Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! I’ve been doing some thinking recently. (Don’t we all? Don’t we all engage in thinking constantly? What does that phrase really mean, when you think about it?) I’ll start again. I have been engaging in a form of creative introspection recently. Life has been throwing distractions and stresses …
Continue reading What to write next? Time to trust the artistic gut
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Last week I talked about trying to remove yourself, or at least your ego, from your writing, to embrace the other, to try to express viewpoints alien from your own. This week, I will entertain a rather different idea. That you cannot escape yourself: that everywhere you go, …
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! I did say I’d see you next week, but I didn’t say which day! I continue to be distracted by life. House selling is very consuming: you move out of your own home in advance, denude it of character so visitors can impress their personalities upon it, see …
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! I’m sorry I missed last’s weeks epistle. Very busy. I thought about posting an introduction to one of my new characters in the not at all fast fiction I am still working on starting, and then decided it just contained too much cool stuff I wasn’t ready to …
Continue reading Publication date for The Gardener and The Goddess
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! I have advanced along the road to publication. I’m getting my formatting down, maybe by the end of my next weekend off. I’m asking questions and getting useful answers, playing with rudimentary tools. I’m not trying to reinvent the formatting wheel here folks, something serviceable and stable will …
Continue reading Time Travel, Prep Work, and not Fighting my Brain
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! I have not made much progress this week. My day job has been rather more demanding recently, but that isn’t the excuse. Or if it is, it’s a bit lame. The book is ready. I have progressed with formatting, but not enough. And the fact is I’m not …
Hello, my friends and occasional relative! I have re-engaged with self-directed learning this week, and have been watching and taking notes from the highly helpful Ellen Brock. I think I first bookmarked a video of hers ten years ago, and only now do I sit down to actually pay close attention! My intention is to …
Continue reading Methodological Madness and Intuitively Plotting your way out of Pantsing!
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! First off: happy Hogmanay! Best wishes to you all in 2025. I wrote a long blog about conflict and co-operation as a follow up to my discussion of complexity and coherence, and rather disappeared up my own fundament in the process, lots of dubious anthropology and theories …
Continue reading The Writing Life: The Treasure in Trash, a Convert’s Tale.
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Front cover is finalized. Paperback and hardback covers are underway. Formatting proceeds, and once that and the print covers are complete I will have a book ready to go. So hopefully all will be in place by the end of this month. Fingers crossed, but monkeys armed with …
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! The front cover is finalized, with paperback and hardback layouts to come. The formatting corrections are in process. I have been brave and put The Killer and The Dead up for review on BookSirens. This is part of my time to embrace new aspects of book business, and …
Roderick T. Macdonald 