Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Writing is about belief. Belief in yourself, that you have something worthwhile to say, and the ability to express it well enough that other minds, hearts, people, could be touched by the words you have put to paper. Your thoughts, your emotions, become glyphs to be viewed and …
Continue reading Riffing on belief in writing, and a confused relationship with whales.
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Dio song as origin of this blog's title. I took an unannounced week off here, because I took a week off there, in work-land. I had high hopes for this week. My pool game continues to improve. I really need to start blogging about that so I can …
Continue reading It’s like broken glass, you get cut before you see it…
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! As some of you may know, I’m passing fond of the game of pool. This does connect to writing, bear with me. Since before the pandemic I had lost most of my pool playing mojo. I stopped playing in my last league in December of 2019, thinking I …
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! So nice to see you! I blog therefore I am. You read (and like) and therefore you are? I have no idea. But I’d like to hope you are real: an audience of bots and AI scraping around for usable data that isn’t already AI generated would be …
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Pusillanimous. A long time ago a girl asked me what word she was thinking. I said pusillanimous, thinking it a fancy word she’d be deeply unlikely to be thinking (and which I didn’t understand the meaning of, I just liked the way it sounded, an upmarket purple of …
Continue reading Hyperfactual transmission: A new origin for an old phrase
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 the occasional relative! I have had two full strength coffees. I should be powered up beyond belief. But I ate two grotesquely sugared cookies (I was sugar free for about 5 months this year and fell off the wagon just before Hallowe’en, not a good time to give in to temptation! …
Continue reading Jazzed to Sluggishly Meet you, My dear Boswell.
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 …
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 …
Continue reading The Distraction of Ideas and the Need for Careful Construction
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! I have recently experienced an epiphany. I’ve always written fantasy. Soon # 3 will be out, (my proof of a printed version is complete, and many benefits to the text have been obtained by that tactile appraisal of the text) and again, like the first two I have …
Continue reading Finding Voice in a Language Neglected: the Long Road Towards Mastery of Scots
Roderick T. Macdonald 