I’ve been trying to game this out. The immense scope of this pandemic is sometimes hard to fathom. By definition it’s global. But the scope. Damn. It’s everywhere. And the growth, globally, isn’t showing any sign of slowing. We’ve seen the photos in Italy and China and, now, New York, of refrigerated trucks for corpse …
Two weeks into the WFH scheme (the company I work for made it a “strong suggestion” two weeks ago and “mandatory” this past week) and a few things are becoming apparent. Other than the fact we are all going to be well over our goal weights when this is over. Some of my observations surprised …
What an achievement! We passed the 1000 mark of COVID-19 cases a day early. Yay for us. Idiots. And this on a day when we find out a cruise ship allowed 2700 passengers to disembark in Sydney after they found over 300 with flu symptoms. Seven were found (after the 2700 dispersed into the Australian …
I don’t want this to come across like a money grab, exploiting the covid-19 pandemic for personal gain. And it really isn’t, because I’ll get a paltry $0.35 (or less) per book sold. But I recognise that there may be a couple of months of “stuck at homedness” sweeping across the world and I want …
That’s not news. I’m always frustrated and annoyed. It’s the reason I get up in the morning. But I’m at least 50% more frustrated and 65% more annoyed over the past couple of weeks. We are, as you may have noticed, living through a pandemic. And by *we* I mean every fucking one of us, …
For those of you paying even the slightest bit of attention to world events, we had some bushfires in Australia recently. Like in half the fucking country — or at least half the country that had fuel — was on fire. Got sort of close to us, but as I told the kids, there were …
Like hell. (I should be working on my book.) On January 2nd I marched into my local physical fitness centre, pushed past the throngs of guilt-wracked folks looking to tone their arms or gut or quads or whatever, and cancelled my gym membership. Kinda took the poor lady at the counter by surprise. I was …
I should be writing my book. But I spent three hours plotting the final act this morning and that’s enough for today. Plus, it’s too hot to think, the laptop is toasting my nuts and my arms are sweating on the keyboard. Generally uncomfortable. I’ll be sleeping in the buff tonight, on top of the …
About a decade ago (very late 2009, early 2010) I started tearing apart the first draft of my first book, restructuring it into something more resembling a three-act structure. That September (2010), I put it up on Smashwords (and KDP about six months later) and I was “published”. That book — Matt’s War — is …
I bang on this a lot, and if the truth be told, this is only a minor component of a good story, but one most often missing. Stories have a structure. Generally, three acts. There are other structures, but they all resolve, in one way or another, to three acts. There are certain things a …