Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Stayed up too late last night. Lingering fatigue. Alice in Borderland season one. I normally do not go for mystery box constructed stories, but after watching 2046 recently and remembering my love of Asian cinema in my youth (Hong Kong 80s cinema, Chinese 5th wave and Kurosawa plus …
Continue reading The Triumph of Acceptance over Sabotage, and Updates on my Media Consumption
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Third version of cover has been seen. Close, so close. I have proofed the formatting in the book version of the manuscript. Twenty seven changes later it is complete. Should have been fewer, I know. There were a few hiccups I think I could go back to… but …
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! I proceed apace, copy edit now at 69-72% complete (no graphic), depending upon criteria. Given that positive progress, and multiple walks in wind and sun, my mind has been turning to the next story to obsess me. I wrote two excerpts yesterday, plus a brief reminder to myself …
Continue reading Falling in love with my next novel, one conversation at a time…
No blogs since August? I knew it had been a while, but it is a surprise to see so much time has elapsed, when almost every weekend I have considered writing an update. You know, I finished the verbal read-through, I finished the resolution of my last notes (hahahaha!) on continuity, I finished a proof …
Yep, I’m not making it up. In the two weeks since I last posted a blog I have managed to get just over halfway through step 1 of my intended 108+ steps to victory and final completion of The Killer and The Dead. I’m rethinking some of the steps. This is the rabbit hole folks. …
You get yourself a little momentum going. You think "Yeah, my voice is a little scratchy because I've beeen reading my book out loud, and some tricky parts of it repeatedly, for hours." Nope, you've got that seasonal cold thingy. A brain of snot. Dawesomb. It happens. That strange lightheaded inability to focus because no …
Hello, and Happy New Year, folks! (I'll do a New Year's thought another day.) The copy edit of The Killer and The Dead continues in my basement of dust and glass tables. It ain’t for sissies. But the book is awesome, if I say so myself. I have continued to do 10, or 20, or …
Continue reading The Writing Life: Trust Your Editor and Yourself When Dusting Glass Tables
Today, when not drowning in work, I was thinking about analogies and metaphors and dusty tables. That is all. I also decided that I would set myself a small goal, and if I met it, I’d write a blog saying I had met a small goal. Because that is the kind of thrilling hi-jinks people …
I’ve been gone a while. In this period of absence I’d like to say I’ve been finishing off the edits to The Killer and The Dead. Nope. I’ve been working, dieting (dieting takes a whole lot of my mental energy, it turns out – I really have to focus on not eating, hahaha!), and doing …
Continue reading The Writing Life: The Dusty Road to Copy Edit Completion
I would like to thank Steven Craig and Parker Performing Arts School for inviting myself and the ever excellent Cheryl Carpinello in for a sequence of Q&A sessions with four classes of engaged and enthusiastic pupils today. I really enjoyed meeting the students and burbling on at length about many aspects of writing and fantasy …
Continue reading Why I Write Fantasy: To go to a School and try to Explain Why I Write Fantasy
Roderick T. Macdonald 