Point of View

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Point of View: Search for the Lost Excerpt

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Search for the Lost

Hey all, Search for the Lost, the thrilling sequel to Office of the Lost, is finished! Kim and I will be doing a paperback release for WorldCon at the end of this month, and an eBook release on 10/7. I shared Chapter One here. Enjoy Chapter two below, and the cover tease above! Chapter Two Leo was really, really trying. The thing was, living with someone else wasn’t easy. He knew this from previous occasions in which strained finances had forced him to have roommates. One roomie had moved out after the fourth kitchen fire. One had packed up her belongings during … Read more

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Point of View: The Pavement Protection Posse

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fresh pavement - deposit photos

Today I’m going to share something a little different, a heartwarming community tale. They are resealing our neighborhood asphalt this month, putting a new surface coat on it throughout this development. Last week, they did the other half of the development, and today they are starting on our side. Our community has an active Facebook group, and folks often share all kinds of happenings there, both good and bad. Last week the group was full of disbelieving posts. People who should’ve known better, including some of our neighbors, drove across the newly surfaced streets before they were fully dry, sometimes … Read more

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Point of View: Politics and Being a Writer

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protest fists - deposit photos

Writers of fiction, especially often escapist fiction like romance, sci-fi, and fantasy, are usually told to steer clear of politics. You don’t want to alienate half of your potential audience, they say to us. In some ways, it’s sensible advice. Readers are looking for an escape from their daily lives, not another diatribe on the dire state of the world. If they wanted to be depressed about the events of the day, they would turn on one of the 24 hour news stations. There’s already plenty of commentary out there about politics and the savage world we are living through. … Read more

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Point of View: Search For the Lost Sneak Preview

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Search for the Lost cover sketch

Hey all, We’re just about a month out from the release of book two of Chaos & Order, Search for the Lost, and the return of Crispin & Leopold (Leo to his friends). So I thought I’d give you a little teaser with the first sketch fr the cover (above) and the first chapter (below). Enjoy! Chapter One A sharp banging at the door brought Crispin back to the present. Or rather, to the past, when Leo had been taken away from him by Juzir and Qyl. They shared a look. Leo was clearly thinking the same thing.  Wordlessly, he … Read more

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Point of View: Playing In Someone Else’s World

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Book sci-fi - deposit photos

I am in the running to write a story set in someone else’s fictional sci-fi world, in this case, continuing an existing series working with a well-known author. While I can’t give any details right now, it’s been a fascinating experience. I’ve read the existing books in the series, and I’m now going back through them with a fine tooth comb to create my own series bible. There was an existing one, but unfortunately didn’t have all the little details I would need to know to continue the story with consistency, and without missing important story arcs and character quirks.  … Read more

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Point of View: Living in the Gap

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In the Gap - deposit photo

A few years ago, one of the ministers in the church we were attending at the time brought up a concept called living in the gap. It was postulated by a black Pastor from the South – unfortunately I don’t remember his name at this point. But the idea behind it stuck with me. It goes like this. There’s a place we are at, and the place we want to be, as individuals, and as a society. We are always trying to bridge the distance from one to the other, but often it’s a project that will take more than … Read more

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Point of View: Scott the Event Planner

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event planning - deposit photos

One of my favorite drag queens of all time is Bob the Drag Queen. In part because he just seems like a genuinely real and kind person. And in part because I just love his name. Calling yourself Bob the Drag Queen normalizes drag in a way that names like Trinity the Tuck or Pandora Box don’t. And while I love both of them too, there’s just something down to earth about a drag queen named Bob Which brings me to my latest endeavor. I’ve been Scott the Bookseller, Scott the Publisher, Scott the Webmaster, Scott the Author, and a … Read more

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Point of View: On the Shoulders of Giants

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Jim Comer

I just got back from running Nebula Con, SFWA’s annual convention for the Nebula Awards. I feel hugely honored that they entrusted me with this responsibility, and it was an unforgettable experience that I will delve into more next week. The award ceremony itself was uplifting and moving in a way that I did not expect. You can watch it here if you haven’t had a chance to see it. Especially N.K. Jemisin’s speech which was is profound, moving, challenging, and a balm to all of us in these uncertain times. Partway through the ceremony, they showed an honor roll … Read more

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Point of View: Running a Big Event

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conference - deposit photos

Ever since our old business started collapsing in 2015, driven mostly by Google’s destructive changes that at first whittled away and then wholesale destroyed our site traffic on our legacy websites, I’ve been looking for a new direction. A new calling. And for the last two-and-a-half years, I’ve been on a job hunt, as we worked to keep our writing websites going – sites we built to disregard Google’s influence entirely. I’ve been looking for something solid, something real I could do with the next part of my life. None of those searches yielded a definitive answer. Time after time, … Read more

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Point of View: We’re Off to See the Wizard…

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Wizard of Oz

As writers, we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. I was reminded of this today, while working on one of the final chapters of the sequel to Office of the Lost. There’s an undeniable thread of the Wizard of Oz running through the whole book. It wasn’t intentional – it just kind of snuck up on us during the writing process. But now it’s become an integral part of the plot. When I was a kid, we all had much more of a shared culture than we do now. Believe it or not, here were only … Read more