Here's to a Happy & Prosperous New Year! After the New Year's celebrations are over, you might feel like a bit of reading. Here are a couple of suggestions on how you can share your thoughts on a novel, or participate in the storytelling, or just sit back and enjoy a good read... * Review * Beta Read* Add to …
Category: On Writing
Apples?
I was describing a futuristic device in my upcoming novel "EXODUS!" and tried, "the size of a small apple". Hmmm... It occurred to me how often apples appear in fiction and myth, a veritable harvest:- Garden of Eden (probably not an apple, but apples get the blame) Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (poisoned apple) …
Advertising’s Future?
We might be headed for another Covid year (variants yet to be named), with only novels and electronic entertainment to ease the pain. (Read more novels!) But there's something lurking under the surface of these entertainments... On May 8, 1704, one of the first newspaper ads appeared in the Boston News Letter, offering Oyster Bay …
Great New Year News!
I just signed a publishing contract for a collection of short stories, provisionally titled Eclectic! Should be on the bookshelves, electronic and physical, later in the year. I'll announce the launch right here and in as many other places as I can. 😉 Meanwhile... In my library is a novel first published in 1956: "No …
Long Covid Years
Hi! Back again! I know some of you have missed me these past few months. Apologies. Heard of Long Covid? It's a long-term after-effect of Covid-19 infection. For about a year, I suffered apathy, lethargy, head-and-eye pain, and brain-fog. Not good for a writer. I came to a dead stop. During that year I lost …
SPACE: The next frontier!
Space exploration. Space settlement. Space empires. What’s the fascination? It's in our bones, or rather our genes. Our ancestors and their precursors were not satisfied with the place they grew up in. Sub-Saharan dwellers spread out to occupy every habitable place in Africa. Their cousins headed north into Arabia, then Europe (where the Atlantic Ocean …
Empires Fall
Last time, I ended with, "But that's another story, for next time." And here we are, so... I was always fascinated by the way empires fall. Gibbons' tale of the Roman Empire and Asimov's Foundation series (inspired by Rome's collapse) sparked my interest. In older days, the empires of Rome, China, Persia, Egypt, Huns, Mongols, …
About a Story, Maybe
Let me tell you a story... about a story. Or maybe it's about a writer. Seven years ago I started to write a story. It grew like topsy. I was squeezing an epic series spanning thousands of years into a single novel. So I found break-points and spread the tale over three, then four, books with yet …
Culling Again
Independent writers are reporting in FaceBook groups a new culling of their 5-star reviews is underway on Amazon. Other reviews are blocked before they even appear on the book's page. Yes, that's indie authors' 5-stars again. I guess if it happened to J.K. Rowling, there'd be a batch of 5-star corporate lawyers knocking on Amazon's …
Waking Up?
Well, that's been a weird few weeks. Groundhog Day all over again every morning. "What day is it, today? Is it yesterday or tomorrow?" The writing community seems to have fallen into two camps. Some were fired up, churning out thousands of words a minute, mainly about fictional global virus infections, it seems. (Good luck with sales.) …
Andy McKell, Speculative Fiction Author 
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