Morgan Quaid's Blog
July 3, 2022
MQ Review Crew - ARCs
I'm putting out a call for interested readers who'd like to receive advanced reader copies of some of my books, comics, and graphic novels in exchange for honest reviews.
Three books and two comics currently available for review. Fans of the Seven Hungers series can review books 1 and 2, with the third book in the series dropping in the near future.
Follow the link below if it's of interes:
MQ Review Crew
Cheers
MQ
Three books and two comics currently available for review. Fans of the Seven Hungers series can review books 1 and 2, with the third book in the series dropping in the near future.
Follow the link below if it's of interes:
MQ Review Crew
Cheers
MQ
February 17, 2022
From Novels to Comics?
I'm running a crowdfunding campaign at the moment for a comic called Shadow's Daughter, on the back of a novel of the same name.
It's an interesting process, translating a novel into a comic book series and watching characters come to life in visial form.
It's also fun seeing readers engage with the story and characters in different ways. Comic readers tend to be drawn by the visuals initially ("the first bite is with the eye" as they say), and then dig into the story from there.
It's a half step between novels and television/film in some sense, allowing me to explore different angles and modes of storytelling.
The crowdfunding aspect of this enterprise is something akin to setting up a stall at comicon. You get to flout your wares, meet prospective readers and really put your best foot forward.
I'm loving the interaction with readers and fans and the pagentry of the whole thing.
If you want to know what I mean, check out the link below:
Shadow's Daughter Campaign
Shadow's Daughter the novel will be coming out some time this year, but in the meantime, I'm excited to keep exploring the comic side of the story.
MQ
December 21, 2021
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner
Congratulations to those 5 wonderful readers who won the Whiplash giveaway!
As we speak a thousand little goblin fingers are happily applying ink to paper, plying their craft in candle-lit factories filled with the heady musk of industry. By which I mean, the books are on their way to you! I’ve…been watching a lot of Harry Potter lately.
To those who missed this opportunity, never fear, for there will be other days and other giveaways.
If you are as impatient as I am, feel free to get in touch. There may be a magical surprise waiting for you.
Again…too much Harry Potter.
Cheers
MQ
As we speak a thousand little goblin fingers are happily applying ink to paper, plying their craft in candle-lit factories filled with the heady musk of industry. By which I mean, the books are on their way to you! I’ve…been watching a lot of Harry Potter lately.
To those who missed this opportunity, never fear, for there will be other days and other giveaways.
If you are as impatient as I am, feel free to get in touch. There may be a magical surprise waiting for you.
Again…too much Harry Potter.
Cheers
MQ
October 3, 2021
Ten Years in the Making!
The last ten years has seen me endlessly writing, editing, emailing literary agents, publishers and enjoying the everyday frustrations of being a writer. During that time, I’ve explored (and continue to explore) the world of comics and graphic novels (great fun, but they hit the wallet hard!) self-publishing via Kickstarter and Indiegogo, and practicing the art of persistence.
I’ve heard it said that being a writer is a little like being a boxer. You don’t step into the ring unless you’re prepared to get hit. Apart from the rare individual who lucks their way into instant success, most of us tend to endure a litany of rejections, mixed with a healthy dose of self-doubt and the repeated questioning of friends and family as to why we’re still “writing those stories”.
Thing is, it’s not really a choice. Writers have to write. It’s a form of self-therapy and demonic exorcism wrapped up in one. It’s exhausting, sometimes frustrating and usually financially barren, but the rewards are well worth that price. We get to create worlds. We get to be the first readers of new realities which have been brought to life through our minds and fingers. It’s such a privilege, not to mention a nifty way of staying sane.
So, when you finally find a publisher willing to put out your books, that’s just the icing on the cake. The next few years will see me release 5 or so novels, 15+ comic books, a couple of graphic novels and 2 collections of short stories. That’s nearly ten years of work that will finally see the light of day. Fame and fortune are unlikely to follow, but I can’t wait to start interacting with readers, get slammed by reviewers and struggle with all the narrative twists and turns I will have to navigate as these stories develop further.
