Author Archives: davidmckwrites

I don’t need to tell you what a strange year this has been. So I won’t. Now that’s out of the way, let’s talk WRITING! Strange year – yes. Productive year – HELL YES! Earlier this year, I decided to throw away the novel I had started in 2019. It just wasn’t doing it forContinue reading “#NaNoWriMo2020”

Manifest Recall by Alan Baxter My rating: 4 of 5 stars A good page turner. I was really lost at the start, and really sucked in to the story, then all the horrible trauma started revealing itself. Eli Carver doesn’t have any redeeming characteristics, except maybe being a good shot, yet Baxter still had meContinue reading “Manifest Recall – a review”

It’s been a little over a year since I quite my management job, became a part-time shit kicker, and focused my attention on being a writer. Over this past year I have been devouring resources about writing. I have completed courses on plot, characters, dialogue, structure, and planning. I have subscribed to blogs and newslettersContinue reading “What doth make a writer?”

Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski My rating: 5 of 5 stars From the opening sentences, I felt the sadness of this story like a weighted blanket, comforting me through the book. This book is poetry: melancholic, innocent, hard and unyielding. The main characters, Ludwik and Janusz, share a love and passion that isContinue reading “Swimming in the dark – a review”

Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones My rating: 5 of 5 stars Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones is an engaging, hypnotizing, and surprising novel, exploring the relationship between the low self-esteemed main character, Colin, and the world in which he finds himself enmeshed from the age of 18. Colin is an everyman. He is short, fatContinue reading “Box Hill – a review”

Invisible Boys by Holden Sheppard My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is a compelling read. Well written, using simple, emotional language that takes you instantly into the heads of the three main characters. A coming of age tale for gay boys. Gritty, hard, reality based stories. Highly recommended.I found it took me longer toContinue reading “Invisible Boys – a review”

The Fell of Dark by Caleb Roehrig My rating: 4 of 5 stars What a fun ride! Auggie Pfeiffer is a normal, horny, uncertain, evolving, gay teenager. He just happens to have crushes on two sexy vampires – Jude and Gunnar. Oh, and he’s being slowly possessed by a fallen Angel wanting to take overContinue reading “The Fell of Dark – a review”

Eat, Gay, Love by Calum McSwiggan My rating: 4 of 5 stars Calum McSwiggan spins an interesting, heartfelt, sometimes cringeworthy, tale of his travels in this compelling memoir. The locations are exotic and varied, providing a theatrical backdrop to his very personal experiences. His interactions with the people he meets brought back many fond memoriesContinue reading “Eat, Gay, Love – a review”

Over the past couple of years, my therapist and I have been grappling with my inability to assign blame to others for the harm they have caused me. Without getting too deep, this is mainly related to my parents. What has become clear is I am able to identify and assign responsibility, but not blame.Continue reading “Blame vs Responsibility”

a poetry ‘magazine’ entirely via tweet They published one of my poems today – She died silent, the moment almost Passed notice. Finally, we exhaled the last. Your hand over my hand – love is a subtle thing.

The world oscillates with the thrill of vibrations; they make the world a living, thriving place, full of activity and connectedness. Everything, every animate and inanimate thing, vibrates to some degree. Each rock, leaf, person and animal emits a vibration at a personal pitch. When enough vibrations of similar pitch unite, they begin to formContinue reading “Odd vibrations”

There’s been many a moment during the past 5 months of this pandemic craziness where I have felt stuck, unable to write. I would go to work (thank the goddess I still had a job), come home, watch Netflix, exercise, and go to the supermarket a couple of times a week. Lots of my energyContinue reading “Too many ideas! 5 ways I decide what to work on next.”

Join me & writers around the world in the Short Screenplay Challenge 2020, kicking off Sept 25th! Learn more at https://t.co/fbJxYo0V6dExciting!!! — DavidMcKWrites (@DavidMcKWrites) August 14, 2020

My poem – ‘When not paying attention’ – will be published in the premier August edition of the online magazine windowsfacingwindows. Check it out! windowsfacingwindows.wordpress.com

I returned home from overseas in March, and entered two weeks’ isolation under the rules to contain COVID-19. This was early in the virus spread, so I was lucky enough to spend the two weeks in a holiday house near the beach. During those two weeks, I did not leave the property. On sunny days,Continue reading “‘You’ve lost weight’: The unconscious judgements in compliments”

It’s been a year since I resigned from my job as a manager and moved to a part-time, low-paying role within my organisation, all so I could focus on becoming the writer I always wanted to be. In the past year I have started two novels, written and rewritten over thirty short stories, created moreContinue reading “Since I became a writer …”

A new poem on my Writings blog page – check it out!

