Point of View – Page 15 – J. Scott Coatsworth

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POINT OF VIEW: Help Me! I’m Falling!

February 15, 2021 by scott

Each Monday, I wake up and sit down to pen this Point of View column, and the words pour out of me, a writer in his prime, pontificating on the art of the written word, my life, and the world around me. Usually I scribble out a pithy, insightful screed that makes my readers smile and nod, or sometimes grimace and cry. Today, I got nuthin.’ On the rare occasion when such a tragedy occurs, I turn to you, dear reader, to see what you’d like me to talk about. So please tell me in the comments below what you’d … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: A Noisy New Adventure

February 8, 2021 by scott

This month I’m embarking on a grand new adventure – putting my books out on audio. There are a few ways to do this, but there’s really only one game in town if you want wide distribution. That’s ACX, which sells audio books under the audible.com website, as well as under another name that you might be more familiar with: Amazon. Side note: my iPhone’s speech-to-text translator really doesn’t know what to do when I say “ACX-com.” My favorite transcription? Ineedsex.com. *side-eyes iPhone* Amazon owns the market for audiobooks distributed online. There are a couple other companies that can help … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Stanislavski-ing My Characters

February 1, 2021 by scott

Constantin Stanislavski came uo with a theory of acting that I’m loosely going to describe as “become the character” – a method of connecting with the personality of the person you’re playing, and learning how to think and feel like they did. It’s also known as Method Acting, and taken to its extreme, it can mean basically living as the person you are portraying. As folks who regularly read this column know (thanks to both of you!), I’m working on going deep with my characterization. Lately, I’ve found myself thinking about method actors and how they get into the heads … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Hope

January 18, 2021 by scott

Covid19 is ravaging the country. Our main business is suffering, especially the travel-related part. Our country has just gone through an attempted insurrection, and more Trump pardons are on the horizon. I should be devastated. And yet… I feel a strange peace. A weird feeling that I’m not entirely comfortable with, as it goes against the rough grain of all that I have experienced these past four years. Hope. It’s been nine days since I last heard the phrase “President Trump tweeted.” I don’t think I’d realized until now what an ongoing psychic abuse I felt every time someone uttered … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Building Compelling, Complex and Charismatic Characters

January 10, 2021 by scott

Every writer has an achilles heel. Mine is characterization. I’m fantastic at world building – I can create compelling settings that will wrap you up and transport you away from whatever mudane place you find yourself in. I’m also great at plot. Not bragging here. It’s something that just comes naturally to me. The one thing I consistently get dinged for is my characterization, or lack thereof. I’ve worked on it for years, and I’m way better than I used to be, bit alas, there’s still room for improvement. Agents and publishers have a word for this – they call … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: 2021 Is Here – What Now?

January 4, 2021 by scott

Last week, I talked about some writing successes during an otherwise bleak 2020. Today I’m turning my gaze ahead and pulling out my crystal ball (and my planner). Here are some things I am hoping for and preparing for in 2021. In January (1/10), I am rereleasing Between the Lines, my River City Chronicles prequel. I have re-edited and extended it a bit, and it will be available in print as a novella for the first time. It also has a spiffy new cover, which I am previewing in this week’s newsletter! In February (2/10), I’ll be rereleasing a short … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: What Went Right in 2020

December 28, 2020 by scott

Make no mistake. 2020 was a dumpster fire inside a clusterfuck inside a horror film. And yet, some good things still happened for the LGBTQ community. Switzerland and Northern Ireland finally got marriage equality. Trans, gender fluid and non-binary representation in entertainment got a big boost. More jurisdictions banned conversion therapy. And the Commander in Thief got kicked to the curb. Wikipedia has a great list of many of 2020’s LGBTQ advances here. Personally, a lot happened for me and my writing career too. 🙂 In January, I started submitting Dropnauts, the follow-up to the Liminal Sky: Ariadne Cycle trilogy … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Breaking Through the Wall

December 21, 2020December 20, 2020 by scott

Sometimes we just get stuck. Writers gotta write, but life has a habit of getting in the way. Maybe a particular project has you stumped. Or maybe it’s a general sense of malaise or a bad review, or a book that didn’t sell like you hoped it would. As I write this, we’re at the tail end of 2020, a year that offered enough pain and distraction to stop the most dedicated of writers dead in their tracks. Whatever it is, you need a way to break through the wall. If you’ve never read it, I’d like to recommend a … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Updating Your Golden Oldies

December 14, 2020 by scott

It happens to all of us published authors, eventually. We sell a story, it lives out its initial life with a publisher or magazine, and then it wings its way home, ready for its next act. And sometimes, if it’s a really old story, it needs a little love to bring it up to your current writerly standards. As authors, we are always learning and refining our craft. The way I write today is different from how I wrote last year, and waaay different from my writing in 2014 when I was first published. Which brings me to my current … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Writing in the Margins

December 7, 2020 by scott

Growing up, I was an insatiable reader. Starting with the Lord of the Rings in third grade, I moved through the canons of Asimov, Clarke, Silverberg, McCaffrey, Heinlein and many more by the time I hit junior high. It wasn’t until I was in eighth grade and realized I had crushes on other boys in my class that I noticed the lack of diversity in speculative fiction. And it wasn’t until much later – after I came out at twenty-three – that I started thinking about actually writing my own queer characters. My very first one was a gay, winged … Read more