Now that I’ve finally found and recovered my login details for Goodreads, I’m also looking forward to being more active on this platform.
More soon.
MQ
I’ve heard it said that being a writer is a little like being a boxer. You don’t step into the ring unless you’re prepared to get hit. Apart from the rare individual who lucks their way into instant success, most of us tend to endure a litany of rejections, mixed with a healthy dose of self-doubt and the repeated questioning of friends and family as to why we’re still “writing those stories”.
Thing is, it’s not really a choice. Writers have to write. It’s a form of self-therapy and demonic exorcism wrapped up in one. It’s exhausting, sometimes frustrating and usually financially barren, but the rewards are well worth that price. We get to create worlds. We get to be the first readers of new realities which have been brought to life through our minds and fingers. It’s such a privilege, not to mention a nifty way of staying sane.
So, when you finally find a publisher willing to put out your books, that’s just the icing on the cake. The next few years will see me release 5 or so novels, 15+ comic books, a couple of graphic novels and 2 collections of short stories. That’s nearly ten years of work that will finally see the light of day. Fame and fortune are unlikely to follow, but I can’t wait to start interacting with readers, get slammed by reviewers and struggle with all the narrative twists and turns I will have to navigate as these stories develop further.
Now that I’ve finally found and recovered my login details for Goodreads, I’m also looking forward to being more active on this platform.
More soon.
MQ
April 6, 2017
The Poisoned Apple
She plies her craft in secret.
With needle, fruit and Black Death.
She polishes and shines and covers in a thin veneer of magical preservative.
She places her stock lovingly into wicker baskets and offers her wares to the embittered, the spiteful, and the desperate.
She travels from village to village, but no jealous sisters, no old crones or aspiring overlords are willing to purchase her wares.
No one eats apples anymore.
Disney has ruined her trade.
MQ
With needle, fruit and Black Death.
She polishes and shines and covers in a thin veneer of magical preservative.
She places her stock lovingly into wicker baskets and offers her wares to the embittered, the spiteful, and the desperate.
She travels from village to village, but no jealous sisters, no old crones or aspiring overlords are willing to purchase her wares.
No one eats apples anymore.
Disney has ruined her trade.
MQ
March 21, 2017
Epiphany
Last week I had an idea.
I called it Fred,
I fed it cold meats and soft cheeses.
I took an old shoe box and stuffed it with tissues,
And gave it a bed to sleep in.
I let it stay up late and watch television,
I gave it hot baths.
Yet despite all my love and devotion,
It ran off to Mexico with a metaphor.
Yesterday I had an epiphany,
I tied it to the radiator in my basement.
[except from Displaced Organs]
- MQ
I called it Fred,
I fed it cold meats and soft cheeses.
I took an old shoe box and stuffed it with tissues,
And gave it a bed to sleep in.
I let it stay up late and watch television,
I gave it hot baths.
Yet despite all my love and devotion,
It ran off to Mexico with a metaphor.
Yesterday I had an epiphany,
I tied it to the radiator in my basement.
[except from Displaced Organs]
- MQ
February 24, 2017
The Limits of a Hero
A basic rule of thumb for a heroic character is to avoid God-Mode at all costs. You can pump a hero full of god-like strength, speed, stamina, whatever; but you cannot, under any circumstances make your hero all-powerful. Why not? Because a hero with no viable enemies, no weaknesses, is just plain boring.
A similar thing happens when you crack God-Mode in a computer game. You’re all-powerful, then suddenly life is completely meaningless. Without the challenges of viable opposition, the game loses its interest. We need struggle and triumph to make life interesting. We need tragedy and strife and our hero needs to have something important taken from them to make them any kind of hero at all.
To put it simply, you can’t enjoy the seesaw of defeat/victory without the defeat coming first. That’s what makes the revenge genre so popular. We grit our teeth in anger as the hero’s back story is established (family killed by villains, hero disgraced in front of his peers, lies sown, the truth buried, etc.). We hang in there while injustice reigns because we know that when the hero finally gets on top, they’re gonna kick ass all the way to the moon. Our memory of the preceding tragedy makes the hero’s victory that much sweeter.
