Roderick T. Macdonald's Blog, page 3
June 11, 2025
Nothing to write? Read a Classic
The Second Coming Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand;Surely …
June 3, 2025
Imagined History, Anticipated Rewrites, and Optimism
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! I have a good week. I hope you have had one too. Now, on the eve of returning to work, I wish I had more time off. Isn’t that always the way? Too much time spent looking at the screen upon which I now type. But, I spent …
Continue reading Imagined History, Anticipated Rewrites, and Optimism
May 27, 2025
Keeping the light of Wonder alive
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Do you, like me, sometimes wonder where the wonder went? Did it disappear in a puff of wonderment? When I decide to watch a random streaming flick, I often look for a ‘space’ movie. Something set out there, big enough to give that sense of wonder you would …
May 20, 2025
Hyperfactual transmission: A new origin for an old phrase
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Pusillanimous. A long time ago a girl asked me what word she was thinking. I said pusillanimous, thinking it a fancy word she’d be deeply unlikely to be thinking (and which I didn’t understand the meaning of, I just liked the way it sounded, an upmarket purple of …
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May 13, 2025
What to write next? Time to trust the artistic gut
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! I’ve been doing some thinking recently. (Don’t we all? Don’t we all engage in thinking constantly? What does that phrase really mean, when you think about it?) I’ll start again. I have been engaging in a form of creative introspection recently. Life has been throwing distractions and stresses …
Continue reading What to write next? Time to trust the artistic gut
May 6, 2025
Riffing on the future past, a spacefaring earthbound dystopia of AI proportions. Guest appearance by the inevitable G. Orwell.
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! I had a daydream about a spacefaring story, complete with prolonged dialogue exchange and random bad technological ideas. It was terrible, but fun to go with for a while, comparing Tom Waits’ and Nicholas Cage’s Renfields (there was a reason to do with insects and vegetarianism – I …
April 29, 2025
Riffing on Writing as the Inescapable Self
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Last week I talked about trying to remove yourself, or at least your ego, from your writing, to embrace the other, to try to express viewpoints alien from your own. This week, I will entertain a rather different idea. That you cannot escape yourself: that everywhere you go, …
April 23, 2025
Riffing on Writing as an Empty House
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! I did say I’d see you next week, but I didn’t say which day! I continue to be distracted by life. House selling is very consuming: you move out of your own home in advance, denude it of character so visitors can impress their personalities upon it, see …
April 15, 2025
Confession and Apology
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! Strange time to disengage, the week after releasing your book, but that’s what I did. Missed a blog, and a bit more. I’ve been busy. Living life. Losing sleep. Working, and working when not working. There was some all-consuming play in there too. New Orleans is very diverting. …
March 31, 2025
#1, Baby!
Hello, my friends and the occasional relative! The Gardener and The Goddess is live for purchase! Ebook, paperback, hardback – the choice, my friends, is yours. A quick note to say thank you thank you to everyone who bought my book, and have allowed me to be the #1 new release in Inspirational Spiritual Fiction! …
