Category Archives: #amwriting

A Hint of Scarlet

Then last night, or rather this morning while I was trying to make it back into last night, I had something of a break through. Scarlet started speaking to me, as she has previously only whispered. So perhaps, just perhaps, it is time. Continue reading

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To be a Writer

To be a writer you have to write, it really is as simple and as complicated as that. Continue reading

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The Leaf in the night time

For reasons I don’t entirely understand, posts involving things form my scrap folder seem oddly popular. Admittedly I suspect having now said that, no one will read this post, as my audience is as predictable as a British summer. Bless … Continue reading

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Post-Newtonian Magic

When writing fantasy, be it high, low, grim dark, romantic, steampunk, urban or whatever, a writer can’t just throw words at a page and see what sticks. Well, that is not entirely true, that is in fact quite often the … Continue reading

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Necromantic Pontifications

All of this is of course unpalatable to any gentleman of moral fortitude. But moral fortitude is not a prerequisite among your average magus, unlike a degree of nihilism which almost certainly is. More than one magus, once they feel the bite of age upon them and see the first grey hairs among there ravenlike locks, will be tempted to use a little necromancy to ‘rejuvenate’ themselves.

‘What, when it comes down to it, is the point of having acolytes other than so they can lend aid to your designed. Lend you their power. Lend you a year or two of their life perhaps… Well, would they really miss it?’ Continue reading

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Supporting your local itinerant author

I throw words into the wind and what them swirl around me and hope to catch them again, I am a writer, writing is what I do, occasionally quite well, it defines me in many ways and I believe through my writing I add to the zeitgeist of humanity in positive ways.

But I don’t always believe any of that to be true… Continue reading

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Harvey’s not dead/Men in Dark Tweed

Over the last several years I have been involved in the Harvey Duckman Anthologies project. First as a writer, occasionally a mentor and then latterly as part of the editorial staff . I have spoken of it here more than … Continue reading

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Blood on the Page

Blood, they say, is thicker than water, this is true. It’s also why it makes for better ink. Mark Hayes 2023 Once in a while one quotes oneself. That particular quote is from a short story I started a while … Continue reading

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Writing Groups, a guest blog by Liz Tuckwell

For Mark’s annual Indie Month, I thought I’d write something about my experience of writing groups. Writing is a solitary pursuit, but writers like to get together to discuss their craft and occasionally have a good moan about writing and publishing.   Continue reading

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The rules of write #2

I’m not a great fan of talking about characters in terms of ‘her/his truth’. Though it is a concept I understand, my problem with the concept is it is by nature restrictive. Which is to say that the concept states that I, a white upper working class British man in his early fifties, should not write about the experience of an African American soldier born in the early 1900’s in the southern states of the US, because I can not know, or speak for, that characters ‘truth…’ Continue reading

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