So how do you craft a viable hero; a character with sufficient strength and weakness to make them truly heroic? Myself, I’m not a fan of the James Bond style hero (at least, in the traditional rendering of Bond, where his victories over the bag guy are usually due to a well-placed wrench or some other lucky break or gadget). I like a hero that genuinely kicks ass; a figure that is potent and scary enough to warrant the respect of their enemies.
I also like a character with some deep personality flaws, or some inner tragedy that stops them from ever really enjoying their victories. Lately though, I’ve been developing a heroic character who is posing some interesting and perplexing questions.
Enter, the Shackled Man; one of the foundational characters within the Rust Chronicles universe. The Shackle is a mercenary gunslinger who is captured and imprisoned for his part in a failed rebellion, spending 40 years locked in a dungeon where strange etheric influences have altered his body and mind in peculiar ways. When he finally escapes from the pit (aided by some agency he does not remember), the Shackled Man carries his shackles as a kind of talisman. Infused with etheric power, the shackles grant him inhuman strength and power, but there is also a terrible cost to this new strength.
There is a sense, as the character develops, that he is a time bomb waiting to go off. There is something within him that is so powerful, it rivals the strength of the godlings (the race of superhumans that figure throughout the book series), but it also threatens to explode and wipe out the hero’s allies as well as his enemies.
I’m enjoying toying with the idea that the Shackle can’t fully control his power, but he’s forced to utilise it to aid his compatriots. I’m also playing with the notion that his thoughts and possibly actions are not all his own. There is, perhaps, some darker force at work within the etherically-enhanced fabric of his being.
The trick is in knowing where this all ends. To date, the Shackled Man has only shown the slightest hint of his power, but there are intimations that a storm is brewing. In a world populated with titanic characters, this figure emerges as a real wildcard that threatens to put the cat among the pigeons. The question is, how far do I take this hero? How hard to I push him and how tragic do I make his background so that the revenge cycle of is story is all the sweeter?
Do I let the Shackle explode and take out a wave of god-like enemies in one move, as well as wiping out a host of heroic “goodies”? Do I force him to hold back his power and watch his compatriots die at the hands of his enemies? Do I offer a nauseatingly sweet ending where he learns to control his power, kills the bad guys and saves his compatriots? Or do I use the advent of his explosion to bring about some new tragedy or plot twist which sends the hero on an entirely different journey (perhaps to an entirely different plane of existence)?
To some extent plot structure dictates the actions of all characters. To some extent, it doesn’t matter what I want to do. With the writing of the stories, the characters themselves develop beyond the writers limit. It’s an odd thought, but in many ways, I no longer control what will ultimately happen to the Shackled Man. I’m merely the first reader of his story and I’m just as eager to find out where it leads as anyone else.
Although, the mischievous part of me would love nothing more than to kill him off with some absolute absurdity; food poisoning from a bad gerkin!
MQ
A similar thing happens when you crack God-Mode in a computer game. You’re all-powerful, then suddenly life is completely meaningless. Without the challenges of viable opposition, the game loses its interest. We need struggle and triumph to make life interesting. We need tragedy and strife and our hero needs to have something important taken from them to make them any kind of hero at all.
To put it simply, you can’t enjoy the seesaw of defeat/victory without the defeat coming first. That’s what makes the revenge genre so popular. We grit our teeth in anger as the hero’s back story is established (family killed by villains, hero disgraced in front of his peers, lies sown, the truth buried, etc.). We hang in there while injustice reigns because we know that when the hero finally gets on top, they’re gonna kick ass all the way to the moon. Our memory of the preceding tragedy makes the hero’s victory that much sweeter.
So how do you craft a viable hero; a character with sufficient strength and weakness to make them truly heroic? Myself, I’m not a fan of the James Bond style hero (at least, in the traditional rendering of Bond, where his victories over the bag guy are usually due to a well-placed wrench or some other lucky break or gadget). I like a hero that genuinely kicks ass; a figure that is potent and scary enough to warrant the respect of their enemies.
