Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Writing a novel is often a question of timing and willpower. I’m at that cross-roads right now. I’ve been putting together the collage of pieces and the opening is taking firmer shape with later chronology tightening. I’m beginning to do pieces of connective writing and elaboration. My pre-story …
Continue reading Willpower, Timing, and a Return to Strange Highways
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 …
I’ve been meaning to write about the struggles of managing work and writing for a long time. I’ve written, or tried to write in a lot of different circumstances, and it is hard to say which, if any, has been the best option. Obsessive teen living on a farm with not much else to do? …
Continue reading The Writing Life: Work and Writing Part 1: The Overview
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 title pretty much says it all, folks. When I’m writing, I’m constantly needing to research things: medieval clothing, swords of various eras, ships, rigging, rope names, sewer system management, tidal estuaries, mercantile societies and the role of guilds within said societies, pre-industrial food staples in different parts of the world, the burial rites of …
Continue reading The Writing Life: Everything Requires Research
Life has recently gotten a lot busier for me. I’ve started a new job. I’ve set a final editorial schedule for my next book. I’ve got a panel to moderate at Denver Comic Con. Each of these three things takes up time, and mental energy. I have a lot to learn, a lot to do, …
Roderick T. Macdonald 