Roderick T. Macdonald's Blog, page 12
August 8, 2023
The Dog Days of Summer
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Strange to use this title when for the first time in many weeks I needed more than a sheet to sleep under last night, after noticing that already the days grow shorter, and on my work days I rise in darkness once again. *Looks up dog days* Ha! …
August 1, 2023
A Quiet Week and SPFBO 8 cohort #9
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! This week has been a slow one in terms of achievements and deadlines because my next deadline is August 12th, when all my feedback on The Slaves and the Djinn (still debating that title, by the way) is due back. I received more feedback this week, and it …
July 25, 2023
Time and World Building
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! I’ve talked about world building before. And today I’m going to talk about it again, because I’m trying to get a solid outline of my next book drafted before my deadline for receiving feedback on The Slaves and The Djinn. (August 12th, btw.) Now I intend eventually to …
July 18, 2023
Story Fragments #1: Hallucinatory Future War story
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! This may become an occasional series: scraps of writing I have mostly probably discarded as the basis for a larger story (one I will share I still have hopes to use – will you guess which one?), but think are worth letting folk have a random look at. …
Continue reading Story Fragments #1: Hallucinatory Future War story
July 11, 2023
Vague Readings of my SPFBO 8 Cohort, #8
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! So in my hiatus from frenzied deadline achievement I have finished the short story I started last week, though it needs to be polished. It is funny, but with a short story you do get a sense of how much you can alter the story by the sheen …
July 4, 2023
Post-Deadline Musings
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Ah, the period after you send off your work and before you receive any feedback is a magical one, filled with dreams and delusions, words like ‘perfect’ and ‘incredible’, the yearned-for fare of the affirmation seeking author. A golden hour stretched out into days or weeks, to be …
June 27, 2023
Deadline achieved
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! I have one problem left and I’m leaving it in, for my lovely beta readers to weigh in on directly. Partially because I did not want to say there were no problems left. Because there undoubtedly will be: the ones I can’t see. I felt it, at the …
June 20, 2023
Reading my SPFBO8 cohort #7, with finishing rant about AI (again), and 19 problems
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Yes it all gets rather confusing now, doesn’t it. SPFBO 9 is now up and running, but I’m still doing my vague reviews from SPFBO 8 and I’m on my 7th book. Voracious reader, me. (Too much internet, too little book is the truth.) Book 7 was better …
Continue reading Reading my SPFBO8 cohort #7, with finishing rant about AI (again), and 19 problems
June 13, 2023
84 Problems
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Don’t panic. I have a towel you can borrow. I have finished my first pass through the manuscript fixing as I go, and to be honest, not even doubling the original tally is a win. I finished a bunch of the original 43 again this weekend, and added …
June 6, 2023
71 Problems
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Yes, that number has loomed larger. But fear not, many are more like markers than problems, placeholders to remind me where to make consistency fixes, which shall be removed with great joy in large chunks as their time to be resolved arrives. In short, I am making a …