I also like a character with some deep personality flaws, or some inner tragedy that stops them from ever really enjoying their victories. Lately though, I’ve been developing a heroic character who is posing some interesting and perplexing questions.
Enter, the Shackled Man; one of the foundational characters within the Rust Chronicles universe. The Shackle is a mercenary gunslinger who is captured and imprisoned for his part in a failed rebellion, spending 40 years locked in a dungeon where strange etheric influences have altered his body and mind in peculiar ways. When he finally escapes from the pit (aided by some agency he does not remember), the Shackled Man carries his shackles as a kind of talisman. Infused with etheric power, the shackles grant him inhuman strength and power, but there is also a terrible cost to this new strength.
There is a sense, as the character develops, that he is a time bomb waiting to go off. There is something within him that is so powerful, it rivals the strength of the godlings (the race of superhumans that figure throughout the book series), but it also threatens to explode and wipe out the hero’s allies as well as his enemies.
I’m enjoying toying with the idea that the Shackle can’t fully control his power, but he’s forced to utilise it to aid his compatriots. I’m also playing with the notion that his thoughts and possibly actions are not all his own. There is, perhaps, some darker force at work within the etherically-enhanced fabric of his being.
The trick is in knowing where this all ends. To date, the Shackled Man has only shown the slightest hint of his power, but there are intimations that a storm is brewing. In a world populated with titanic characters, this figure emerges as a real wildcard that threatens to put the cat among the pigeons. The question is, how far do I take this hero? How hard to I push him and how tragic do I make his background so that the revenge cycle of is story is all the sweeter?
Do I let the Shackle explode and take out a wave of god-like enemies in one move, as well as wiping out a host of heroic “goodies”? Do I force him to hold back his power and watch his compatriots die at the hands of his enemies? Do I offer a nauseatingly sweet ending where he learns to control his power, kills the bad guys and saves his compatriots? Or do I use the advent of his explosion to bring about some new tragedy or plot twist which sends the hero on an entirely different journey (perhaps to an entirely different plane of existence)?
To some extent plot structure dictates the actions of all characters. To some extent, it doesn’t matter what I want to do. With the writing of the stories, the characters themselves develop beyond the writers limit. It’s an odd thought, but in many ways, I no longer control what will ultimately happen to the Shackled Man. I’m merely the first reader of his story and I’m just as eager to find out where it leads as anyone else.
Although, the mischievous part of me would love nothing more than to kill him off with some absolute absurdity; food poisoning from a bad gerkin!
MQ
January 26, 2017
A Viper in Your Midst
There’s a strong tendency in modern tv/cinema for allegiances to shift between “good” and “bad” as seasons move on. I suppose it adds to the melodrama to have characters betray one another, then join forces against a common foe, then return to betrayal; but I’ve always struggled with the concept.
I get that dramatic changes in the story might force enemies to work together for a common cause, but I find the constant to and fro of the arrangement a little trite. I don’t think humans accept alliances with enemies that readily.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for rich, multi-hued characters; particularly villains that love their children, or killers who murder in the name of hope and love etc. I think that’s much more believable than a character that switches allegiances every season. Give me a badass killer who slaughters whole villages, but then tucks his kids into bed at night with a kiss and a bedtime story. That’s the complexity that echoes real life. That’s what makes a villain interesting.
I’m facing a character twist at the moment in a future book within the Rust Chronicles universe where a loved character is displaced by an “evil” newcomer. Essentially the book’s protagonist and his companions have to decide whether having the newcomer in the group (a character who has effectively killed their friend and now inhabits his body) is worth tolerating because they bring strength to the group.
What makes the problem even trickier is the fact their enemy is staring at them through the eyes of their deceased friend. Ultimately I want this new character to continue on with the heroic group, even though they are essentially “evil”, but I’m wrestling with how to do this without making things too easy.
Two questions emerge; 1. Why do the group keep this bastard figure around? 2. How does the group have any cohesion while there is a viper in their midst.
