I use a lot of words in my books. Most of them are words such as ‘and’, ‘it’, ‘the’ and so on. But every so often I try to stretch that vocabulary a bit. Here’s a list of words I’d like to use in future, ideally in the same sentence or two: adiabatic (I might … More Words I want to use in my books
I figured I should do another Q&A or something, what with my latest history book being out this week . So here are a few things people might not know about me. I’ve had formal training in music, writing, martial arts, anthropology, history, various sciences and some other stuff. Some of it got me university … More Ten things people might not know about me
Back when I was at school English spelling was simple: I had to come before E, except after C. It was an iron-clad rule. No kid or their neighbour deigned to seize the moment by disagreeing. The usual forfeit was swift reinforcement, either via some heinous and weird punishment, by seismic kick to the keister, … More Weighing in on the ancient ‘I before E except after C’ rule
It seems to me that mythology and fairy stories go together pretty much hand in hand. One of the twentieth century masters of the art of writing them was J R R Tolkien, whose Middle Earth imaginarium spanned the whole lot. The Silmarillion, the foundation of his mythos, was deliberate mythology. He drew inspiration from … More What is a myth – and what is a fairy story?
Something struck me the other day about the nature of academic ethics in New Zealand and some of the people who flourish by exploiting the conceits of that subculture. Check out these two stories – both are true. 1. A few months ago a gang member arrived in a Blenheim KFC where he saw a … More How academics get away with bullying
I am a great fan of science fiction that’s plausible enough to be ‘scientific’, but which doesn’t take the ‘science’ so far as to be boring. In the miniseries that launched the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica a decade or so ago, Galactica took a direct hit from a nuke and survived with near-undiminished fighting capacity. Is … More Sci-fi writing tricks: balancing drama with plausibility
The talented folks at Jalapeno Publishing – who are behind Scaffolding – have issued a cool preview video. Check this out! You can buy the collectable hard copy online from Blurb – and don’t forget to read my article in the first issue – it’s all about typewriters and writing. More soon. Copyright © Matthew … More A cool video about ‘Scaffolding’ magazine
