Tempting in Shade

Writing progress and thoughts

During my months of vision impairment I spent a lot of time frustrated by my inability to write each day. During that time, now many months past, I found myself listening to podcasts on the topic of writing. All these months later a few things stand out. Firstly, a lecture by Stephen King. Oh – I listened to lots of his lectures and talks and interview – but yes, one stood out. In it

#Writing: changing a character's gender to improve a scene

For each chapter I write little notes beforehand, telling me what I am trying to achieve. Then I write to fulfil this goal. So I have a chapter. It’s intended to introduce a character named John Sutton. My note reads: Meet ex-mercenary John Sutton. He has just made camp with the rest of the expedition. There is tension between Sutton and Lord Trickett, whom he suspects is up to no

Today I deliberately deleted several chapters of my novel

It was painful, but I finally listened to advice provided by many writers upon writing – I deleted several chapters of my novel. Well, technically I just cut and paste them into another document, but it still hurt. The problem was not that the chapters were no good. I actually felt that they were fine. It’s just that they did not take my characters on the journey that I finally

Worldbuilding - my responses to Jasne

I my last writing post, Jasne as me a whole heap of really good questions (a big thanks Jasne 🙂 ). I was going to respond to his comment and then realised that my response would make a really good (or at least average) post. So here we go. I will put Jasne’s comments in blue italics and my responses in Klingon plain text. Note that there will be some

Thoughts on the trigger in the "Tempting in Shade" sequence

OK – be aware that if you are likely to read my novels (when they are done) that some spoilers will be appearing in this post. But I need to think things out and maybe get feedback for you, my few but loyal blogmates. I have finally worked out a series of ideas that seem to gel as the background and overall story arc. Here they are. Background Set hundreds

My novel. Not procrastinating. Just thinking.

If you have been with me on my blogging journey from the very beginning you will know that my focus back then was the novel that I was writing called “Tempting in Shade”. But over the past year I have written progressively less. Why is that? No, I have not abandoned this project.

Writing, writing, writing

Hi folks, This is just a brief catch up. Since my last post I have been getting up each morning and writing. Admittedly, first I throw a photo up on Instagram. Looking at a photo from an exciting adventure in my past tends to brighten my day. The entire beginning of the novel has been rewritten. Ten thousand new words! The secondary plot has really expanded into something that I

Back at last!

It has not been a good three weeks for me. No, not at all. But I will endeavour not to make this post all doom and gloom. 🙂 My final day at work (29 January) was special in many ways. The amount of affection coming my way from my colleagues was stunning. So were the number of hugs. 🙂 A lot of people felt that my role should not have

Teasers and travel preparations

Short one tonight. But before I get to the purpose of the post, let me just say that the “boob flashing” incident of Tuesday is still haunting my life. Today my wife told everyone in her woman’s group about it. The thing you need to realise is that most people in that group have known me since at least my early 20s (I am about to turn 51