Roderick T. Macdonald's Blog, page 13
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 …
May 30, 2023
43 Problems
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! So yes, I have 43 problems to solve in my rewrites. 43 questions or comments left to myself in the text. Some are thankfully minor, a note to self to change a sentence, or even a word. (Yes, one word changes can be a nightmare, just let me …
May 23, 2023
Reading my SPFBO Cohort #6
Hello my friends and the occasional relative! SPFBO 8 is over, its winner revealed here. Congratulations to Small Miracles! A close run contest – check it out for some quality writing and great stories! So I finally finished #6. For me this is head and shoulders the best of the six I have read. It …
May 16, 2023
The Slaves and The Djinn: Read through update
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! So, it has been a few weeks now since I finished my Ernest Hemingway edit-as-I-go manuscript (digital), and this weekend I sat down and read it in one uninterrupted sitting. I tried VERY hard not to stop and edit, or add comments as I went, but I can’t …
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May 9, 2023
The Writing Life: Edinburgh Chip shops and fantasy city design, a diversion
Time Passes. Hello, friends and the occasional relative! I visited my home town of Edinburgh recently, and while much had stayed the same, a lot had changed. Profound, I know. So I’m going to talk about chip shops. First, I am convinced that if you want the real experience of fried fish in Scotland, don’t …
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