Last week, I wrote about the green suitcase in our garage that yielded two world-changing books, the first of which was Nine Princes in Amber. The second book I found in that fateful suitcase (and now that I write about this, it is such a strange happenstance to have so impacted an impressionable child) was …
Continue reading Why I Write Fantasy: A Suitcase of Treasures, Part 2
As I’ve said in other articles, I’ve known forever that I would be a writer, and that I would write fantasy stories. Apart from one cathartic journey into writing nursing fiction, which still had elements of the fantastical (how many nurses find themselves talking to the devil and questioning their own sanity?), all of my …
Continue reading The Writing Life: Being True to Your Instincts
In the mid 70s I lived for a couple of years in the USA. When we moved back to Scotland, a large green suitcase came with us. This piece of luggage lived in our garage for years, and when I eventually explored it, I discovered that among the many odds and ends it housed were …
Continue reading Why I Write Fantasy: A Suitcase of Treasures, Part 1
I tried for years to transform my writing from manuscript to novel on my own, and for years it did not work. Eventually, I recognized that I needed a team. Only through accepting this, that I was not equipped to do it alone, did I finally flourish…and I intend to do a whole lot more …
Like so many others, it is the tales that captured me as a child that have led me to this place where I declare myself a fantasy writer. There were fairy tale collections, those of Grimm and Andersen, and the Ladybird Well-Loved Tales series that each came in their own slim-line hard back with wonderful …
The day has finally arrived. Hard to believe after all this time that the work of writing is done, and I am a published author. My book, The Thief and The Demon, is now available for sale as an e-Book and paperback, online at Amazon.com. It still seems crazy to say that. Now that the …
I have had many plans in my writing life. Or at least I thought they were plans at the time, when in truth they were more like wish lists. Either way, the imagined path has often gone awry. This blog was originally going to be about dealing with when your writing process gets derailed, or …
Only a few days remain. Not to be dramatic or anything, but this is the culmination of a lifetime’s effort, and a childhood dream. However, the important thing is this: I believe I’ve written a book that's worth your time to read. And enjoy rereading. I really do believe this, when I swat away the …
It’s hard to believe I’ve reached this point, but the formatting of my first book is nearing completion. Soon, with the final text and image files in hand, there will be no impediment to launching The Thief and The Demon, only hesitation and the desire for everything to be “just so” before I hit that …
While I’ve always wanted to be a writer, for far too much of my life I wanted to write a first draft, be praised for my creativity, and have that draft magically transformed into a bestseller by some random alchemy that had nothing to do with me working on it myself. I wanted all the …
Roderick T. Macdonald 