My Writing Goals for 2024
New Year is a terrible time for resolutions. We make them because we feel under pressure to do so, not because we really want to. We “ought” to go on that diet or join the gym, and the commitment quickly runs out because it comes from outside. Far better...
Merry inbetweeny-mas!
Hey, how’s it going? I hope I find you suitably baked in your post-Christmas befuddlement. Schrödinger’s cat (Spoiler, Neo was alive, after all) See you later, 2023 2023 may have been all about AI and Covid recriminations, but we’re all about hum......
Introducing Loshi vi Assarid — The Thief of Shimeth
Back in the late 1970s, I wrote a short story called The Gift of the Outcast. It was a deliberate attempt to write something that was closer to traditional sword & sorcery than the more elaborate fantasy I was writing. It concerned a young thief, Loshi, in a city...
Wheel of Time & TV Review
Let’s talk Wheel of Time. How are you enjoying season 2? As you probably know, we have brought the After-Time podcast back (https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/after-time), and it’s a thumbs up from the panel this time round. Much better than seaso......
AI Secrets To Kick Start Your Writing: #2—Outline Your Chapter
What’s the biggest obstacle a writer faces? Even if you have outlined your book. Staring at the page for the start of that new chapter. Endlessly. All writers do this—even famous ones. Take, for instance, Sylvia Plath: Sylvia Plath (from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath) Monday, July 7 (1958):...
5 Stellar Ways to Use #AI in Your #Writing—#1 Rough Outline Your Novel
Forget the controversy over whether to use AI in your prose. This issue will shake out as writers use AI more and develop best practices in writing fiction with AI. But you can do some things with AI that help you with the mundane writing tasks that help to...
An African Interview
Install this web app on your Android: Tap menu, more options, and then Add Shortcut To Homescreen.×...
Music festivals and summer shenanigans…
I’ve just got back from Glastonbury – the Daddy of music festivals. Boy! It almost killed me. We must have walked 20 miles a day at LEAST! Unfortunately, I pulled a calf muscle a week before going – I could hardly walk – an old football injury recurren......
Rotary Club
Yesterday, I gave a talk to a Rotary Club meeting in New Hampshire from here in England via Zoom, organised by Annalisa, my writing coach. I told them about being a writer and author, winning prizes, and read them one of the stories from Paranormal City: Bogeyman Blues. They...
Riding to the Rescue!
So … Whether it’s the group of riders sweeping around the corner and charging into battle to save the day, or a powerful figure entering a boardroom to save the main character from corporate malfeasance, I think most people love a good last-minute intervention by the cavalry riding to...