Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! How many times shall I read thee? Let me count the ways. Again. Minor advice column for writers this week. Lessons learned from my own repeated experience as a fellow traveller in the writing trenches. Copy editing progress continues. Depending on how I measure it I am …
Tag: Encouragement
Sifting dust for diamonds on the Long Road.
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Good news bad news this week. The good news is that despite a barrel-load of distractions hitting me, I managed to review sixty pages of copy-edited text this week, well over a fifth of the entire manuscript. The bad news is that is not proofing is it? I …
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The Writing Life: Acknowledging the slowdown
Hello my friends and the occasional relative! Today is a mea culpa kind of day. I’ve done some more tinkering, but have not significantly advanced in my last pass over the new novel. I’m stuck at the reworking of a conversation: I thought I had a correct angle for the insertion of needed extras, but …
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Sometimes it pays to stop, and remember
Hello My friends and the occasional relative! On a wall, in a bathroom, lived a laminate. Beneath that laminate the chipboard swelled, and grew warped with time, but for years I beheld the message that laminate traced for me, and like it or not, some of the phrases never left me, or versions of them …
A Quiet Week and SPFBO 8 cohort #9
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! This week has been a slow one in terms of achievements and deadlines because my next deadline is August 12th, when all my feedback on The Slaves and the Djinn (still debating that title, by the way) is due back. I received more feedback this week, and it …
43 Problems
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! So yes, I have 43 problems to solve in my rewrites. 43 questions or comments left to myself in the text. Some are thankfully minor, a note to self to change a sentence, or even a word. (Yes, one word changes can be a nightmare, just let me …
The Slaves and The Djinn—Weekly Update
Hello friends and the occasional relative! (FatoR™, for future reference.) Yes, I know, this is crazy, how many weeks in a row has it been now? Five? Motivation, deadlines, and the very act of doing this update and not wanting to miss my weekly target is keeping me gloriously focused. I am aware this could …
Changes in Perspective
In the month since I released my second book I have realised something. I was afraid of hard work after releasing my first book. I know why, it was because I read advice online, watched videos that said and repeated the message that a book on its own is nothing, that an author must have …
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 …
The Writing Life: Momentum
Another rapid freehand blog today. Which means five plus edits after publication - my apologies to those of you who get version one mailed to you! My face is hot. I think because I've been talking for hours. To myself. I've been reading The Killer and The Dead aloud, and I'm here to say (thankfully …
Roderick T. Macdonald 