About

ETERNAL QUESTIONS OF LIFE

Who are you?

I am Dominic Merrick (D.W.M. Merrick, what do the W and the M stand for? Few scholars possess that ancient knowledge). 

I’m a British writer living in Germany, who is also teaching Storytelling and English in the Baden-Württemberg region. 

A writer? Really? What have you written?

I’ve written short stories that have been published, such as the The Wars of the Sun and the Moons, and had them performed on the radio, such as The Creative Artist Murders. I also wrote and directed a stage play, Chess For Princes, Not For Kings, that was on at various festivals around the UK. You will probably find a few press articles about Coronation Street storylining, as well as a soap opera pilot episode I co-wrote for ITV,  and perhaps a short film I wrote whilst at university. 

University?

I have a BA in Screenwriting and an MA in Scriptwriting… I really started to learn my craft there. 

Languages?

English and German (improving each and every day I spend here).

Do you like Sport, even as a nerd?

Football. Liverpool (youth love), Bristol Rovers (father’s team) and England (Freiburg and Germany my second teams, otherwise I’d be mobbed over here). 

Dogs or cats?

Dogs. I have two in England that reside with my parents. One is named Ace (after the Bat-Hound), one is named Indy (you were named after the dog?!). Ace is the father of Indy, after a series of coincidences that was definitely NOT my fault (an hilarious story that involves no time travel, just two puppies and an unlocked gate). 

Meaning of life?

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women! 

The real meaning of life? I don’t know and that’s why I write, OR I write and that’s why I don’t know. Probably to pursue what makes you and your people happy/fulfilled and try to be a good person whilst doing it. But that sounds too kitschy for me. So I’ll refer to my answer above from Conan’s wisdom. 

Why a blog?

The blog is simply a spillage of my thoughts on storytelling in my favourite three forms, books, role-playing games and films. 

Hopefully some of it is thought-provoking, hopefully some of it is funny, hopefully all of it is enjoyable.

It helps me write on the bad days when the creative tide is out and the waves of self doubt crash wildly against the cliffs of my subconscious. 

Creative tide? What are you writing now?

I’m very glad you asked me that. I’m currently querying Brexit Boys, something atypical from my usual fantasy fare. It’s about two lads backpacking across Europe in 2016 right after the referendum. They fall in love, experiment with drugs, worry about their future and experience all that Europe has to offer. A real travellers’ novel. Last year I wrote Myth Mountain , my great fairytale fantasy epic. The year before I wrote The Three Lovers: Mirror of Death, a fix-up novel filled with swords & sorcery adventures.

In Myth Mountain humanity’s dreams have been stolen. Yella the Blacksmith’s Daughter yearns to escape the Pale Princes’ tyrannical reign and scale Myth Mountain, thereupon lighting the Seven Beacon Towers to restore humanity’s dreams… but the goblin Trow have riddled each tower with devious challenges that only the worthy can conquer!

It is inspired by some of my favourite fantasy series, especially Memory, Sorrow & Thorn by Tad Williams, The Lyonesse Trilogy by Jack Vance, The Earthsea Cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin and The Dark Tower by Stephen King.

In The Three Lovers: Mirror of Death three adventurers are in love (a ménage à trois), they wander the Kingdom of the Spine, struggling against the Stygian King and his three witches from their fell halls of sorcery… They battle wizards, wizard’s demons and their own demons too (har-har). 

One lover is a middle-aged ex-knight, one lover a teenage alchemist/disgraced scholar, and one lover an eclectically moral thief. When finished, it will be a modern take on the swords and sorcery genre, with a diverse and rich cast. It will serve as a refreshing update and sumptuous love letter to Jack Vance, Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, C. L. Moore, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Gary E. Gygax amongst many others. 

I also have ambitions to turn my short story The Wars of the Sun and the Moons into a novel, which will spring off into an epic fantasy series in the moulding of Dune by Frank Herbert, Macbeth by William Shakespeare or A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin.

I’m also always writing role-playing campaigns (exclusively for my friends and family to play). 

What role-playing games?

I’ve played Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) since I was 11 years old, and I’ve been the Dungeon Master since I was 14 years old. We’ve played 5th Edition D&D since it came out, but before that only a warped and heavily modified version of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1E or AD&D). 

King Arthur Pendragon, Call of Cthulhu, Numenera, Traveller and many more interest me, but it’s very difficult to get all of us full-time workers and family/relationship people to commit to another system when we know D&D so well! I’ll keep you updated on my quest to get another system running. Too many games, not enough time! 

Why fantasy?

Why make-up stories in your own world when you can create your own world to make-up stories in?