Cyberpunk Stories

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Cyberpunk is what the future used to look like — at least to me. It was the big SF movement of my long gone youth and preparing these old stories (written almost a quarter of a century ago) for e-pub I recaptured some of the excitement I felt about it then. Cyberpunk was exciting for me. It was hip, it was hot, it was new, it was shiny. It reflected the realities of the strange dark age of the 1980s as I understood them. This was a world where economics was everything, where corporations ruled, where governments were the servants Read more…

The Importance of Setting Your Sights Low

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On the Internet recently I have been reading a lot about how you need to work hard and set yourself lofty goals in order to make it as a writer. I have been bombarded by people telling me that you need to sweat blood and work all the hours God sends. If necessary you must neglect your family in your quest for writerly glory. After all, you’ve got to make sacrifices if you want to succeed and who doesn’t? You need to constantly write and constantly promote. If you don’t, there are people who will and they will all do Read more…

Getting to Know Macharius (Part One)

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As you’ve probably deduced from my previous posts, I am currently writing a trilogy about Lord High Commander Solar Macharius and the great crusade he led at the start of the 41st Millenium. It’s something of a daunting task portraying the conqueror of a thousand worlds so how do I propose going about doing it? Well, not by telling the story from his point of view, that’s for sure. Macharius is a military genius and I am not, despite what I may occasionally claim  across the gaming table and when leading another doomed defence of Iceblood Tower in Alterac Valley. Read more…

Guardian of the Dawn

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Guardian of the Dawn is my personal favourite of all the sword and sorcery short stories I have written. I can still remember sitting down one evening at the table in the living room in our old shabby flat in Modrany and starting to write it.  It came out of nowhere as many stories do. I began in the middle, with Kormak in the forest about to confront the elder world demon. It was a scene that surprised me with its odd echoes of Kipling in the language used and a formal structure of challenge and response between man and Read more…

The Arithmetic of Writing

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If you’ve read many of the posts on this site, you already know what I’ve been doing today. I’ve been taking stock of the month that just passed and I have been deciding what I need to do this month. At the start of each month I’ll note what actually got written as opposed to what I said I would write at the start of last month. If the targets were not met, I will try and work out why and do better in the coming month. I spend a lot of time on this sort of thing. I believe Read more…

Your Moods Are Your Enemies

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Your moods are your enemies. At least they are if you are writing. This is something you should always bear in mind if you want to write professionally. There are people who say they can only write when they feel inspired. I think they are making a mistake. Here’s why. Your mood has nothing to do with what you write.  The way you feel has very little to do with the way you put sentences together. It’s about the way you feel, end of story. The two things are not connected. The way you feel about what you have written Read more…