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The blog of Malcolm F. Cross
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Apparently, approximately once a year, as the weather improves, I am legally obligated to injure myself. You may recall last September I took a tumble while trying to organize a writing desk and managed to take some bruises. Very nearly a year later – right at the start of August, thus this delay – I… Continue reading You speak the truth, or July?
Things will be a LITTLE bit slowed down for a minute, over here.Life has gotten 'may you live in interesting times' style interesting, and that, on top of what I thought was a fairly minor DIY project going somewhat awry, means that I absolutely need to take some extra time to get things - and… Continue reading July’s when… Oh gosh, I really need to lie down.
It’s been a long month for me. Nightmares, literal and figurative, have played a role in it. The most anecdote-worthy nightmare is when my toilet broke and I had to get very, very DIY with trying to repair it due to having a family-member over as house-guest.That resolved satisfactorily, although for a night it meant… Continue reading June’s when the year turns over
I think that inertia is a force in all of our lives, and for writers – or at least for this writer – it can be especially impactful.It can take forever to build up speed, getting some project or task started. Once it’s going, it takes much less energy to keep going. Sometimes it can… Continue reading There May be progress.
Well, the cough is now long behind me, but I managed to catch a random fever on Sunday night – resolved by Tuesday morning, but left sleepless, not recovered or caught up with anything until now – Thursday.Despite being out of end at the tail end of April, and needing to spend a little more… Continue reading Febrile April
At last, I am free from my cough! No more do random coughing fits destroy my concentration... but, just in time to keep me on my toes, some neighbours are getting some work done and there are occasional rare and mysterious banging sounds.However, I have kept my concentration up enough to finally nail down (what… Continue reading Slow March
I have a cough! I am 95% sure it’s not covid, but, hooboy. That was not a nice headcold – I was theoretically only down for a half-week or so, but the cough lingers. It turns out that a cough can hang on for weeks and weeks and WEEKS, even while the rest of the… Continue reading Of February and Frogs in the Throat
As you may recall, last year, Dog Country placed 12th in the inaugural Self-Published Science-Fiction Competition, or SPSFC. (Consensus seems to be it is either pronounced 'Space-fic' or 'Space-face'.)This year, Mouse Cage is a semi-finalist. And a bunch of the semi-finalists have put together a sale on Amazon Kindle this week, in Amazon US (and… Continue reading SPSFC Sale! (And like 20 micro-reviews of the first page)
I... think this year’s going to be good?I know that in the years of our suffering 202x we do not say such things lest we bring down the wrath of Roko’s Basilisk, but despite anxieties around life and the world and well-being and all, I’m still looking forward to the year ahead.My new writing season… Continue reading Jinxing January
You know what I always wanted to do as a kid, but never did?Get good at drawing. Like, really good.I never did – my coordination wasn’t that good, and I had all these other things demanding my time. (Like... incredibly poor mental health; life struggles which make for some sometimes tragic, sometimes absurdly funny anecdotes;… Continue reading December Deliberations
Sometimes, the most reliable way to make progress is to be unambitious.I started the month ambitiously – working on the Bobbyfox thing – but then a succession of events (including searching out a plumber, randomly exploding tempered drinking glasses, and more!) led to things being quite disrupted. Hanging onto ambition, under these circumstances, would have… Continue reading Enduring November
Just a quick heads up - I have, in previous bloggy things, mentioned being invited to contribute to an anthology? Well, the anthology is out today, featuring a totally radical shared-universe secondary world, with its history, cultures, art, maps, and a few short stories too. (One of which is by yours truly.)Please do check it… Continue reading New thing – World of Juno anthology!
I have new glasses. Almost the same as the old glasses, just... ever so slightly better. The main thing is they aren’t scratched – the old glasses? The old glasses were old.So, what new things have I seen? Ghosts, goblins, all that, sure, but also a plan, which we will get to.The thing about making… Continue reading October Spectre-cles.
The panel I mentioned can now be watched whenever you like, as it has been archived on twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1635690040Be forgiving, I don't do live stuff like this very often!A twitter thread with a few links relevant to the panel can be found here: https://twitter.com/foozzzball/status/1585625441213108226
For those of you interested, this weekend I'm giving the panel 'New Writing Projects, Motivation, and Staying Organised' at Oxfurred Comma, a furry writing-focussed online con, and you'll be able to watch it live (and possibly recorded, after).It's built on some notes I've been keeping for a possible writing advice book I may one day… Continue reading I’m giving an online panel! (Sunday, 12 Pm PDT/8 Pm BST)
Hello!It’s been quite the historic month over here. We’ve moved from the second Elizabethan era to the second (third? It’s complex) Carolean era in this neck of the woods, Ukraine performed a lightning counteroffensive to liberate a huge amount of territory around Kharkiv, the current Tory government managed to crash the pound into a crater,… Continue reading A September Of Ergonomics