Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/575269262-the-mechanical-crown-the-reluctant-catalyst And HERE we see Stryke’s reaction to recent events. As I mentioned last time, this was originally going to be the previous chapter but I decided to insert ‘Ashes of peace’ so that this chapter felt a bit more raw. It helps us feel Stryke’s regret, […]
I’ve been experimenting with a useful technique for quickly creating characters, borrowing a few tricks from roleplaying games. I started using this approach with The Mechanical Crown, as the book is crammed full of characters and I needed a way to immediately define their behaviour, speech pattern and attitudes. (more…)
Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/572088975-the-mechanical-crown-updated-weekly-ashes-of-peace I did a bit of arc chapter swapping here, as my original plan had been to catch up with Stryke and Pienya. Returning to Kaido, the guest character from ‘A view from the stalls’, wasn’t even in the plan until I sat down to write. At […]
Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/569397720-the-mechanical-crown-updated-weekly-through-the Arc 5 begins! Slightly awkwardly, due to Wattpad having a week-long glitch which has locked me out of my own account. I discovered a day after the normal publishing slot that I could still access it via the mobile app, for reasons unknown, and managed to […]
This is the story of how serialised writing has helped me write two books, one of which won an award and has been read by over 27,000 people, while having a busy day job and not annoying my family.
When I grew up, I was going to be a writer. As a kid, I was always writing short stories, poems, screenplays and anything else that came to mind.
Then I got distracted, went to university, studied film and English and stumbled down a visual effects rabbit hole for 14 years. I got married, had a kid. These were all great things in their own ways, but I never quite found time to realise that childhood writing dream. (more…)
f you’re looking for advice on how to be an indie author, podcasts are an incredible resource. If you’re not already a podcast addict then you’re seriously missing out, so make sure you head over to iTunes, PocketCast or whatever your preferred podcast app happens to be and check out these suggestions. (more…)
My website uses cookies – small text files that are stored by your browser to help websites provide a better user experience. In general, cookies are used to retain user preferences, store information for things like shopping baskets, and provide anonymous tracking data to third party applications like Google Analytics. […]
If you want to be a writer you need to write every day. That’s the advice you’ll hear again and again from authors in all genres and at all stages of their careers. While I’m not about to disagree with far more experienced and successful writers than myself, I do want to address what it means if you simply can’t do it. (more…)
I will happily talk all day about writing, especially serialisation and online publishing. I’ve taken part in panels on serialised writing and self-publishing at the National Centre for Writing and the Primadonna Festival 2019. I’m an experienced filmmaking and visual effects tutor, having designed, produced and hosted courses for FutureLearn, Lynda.com, […]
Scrivener is the essential tool for novelists, becoming increasingly useful as your project grows in length and complexity. It’s available on Mac and PC, though awkwardly in slightly different versions, but there’s no ChromeOS version or equivalent. This is hardly a surprise, of course – it is ChromeOS, after all – but as I flit between a Windows desktop PC and a super lightweight Chromebook I needed a way to maintain my Scrivener workflow when out and about. (more…)