Time for another attempt by me to ramble on randomly about fantasy and see what falls out. No planning for this blog. I should be in bed already! If you don't have time, the title sums it up and you can stop here! (Added this line in last, haha!) When I consider characters, dilemmas, conflicts, …
Tag: writing
Editing as a cuesport
This is going to be brief, because I should be editing, not blogging. I refer you to this blog. It is far more true now for me than it was a couple of weeks ago! But, here's my quick thought. Anyone who is any good at cuesports, be it pool, snooker, or billiards; often has …
We’ll talk about this later…
But for now I'd like to say I'm "Today's Featured Indie Book Review" on Kirkus. Find it here. I'm pleased with what they have to say. Bottom left of the page. Check it out. EDIT: now that my day in the sun has passed, you can check out the review directly here. And if you …
The Writing Life: Choices in Art
In my recent blog on Bram Stoker’s Dracula I threw in a line that while viewing that film multiple times I chose not to see its flaws. I could, if I wanted, pick away at what some might perceive as problems in the movie, but I chose not to, because I’d much rather enjoy those …
Why I Write Fantasy: The Three Fours #2: Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Oh yeah. The music, the costumes, the saturated colours, the visual style that played with realism and then deliriously ignored it to tell its story in its own defiant way, and managed to sweep me up in it. I watched this movie four times in a rather dilapidated cinema in Dundee, complete with decayed but …
Continue reading Why I Write Fantasy: The Three Fours #2: Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Why I Write Fantasy: The Three Fours #1: Highlander
Spoilers for a 30+ year old movie follow. And for Alien3 too. You've been warned. There are only three movies I’ve paid to see more than once in rapid succession, and each time I ended up seeing the film four times in the theatre. In each case I was lured into the atmosphere of the …
Continue reading Why I Write Fantasy: The Three Fours #1: Highlander
The Writing Life: Gathering Your Thoughts, or Dealing with Developmental Editorial Feedback
So I received my developmental notes for The Killer and The Dead last week. These notes were a collection of thoughtful comments and suggestions on plot, structure, pacing, writing, setting, and character. Plus a ton of in-text comments on specific aspects of the book, good and bad, pointing out places where improvements could be made, …
Why I Write Fantasy: Today’s Reasons
I write fantasy because I want to put words together in magical patterns that cause as much delight in others as putting them down did for me. I write fantasy because I want to say something new in a genre dominated by tradition. I write fantasy because I want to explore strange new worlds and …
The Writing Life: Reading Your Own Writing
Ah, my writing holiday is almost over, as I get the developmental edits on The Killer and The Dead back tomorrow. I have one more night of imagining I’ll get a note of stunned awe, and thanks for writing such a thing of searing beauty. And writers out there, you do hope for that kind …
The Hammer and the Fall
In creative life, many do not appreciate the time taken between the hammer and the fall. Now I’m going to be all metal and talk about hammers and striking and forging, but the metaphor could just as easily be the time taken between the seed and the flower, and be about soil and water and …
Roderick T. Macdonald 