It tends to be something of an truism in writing fiction that authors will eventually discover they have a problem with the beginnings or middles or ends of stories: very few people are good at all three. My largest stumbling block tends to be beginnings. It’s taken me a long time to even work that out. The story…
Thoughts on Titles
Well, I’m now nearing the end of the first draft on what will now be the second book of The Winter King. The manuscript is sitting at about 25,000 words, so a medium to long novella. In an earlier post I discussed the (somewhat) confusing reasons why the release schedule I had so carefully laid…
Alien, Rockstar, Goblin King…
Like many, the death of David Bowie has taken me by surprise. I’m a little knocked to one side. Not speechless, but just feeling that the world is suddenly, unexpectedly, a place with slightly less wonder. Bowie, of course, did so much in his life, although, in the end I suppose I’m the right age…
State of Work
I’ve managed to throw my release schedule into disarray by overthinking the connectivity of things. What I’d intended to be Book 2 in The Winter King, working title Prince of Ghosts, has started to look to me like too much of a jump from Book 1. Anyone who has been following my work, will also…
Aspects of the Story
We are returned now to Melbourne, although the combination of exhaustion from the flight and some other major life events on coming home took me away from the journal. I have managed to keep up my writing every day, although to be honest, that has grown into such a woody, bark-swollen habit, that I’m not sure I…
Where the Green Shadows Sleep
Yesterday, we went for a walk up Mount Pirongia in the Waikato region of New Zealand. The New Zealand forest is a myriad of greens, primordial and ancient. Mosses and lichens drape the rocks, glistening liverworts grow over ochre soils and the canopy of grey-green kahikatea casts shadows and sun-dapples down through treeferns and onto…
New Years
If you have found a thing in life that enthrals you and enchants you, then, please, go ahead and pursue it. The world is full enough of people who force themselves to trudge in endless march through obligations, stress and furious activity. If you have found a thing that brings joy, that makes time seem both wondrously slow and…
In Hamilton
I type this in Hamilton, New Zealand, the town where I grew up. I am back visiting. We are staying in a nice little hotel that understands the importance of having good access to a wireless internet. But it is always a strange experience coming back here. The town (technically a city, but really, Hamilton…
Beginnings and other parts
Beginnings, middles and ends are the stuff of story. Or, at least they are the skeleton that lies beneath. So here is a beginning. Not a very auspicious one. Not a very grand one. But a beginning nonetheless.