If you want to check that Dom is alive, well, and (most importantly) still writing, then this is the place to do it…
Here is where Dom provides updates on all his projects be it short stories, competitions or his debut novel A Better Crown, plus any other strange ideas he may come up with.
It may include some columns and opinion pieces from his journalistic work.
Dom will try to update you as much as possible but if you’re looking for something to transport you away for a while, his short stories and excerpts from A Better Crown can be found in the menu above.
Enjoy.
Honestly, to have the man who managed the great Robert Jordan and (one of my favourite authors of all time) Iain Banks, praise my work, has been a huge boost. John said he could see the “imagination and intelligence” in the opening chapters of A Better Crown but couldn’t represent me because he didn’t love the book which is fair enough; he doesn’t want to market a book he doesn’t wholeheartedly adore and I wouldn’t want that either.
Read MoreThere is this strange time cloud hanging over me with each submission: how long does it take to read my three chapters? If it takes longer for them to reject me is that better? Does it mean my idea is good but my writing is crap? There are so many varying dimensions to this game. I will just have to keep you informed as the replies, and rejections, rumble in.
Read MoreA Better Crown now has several very diligent and very enthusiastic beta readers rifling through it. With their feedback, and another round of editing on my part; the third, and hopefully, final draft is well underway. Earthguard is in place, the plotline is rigid, the characters are set. A few edges need to be softened and a few corners rounded, but then it should all be done.
Read MoreI have no idea if I’m happy with the book all I know is that if you’ve worked on something for that long, after a while it’s almost impossible to see it through someone else’s eyes. I’ve written enough copy in my life to know that at least.
Read MoreFrom here on out it should be plain sailing (he says furiously touching wood) because the rest of my first draft was written over the last year. The quality of writing is better, the narrative is clearer, it’s fresher in my mind and fewer edits or rewrites are required.
Read MoreWhen it comes to fantasy you are never going to reinvent the wheel and if you do it’s going to be a very ugly, rather unappealing wheel. You can only recraft and recreate small sections of that wheel to come out with something appealing, while keeping the doubts at bay.
Read MoreThe first book I ever read, cover to cover, entirely on my own, was Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox. I was eight or nine, very behind when it came to reading levels at school and worrying my parents to death with my incompetence. I remember, very clearly, being the only one in the class who couldn’t read a single line of The Hungry Caterpillar.
Read MoreI’ve just kept one piece advice in my head, one mantra that I fixate on and has become the focal point of my editing. It’s something I heard Neil Gaiman say about editing: “the second draft is about making it look like you knew what you were doing all along.” It’s those few words that are getting me through right now.
Read MoreI hope you can come to enjoy something on this and if you don’t, well, I still really appreciate you dropping by. I do. Being willing to explore someone’s art is one of the best things you can ever do, because, even if you hate it, you bothered to find out if you hated it or not. It’s a valuable thing to do.
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