Hi everyone! I’ve a couple of new pieces of writing on my blog. A poem titled Comrade and a short story titled Claudio consumed. I hope you enjoy them 🙂

This is an interesting question that someone posted to my Twitter group a couple of weeks ago. The answers submitted by members included: ‘Yes! Enthusiastically, anything for love’; ‘No, I’ve done it before and it didn’t work out’; and, ‘I wouldn’t make room on the couch, let alone move to another city’. It got meContinue reading “Would you move for love?”

There once was a man I loved, I think? Check it out! https://davidmckwrites.com/writings

Advice to writers often consists of ‘write what you know’ and ‘writer from the heart’. As both these things are inconsistent – that is, they change constantly – how difficult is it to be consistent in our writing? Writing a novel can take anywhere from a few weeks to years. It is inconceivable to thinkContinue reading “That was me, then, but not me, now”

Thanks to Writers Victoria, lock down in April was a lot of fun! They ran a daily Flash Fiction competition for the month. Each day a ‘prompt’ word was tweeted, and writers had until 9pm to tweet their flash fiction reply. All entries had to contain the prompt, and be less than 30 words long.Continue reading “Writers Victoria April Flash Fiction”

Please check out Mat’s short stories from my collaborative website “https://www.worldwriterscollective.com/mat-carke“, there are also many great authors to chat to and other stories to read. Mat Clarke | free-stories – Read Great Stories This makes sense considering it requires no research. If it happened to you then you are the best person to write aboutContinue reading “Promoting Mat Clarke”

There’s a lot of people complaining online about being bored right now, what with all the restrictions, social distancing and closed attractions. That’s part of the reason we are seeing a more of restriction breakers in public places. ‘Boredom: the desire for desires’ – Leo Tolstoy I’m feeling it today. I have editing that needsContinue reading “This is sooooo boring”

Take away the illness and death and economic recession, and this isolation/distancing thing ain’t so bad. Alleviates most of my social phobias. My counsellor was like ‘I knew you’d be enjoying this’ and I’m like ‘Well, the government said I can’t go out, so it’s not my fault’ and he’s like ‘You don’t have toContinue reading “This ain’t so bad (except for all the dying)”

I’ve been a Twitterati for a few months now. It is an enthralling, engrossing and enriching place to make contact with other writers – new and established – particularly at this time of social isolation when I don’t have access to my usual writing groups and supports. I’ve learnt most writers on Twitter are generousContinue reading “How many Twitter followers do you have?”

I read advice once, on becoming a writer. I think it was in an interview with Matthew Reilly. He said – if you want be a writer, you need to call yourself a writer. On my way home from my last overseas trip (remember those, pre-corona?) I listed writer as my occupation on the immigrationContinue reading “A writer or a fraud?”

Please check out Cecile’s book on tainted love, of which has been published, from my collaborative website https://www.worldwriterscollective.com/cecile-ravell ‘Love on a Faultline’ takes you under the skin and into those intimate places where a woman’s vulnerability lies. It shows how her fragile sense of self-worth makes her a ‘sitting duck’ for a dominating man andContinue reading “Promoting Cecile Ravell”

Dear World, Are you dumping me? It feels like you are pulling away from me. I feel isolated and alone. I’m confused, to quote the Handsome Furs. Did I do something wrong? Did I offend you? to quote Lauren Ruth Ward. I know I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to you lately. YouContinue reading “Dear World, are you dumping me?”

All right, here’s what I submitted. For the first novel: She cares for the wounded & dying. He’s suffering a mysterious illness. The war gave them opportunities outside their normal lives. Their friendship will give them solace they never anticipated. A story of unexpected comradery during misfortune. Based on actual letters from WW1. And forContinue reading “Jericho Writers Twitter competition”