Not the most novel idea, but it raises some interesting problems.
Of course, I could always kill the problem character off and tie it all up in a bow with a nice “I realised it was all a dream” sequence?
-MQ
I get that dramatic changes in the story might force enemies to work together for a common cause, but I find the constant to and fro of the arrangement a little trite. I don’t think humans accept alliances with enemies that readily.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for rich, multi-hued characters; particularly villains that love their children, or killers who murder in the name of hope and love etc. I think that’s much more believable than a character that switches allegiances every season. Give me a badass killer who slaughters whole villages, but then tucks his kids into bed at night with a kiss and a bedtime story. That’s the complexity that echoes real life. That’s what makes a villain interesting.
I’m facing a character twist at the moment in a future book within the Rust Chronicles universe where a loved character is displaced by an “evil” newcomer. Essentially the book’s protagonist and his companions have to decide whether having the newcomer in the group (a character who has effectively killed their friend and now inhabits his body) is worth tolerating because they bring strength to the group.
What makes the problem even trickier is the fact their enemy is staring at them through the eyes of their deceased friend. Ultimately I want this new character to continue on with the heroic group, even though they are essentially “evil”, but I’m wrestling with how to do this without making things too easy.
Two questions emerge; 1. Why do the group keep this bastard figure around? 2. How does the group have any cohesion while there is a viper in their midst.
Not the most novel idea, but it raises some interesting problems.
Of course, I could always kill the problem character off and tie it all up in a bow with a nice “I realised it was all a dream” sequence?
-MQ
January 4, 2017
Welcome to the Red City
My dreams have always tended to focus on people and emotion rather than place. The where and when is always a little sketchy and dreams keep pulling me back to some essential tension or drama (which is typically unrealistic and often patently ludicrous).
I love the idea of a reoccurring dream which focuses squarely on a central place; a city that is, itself, the central character of the narrative. People come and go in the dream. Despite their oddness, they're not remembered. What sticks in the mind's gullet is the tactile sense of dust in your hair, the feel of hot stone beneath your bare feet, the sight of five gargantuan towers stretching skyward like the withered claw of some long-dead titan.
This is the central premise behind the Rust universe; the idea of a city that impinges on the lives of dreamers and dreamed alike, twisting and warping the fabric of reality and giving rise to strange new opportunities.
Rust - Excerpt:
"The city sits upon the cusp of possibility, a fetid sore at the hinge between worlds, sun-burnt, driven by crimson dust, surrounded by a vast expanse of lifeless rock and wasteland.
It lies at the heart of the dreamworld, binding the impossible substance of imagination to itself; distorting fact and fiction and making the monstrous real.
Ruled by five sisters, midnight spires that stretch skyward at the city’s heart like the crooked fingers of some gargantuan deity, the city remembers itself by the myriad decaying walls, blood-soaked cobblestones and rotten clockwork that speak its long, violent history..."
MQ
I love the idea of a reoccurring dream which focuses squarely on a central place; a city that is, itself, the central character of the narrative. People come and go in the dream. Despite their oddness, they're not remembered. What sticks in the mind's gullet is the tactile sense of dust in your hair, the feel of hot stone beneath your bare feet, the sight of five gargantuan towers stretching skyward like the withered claw of some long-dead titan.
This is the central premise behind the Rust universe; the idea of a city that impinges on the lives of dreamers and dreamed alike, twisting and warping the fabric of reality and giving rise to strange new opportunities.
Rust - Excerpt:
"The city sits upon the cusp of possibility, a fetid sore at the hinge between worlds, sun-burnt, driven by crimson dust, surrounded by a vast expanse of lifeless rock and wasteland.
It lies at the heart of the dreamworld, binding the impossible substance of imagination to itself; distorting fact and fiction and making the monstrous real.
Ruled by five sisters, midnight spires that stretch skyward at the city’s heart like the crooked fingers of some gargantuan deity, the city remembers itself by the myriad decaying walls, blood-soaked cobblestones and rotten clockwork that speak its long, violent history..."
MQ
