Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Each week can bring surprising changes. A couple of weeks ago I wasn’t thinking I’d be leaving this house any time soon. Now there are floor plans and to do lists. Last week when I wrote my blog I didn’t know I’d be offered the chance to have …
Tag: Fantasy
Update and random thoughts about story creation and execution
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Updates and talk about stories. Formatting is go. It wasn’t exactly in place last week, which was concerning me. Now the text will probably be in place well before the cover art. I am relieved because I wanted to have the old gang back together for this third …
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Updates and Lost Dreams (Literal lost dreams – there is nothing grandly melancholy in this blog at all, FYI.)
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! I managed not to go see Alien: Romulus a third time this weekend. I did look at the times though. It was still in an Imax near me, I was tempted. I am a massive fan of The Crow. Saw the 1994 movie four times at the cinema. …
Done, in more ways than One
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! How many times can a book be finished? Many many times. Given that, I have finished making the final proofing corrections. So from my perspective the book is done. I will still read it again, because the last thing I did was a specific word check, and as …
The Distraction of Ideas and the Need for Careful Construction
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Final proofing progress now 63%. Getting there. This meant sadly that my self-directed learning has slowed considerably, but hey ho, progress on the book comes first. I did find time to flesh out some more ideas for the next book, writing down what has been percolating in my …
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The streak is broken… Long Live the Streak!
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Well, I let a Tuesday slip by me at last without a blog produced! It was as inevitable as rain. In Scotland. But I have to say it was a surprise to me. I mean I thought I was going to write one at least twice yesterday, and …
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Escape Velocity Achieved, New World Sighted.
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! I did not remain in editing hell, my friends, though I am grateful I visited, because I fixed two small issues that came out on the multiple repeated passes I made as I chased some words and phrases through the text. In short controlled bursts. One would have …
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A short controlled burst of Editing Hell
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! It was just a couple of things, honest. I have opened the door to editing hell. I was just checking where the eyes were, none glued to anything inappropriate in the text, as can sometimes happen. I checked because I was reminded of Don McNair’s book on Editor-proofing …
Why am I crying? Because I’m emotional!!
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! So a few weeks ago I’d finished again. Well, now I’ve started again. This is not editing hell. Exactly. But I have felt moved to fix some detail work. I decided to remove all sets of parentheses (there were three), and will give $15 to the first person …
Finances and fitness: it’s not a sprint
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! This week finds me breaking out of one funk, and cognizant of another. First, I have been doing a close reading of the manuscript, and have been noticing the little things that need to be addressed: small fixes for flow. Read 90 pages today, found one misplaced ‘and’ …
Roderick T. Macdonald 