Point of View

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POINT OF VIEW: Making the Cover

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Hey all! I’m releasing a new short story – “Chinatown” – next Tuesday, and thought it would be fun to take you on a behind-the-scenes tour of how I made the cover. I started with a search for the right images. The story takes place in a future version of San Francisco, where Chinatown is the newest part of the city, run by Chinese invaders, and the rest of the city is in ruins. So I was looking for something dystopian. it took about an hour nosing through sci fi images on Deposit Photos, but eventually I found this image: … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Choose My Own Adventure

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Fork in the Road - Pixabay

I’m about to write a new novel. Problem is, which one? I have four possibilities I’m considering, so I thought I’d crowdsource this thing. Idea One: Liminal Sky Book Five – Fallen Angel: this would be an immediate follow-up to Dropnauts, my currently unsold novel in the Liminal Sky series, but with fewer POV characters and a tighter focus. Idea Two: Liminal Sky Book Five – Forever: An alternate book 5 in the series – and a recreation of the first book I ever wrote. This one would be a complete retelling of that story from scratch. “The Stark Divide” … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: The Great Pause

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pause button - pixabay

Every week I sit down and come up with a topic to share with you. Some weeks are easier than others. Sometimes an idea comes to me – something great that happened this last week, something new I am writing, or some connection my writer brain just made that I want to share. Some weeks, nothing comes. This is one of those times. Mark and I are entering the third week of our personal chapter of what I call “The Great Pause,” and I am sitting here in my writer cave, waiting for clarity. It’s been a hard year – … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Writing in the Time of Covid19

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writing - Yay Images

Another week in lockdown. Although California didn’t order a statewide “shelter in place” order until late last week and Sacramento’s was only a few days before, Mark have been staying home (with only trips out for walks and one trip to the Supermarket parking lot) for eleven days now. We are starting to settle into the new routine, which on the face of it isn’t really all that different than before: Work, eat, work, eat and play card games, work, eat, work and watch TV, sleep. Oh, and the occasional shave and shower in there somewhere. *grin* And yet, this … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Life Under Lockdown

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iron bars - pixabay

I’ve said it before. But damn. What a difference a week makes. Seven days ago at this time, I was still planning to attend the Tucson Book Festival this weekend. Seven days ago there still was a Tucson Book Festival to go to. We live in Sacramento. We had some of the earliest known corona virus cases in the US, but for weeks it seemed like it was under control. Now we know that the Federal government, and the executive branch in particular, fumbled the response badly. And we all know why. So here we are. Almost all public events … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Into the Unknown

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rocket - pixabay

We’re on the cusp of great change. You can feel it in your bones. The old world order is rattling around like a bunch of dry bones in a box, and the world itself is splitting at the seams. In my own little writing world, things are being remade anew too. And in both, no one knows what form the new thing that’s coming will take. Writing at its heart is an act of both destruction and creation. As writers, we take something we know – the world around us – and break it down into its component parts, rending … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: A New Direction

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new direction arrow - Yay Images

So it’s a new week, and a new direction. Regular readers of this column (thanks Mom and the other two of you!) will know I’ve been struggling with my direction as an author since I finished my two trilogies, Liminal Sky and The Oberon Cycle. I have a completed manuscript for Dropnauts – book four in the Liminal Sky series, but after failing to snag a mentor in Pitch Wars, finding out another potential mentor just didn’t get my work, and getting only one agent response for three Twitter pitch events (who later rejected the work), I’ve been a bit … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: The Joys of Reading

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I’ve forgotten how good it feels just to read. It seems ironic that I’m a writer who doesn’t read anymore, doesn’t it? It’s like a chef who never bothers to taste any cooking other than his own. Or an artist who never visits an art gallery. I have no time. My work life is severely regimented. I’m one of those incredible overachievers with a truly disgusting work ethic, spared only from relationship ruin by the fact that my amazing husband works right here in the trenches beside me. Last year, I shared here that I’d found little bits of time … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Changing the Story

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Autumn Lands

I’m struggling this year. Struggling in my work life and as an author. So many things have gone pear-shaped these last few months, and it’s all left me in a strange no-man’s land, not quite sure where to go next. In my writing life, I finished two trilogies, and wrote a new novel with the intent of sending it out to snag an agent. I wrapped it up five months ago, and three agents, two denials and a failed attempt at Pitch Wars later, I still have no clear path. It’s left me questioning… well, just about everything. So I … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Fear vs. Hope

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Earth - pixabay

It’s natural to be scared. I wake up every morning dreading what’s to come. The laws of gravity seem to have been overturned sometime in the last few years, and now up is down and down is up. We ignore climate change at our own peril, willfully and blindly, and instead fight political battles where one side brings a knife and the other brings a nuclear bomb. And tech companies continue their rampant disruption of everything we thought we knew, ripping up old social contracts with reckless abandon and questioning everything. Even truth. It’s natural to be scared. But then … Read more