Dragon-y E-Tale

22 Thursday Oct 2015

Posted by Shawn MacKENZIE in 2015, Dragon Keeper's Handbook, Dragons, Fantasy, Fiction, Month of the Dragon, Smashword, Story Telling, WAFDE, Wales, Writing

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Bard, Book Giveaway, Dragons, Dylan Thomas, E-book, Fiction, Free story, NYC, Poet, Shawn MacKenzie, Smashwords, Swansea, Tell-a-Dragon-Tale, Wales

Since my new story for this year’s Tell-a-Dragon-Tale week won’t be ready for this space until tomorrow, I thought I’d offer something else – someting older – today.

For all my e-book savvy friends and fellow WAFDE members – and anyone else for that matter – my story, Because the Pleasure-Dragon Whistles, will be downloadable free from Smashwords through October 24. Simply click on the title above or cover image below, follow the link, and use coupon code WC46J. (It is also available at Amazon, but for some reason they won’t let me give it away. Going to have to talk to the Dragons about that.)

This story follows a young Welsh Dragon and the boy poet he befreinds from the streets of Swansea to the concrete wilds of New York City. It is on the lyrical side, but I hope you all enjoy.

And should you feel inspired to leave a few words of review on its page, this scribe would be forever grateful.

Now…back to finishing tomorrow’s tale….

Editor’s Corner 101.16

25 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by Shawn MacKENZIE in Art, Dragon Keeper's Handbook, Editing, Editor's Corner, Stream of Consciousness

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Art, book, Dragon Keeper's Handbook, Dragons for Beginners, Editing, Editor's Corner, Faulkner, Fiction, mackenziesdragonest, Magic, Molly Bloom, Pollock, Shawn MacKenzie, story telling, Stream of consciousness, Structure, Words, work, Writing, writing and tagged books

Stream of Consciousness – Going with a structured flow.

the secret keeper

Dangling Our Toes in the Stream of Consciousness

I love flowers Id love to have the whole place swimming in roses God of heaven theres nothing like nature the wild mountains then the sea and waves rushing then the beautiful country with the fields of oats and wheat and all kinds of things and all the fine cattle going about that would do your heart good to see rivers and lakes and flowers all sorts of shapes and smells and colours…

So, I picked up Ulysses the other day – as one is wont to do – and dove into the roiling river which is Molly Bloom’s beautifully, rudely fecund tale at book’s end. With my mind groping towards a subject for today, I read not only for the jaw-dropping poetry of the words tumbling across the page, but also for their precise, artful construction.

After last week’s discussion of…

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Editor’s Corner 101.15

17 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by Shawn MacKENZIE in Dragon Keeper's Handbook, Editing, Editor's Corner, Fiction, Structure, Time, Writing

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Books, Dragon Keeper's Handbook, Dragons for Beginners, Editing, Editor's Corner, Escher, Faulkner, Fiction, Lewis Carroll, mackenzie's dragonsnest, mackenziesdragonest, Pinter, Shawn MacKenzie, story telling, Structure, Time, Words, work, Writing, writing and tagged betrayal

Structure and Time: Castles built on shifting sand soon crumble….

the secret keeper

House of Words

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” …Lewis Carroll.

When I was a kid, aside from wanting to be a writer, part of me wanted to be an architect. To design and build houses – and castles – from the ground up. To focus on the 3-D aesthetic of what goes where and how it all fits together. As I grew up, I realized that you don’t have to build houses to focus on the elements of construction. And so today, I want to talk about literary structure, about how, as writers, we are architects with words.

First, let me clarify: I am not talking about plot. Personally, I tend to be a little lukewarm about plot. But I love structure.

And at heart, structure is largely a matter of knowing – and keeping…

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Editor’s Corner 101.13

03 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by Shawn MacKENZIE in Big Picture, Books, Dragon Keeper's Handbook, Dragons for Beginners, Editing, Fiction, Words, Work, Writing

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Big Picture, book, Dragon Keeper's Handbook, Dragons for Beginners, Editing, Editor's Corner, Fiction, Oscar Wilde, Shawn MacKenzie, Words, work, writer's group, Writing, writing and tagged books

Pounding one’s head against the rocks….Time to let it be.

the secret keeper

Other Eyes and Beatles Wisdom

“The trick to forgetting the big picture is to look at everything close up.” …Chuck Palahniuk

“It is better to take pleasure in a rose than to put its root under a microscope.” …Oscar Wilde.

There comes a time in every editing endeavor when each wall you face is an Everest and each knot Gordian in its complexity. You have taken your work apart, dissected and resected every sentence, paragraph, and chapter. You know your characters inside out and have removed every extraneous pronoun, preposition, and adverb, but still it’s not right.

Typewriter Girl – Zev Hoover

Chances are, while slogging through dense literary underbrush, you have not only lost sight of the forest, but also the trees. This is the boundary beyond which all the rules in the world will do you absolutely no good. In fact, chances are you are in this…

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