“Confidence is going after Moby Dick in a rowboat and taking the tartar sauce with you.” ― Zig Ziglar After five years, two ‘book doctor’ appraisals, three rounds of copy editing, and a final polish from the proof-reader my novel ‘Lightmaker’ is now available. The grisly details are here. Will you chose the e-book or the paperback?…
Librarians at the Gate
Manuscript incoming… I’m now certain my novel ‘Lightmaker’ will come out before the game ‘Star Citizen’, even though I’ve only been writing for five years. Lightmaker’s script has returned from its final copy-edit, and is currently with the proof-reader. Mid-April 2020 looks promising for an Amazon release; there may be a book launch party in Oxford. My…
Write and edit and edit and…
My word count ticked upwards each day, at least five hundred and often more. Sometimes I wrote a thousand a day, once I reached two thousand, and I developed bruises from patting myself on the back. However, quantity doesn’t guarantee quality: words may be a mirage. Often you’ll try to capture a concept but your first…
Over to you…
Can I ask your good selves to take a little action? Nothing too painful. I’ve worked with the people at MailChimp to set up a mailing list system. I’ve tested it from the quiet grasslands of my home and it all appears to work, but I want to test more rigorously. Try the following steps…
Coming later this year…
Wonderful things aren’t they; the end of the month. If you’ve set yourself a goal of squirting out a blog post once a month they can motivate you into writing, and if you’re reading this it means I actually finished the writing. People often get paid at the month’s end, which is nice.
Abraham Lincoln and the Forth Bridge
Writing is a journey: a constant striving for new skills, a struggle to learn and implement new ways of communicating. Abraham Lincoln once said that if he was given six hours to chop down a tree he’d spend the first four hours sharpening the axe – he knew the value of preparation.
Spit and polish (not my favourite flavour)
I’ve recently upgraded this blog to WordPress.org from WordPress.org. I have more control over the site design now, and am working out which widgets I can add. The design shouldn’t change too much, but you may experience my tinkering over the next few weeks. Aren’t you lucky. The novel hasn’t gone away. I recently had…
Lave Radio appearance
Another left tack in my blog posts, consistency doesn’t appear to be my strong point. The lovely people at Lave Radio interviewed me recently, following my appearance at Eastercon 2017. I talked about the upcoming Hugo Awards, my own writing, and even this blog. There’s nothing like recursion. My podcast is here. Lave Radio is linked…
Insert bottom on chair, place hands on keyboard…
A slight change of tack for this blog post. I’ve always wanted to write, I’ve always felt I had some talent, but I used to be far more skilled in delaying tactics than I was in motivating myself. My motto was ‘Procrastinate now!’
Stumble into imagination
Sometimes writing is about listening. I was strolling along Oxford’s Cowley Road. A young man walked past me, and turned, asking why I used crutches. Having a brain cyst and balance problems makes them useful, so I let him know this. That’s when the dialogue veered into the unfamiliar.