestions on plot, structure, pacing, writing, setting, and character. Plus a ton of in-text comments on specific aspects of the book, good and bad, pointing out places where improvements could be made, …
Why I Write Fantasy: Today’s Reasons
I write fantasy because I want to put words together in magical patterns that cause as much delight in others as putting them down did for me. I write fantasy because I want to say something new in a genre dominated by tradition. I write fantasy because I want to explore strange new worlds and …
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 …
The Writing Life: Almost there…
The draft for my editor is almost ready. I'll need the weekend to finish it, but we're almost there. As a result, I really don't have anything to say here. Other than this, haha! Writing is a privilege. I am lucky in my life that I have the inclination, and the time, to write. Many …
Why I Write Fantasy: To Hit Deadlines
Yep, I have one week to deadline on getting my manuscript to my editor for the developmental pass. This means I have a liquid eff ton of work to do in the next seven days, five of which I will be working. Oh yeah. I got a lot done this past weekend, enough so I'm …
The Writing Life: Writing as an Exercise
Part of writing is persisting when you’re not feeling particularly up for it: you’re tired, distracted, unsure, stuck, maybe even bored and wanting to move on, but no, you’ve got to write that next page. Sometimes I’ll just go to bed. Other times I’ll get a cup of tea, play a few racks of pool, …
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, …
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The Writing Life: Distraction and Distillation
Well, I managed to travel and blog, but couldn’t manage it with a visitor in the house. Strange how that happens. On the plus side, it was a fabulous visit, and I played a lot of pool, some of it even quite creditable at times! It is very hard for me to maintain a consistently …
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Roderick T. Macdonald 