Ian Patterson's Blog, page 8

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

I love when I go to my local book store and find a classic book that’s used and marked down. It’s like a small treasure left behind by someone else, or maybe several someones. I especially love when they’re battered old printings, full of underlines and margin notes. I’ve been in the habit of scanning the Borges and Bolaño titles since I went through a South American phase in my early twenties, so it’s no wonder that The Martian Chronicles caught my eye this trip. I didn’t think twice about pick...

Countertransference - Chapters 21 & 22

Ending a series is a strange feeling, especially when I’m not actually totally sure if it will be the end. This is the full story I had in mind from the beginning (the major arc, not the connecting elements), and it’s so cool to have the first draft done and out in the world. But I’ll be totally honest, I’m not sure I stuck the landing.

There were SO MANY ways I considered ending this. And realistically, this might not be the one that makes the final cut. I mean there will definitely be edits, ex...

TRANSFERENCE Cover Reveal

To those of you that have followed a long and supported me from the beginning. To those of you that read my first drafts, my second drafts, all my drafts, and helped me tweak this story. To those of you that encouraged me to keep doing this, to see it through. THANK YOU.

I worked with the incredible Barış Şehri to create a cover, and I’m thrilled to show it off today. I hope you love it as much as I do! TRANSFERENCE will launch on October 16th, and I will have pre-sales open for a month leading u...

Countertransference - Chapters 19 & 20

Writing in multiple POVs through this novel has been a great learning experience. But it also means that the bulk of the edits that I have planned now are to separate my characters so they actually feel distinct. It turns out that’s a hard task to accomplish on your first draft! I think next time I’ll do some more character mapping first so I can establish each of their voices, and see if that helps to keep the edits lighter. Right now it seems very daunting to comb through each chapter to find ...

Kenai by Dave Dobson

I have a confession. Even though I’m planning on self-publishing my first book this fall, I’ve never read anything from another modern self-published author. I know, I know! So when the smoke cleared on the 2023 Self-Published Science Fiction Competition and a winner was finally selected, I decided to pick a copy up. I chewed through it in just a few days, and wanted to share some impressions.

Kenai is a good looking book. With fully wrapped, original cover art, and great interior formatting, it ...

Countertransference - Chapter 18

I finished the first draft of this novel last week, and I’ve been taking a bit of a break from it since then. One thing I haven’t made space for since starting this journey is taking a step away from my drafts before I edit them. Unlike the first time, I was collecting editing notes as I went along, and I already know there are some major elements that need firming up. I will try to complete my edits by next month, so that it can go out to beta readers soon after that. If you are interested in b...

Countertransference - Chapters 16 & 17

I have two big things to share! First off, I just finished the first draft of Countertransference (which will likely be renamed, sorry not sorry). There are so many parallels I find between cycling training and writing, but this one always stands out to me. Being successful at something once is random, but following it up with more successes, and failures, is how you build mastery. Not that I’m anywhere close to that now, but by the end of book two, I’ve already found that my writing is sharper,...

Countertransference - Chapters 13, 14, & 15

Only a couple of more weeks and this story will be wrapped up! I’m writing the final chapters now. It’s a strange thing writing for serialized release, especially when I haven’t plotted everything out. There’s this pressure it creates that pushes me to keep creating to a timeline, and keep showing up every day.

It will feel very cool to wrap up my first series. I can see follow on books, or books set in the same world at least. But I’ll leave that for the future. For now, I’ve been dreaming of w...

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

I’ve been thinking about writing the occasional book review, and when I finished Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, I knew I had to.

Chain-Gang All-Stars is set in a dystopian future that seems barely removed from our own reality. The predominantly privately owned prison system is overflowing, and the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment (CAPE) program is created to help with this problem, while increasing revenue. Prisoners serving a life sentence can choose to enter the CAPE ...

Sky Mackerel

I have been making so much progress on books recently that I’ve been lax in sending out stories! I renamed “Sicko” to “Transference”, and it’s heading out for developmental edits soon. I am starting to put together my path to self-publishing that one, and getting super excited. I really think I can get it done by the end of the year pretty comfortably. In the mean time, I’m also writing on the sequel “Counter-Transference”. I’ll be starting to share that NEXT TIME. So if you read the first...