YOU GUYS, I HAVE FINISHED MY BOOK. Which one? Well. Not the one I was *supposed* to be working on, of course. The other one. How Not To Take Over The World, affectionately known as HNOT 🙂 If you’ve been following along on Twitter, you’ll have seen a few of my favourite lines over the […]
IT IS FINISHED: How Not To Take Over The World Read More »
So I’ve pretty much decided that January and July and no-blogging months. It’s just too hard when my brain’s in full holiday mode, and I prefer to dedicate my time to writing as much as possible while I can. That said, work is back this week, and so is blogging! Generic stuff this week, then
Back In Action! 2018 *PLANS* Read More »
I have nothing especially to say rn, but I also don’t have a great excuse to NOT be here, so here I am, being here, and hereing. Woo! Anyway, writing is progress, if not apace then at least at a better pace than during term time. I have about 37k done now in How Not
Took aaaaaall day, but I managed to pull 4000 words yesterday. After not writing for nearly 4 weeks, it was like pulling teeth for most of the day – but near bed time I FINALLY hit my stride (helps that that’s my peak writing time anyway, when I’m not too exhausted for it) and it
Back In The Saddle Read More »
(Also: Why I Decided To Publish My Own Books.) This was supposed to be a lot more coherent that I suspect it’s going to be, because I have a throat cold* and this is the busy point in my two-week timetable and my sanity has pretty much fled, but anyway. I’m doing this blogging thing,
In Which I Am A Terrible Person, OR Why The Right Book Makes a Difference Read More »
Some great reading I’ve been doing lately that’s really made me think. Freedom not to choose is a faith worth believing in – discussion of Britain as a state-religion-less society. Not sure I agree 100% (I mean, their anthem is still literally God Save The Queen), but it’s definitely an interesting concept. Welcome to The
Dialogue punctuation is something I really harp on about to my students, because there are a lot of rules in fiction, and you can break every single one of them if you have a good reason – except dialogue. Yeah, okay, I know there are some big-name authors out there who DO break the rules
So, a while ago I started the map-building series as a backlash against All Those Authors that get it Wrong, and as an attempt to prevent that happening in the future. I’ve talked about the very fundamental stuff – the underlying structure of the world, the fun you can have with hotspots and volcanos –
How To Build A World From The Ground Up Week 5: Hot and Cold, Wet and Dry Read More »
I mentioned volcanos very briefly in the last post in this series in talking about where mountains are usually formed. Often, the volcanos appear where one plate is sliding under another, forcing the upper plate even up-er, and providing a weak spot for all that yummy magma and lava to come spewing out. Yay, fire
How To Build A World From The Ground Up Week 4: And Then It Exploded Read More »
To really understand how and why things work, it’s usually a pretty good idea to strip things back to their most basic level and build your way up from there. Maps are no different, if you want to get really serious. The world works in layers, and really good maps that Work will be designed
How To Build A World From The Ground Up Week 3: Tall Pointy Things Read More »
