Point of View

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Point of View: BayCon!

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BayCon Book Launch Party 2024

Just got back from BayCon and am madly running around putting things away and processing inventory and sales data, so today will be brief. We had a great time. We ran the LimFic table with Marvin Neu, Bel Sikes, Sheryl Hayes, Denise Tanaka, Amanda Cherry, Lillian Csernica, RL Merrill, Mike Karpa and Sumiko Saulson, and sold a decent amount of books. This was the first year for BayCon under new management – Mark and I are charter members of the reorganized con. And for the next two years, WesterCon and BayCon will merge, so we’re hoping for even more good … Read more

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Point of View: Making the Cover – The Death Bringer

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It’s time once again to share the making of a cover. This time, for the final book of “The Tharassas Cycle” – The Death Bringer. The fabulous Kelley York and Sleepy Fox Studios crafted this one for me. We started with a few possibilities: We tried the last one, an alien creature who looked a bit like a hammerhead shark: Not quite there. So I asked Kelley to try the fourth one: It needed… something. How about some creepy eyes? And finally for the coup de grace… a tail: Put it all together, and: I’m thrilled with the final result, … Read more

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Point of View: What Will It Mean to Be Human in an AI Future?

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humans staring at a robot in a job interview waiting room - deposit photos

I’m a sci-fi writer, which means, among other things, that I am tasked with thinking about the future and how it will unfold and sharing this with my readers. And there’s a lot to think about these days. There’s climate change, first and foremost – if it goes unaddressed, it will eventually smash human civilization to bits. There’s the rise of right-wing populism, which threatens to upend democratic institutions around the world (and already has in many places). But nothing has captured the public imagination at this moment more than Generative AI, and its impacts on the human condition. Something … Read more

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Point of View: It Matters What We Do, and that We Do It

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artist - deposit photos

I recently saw a disturbing quote from Elon Musk (I know – is there any other kind?): “It’s hard to say exactly what that moment is, but there will come a point where no job is needed,” the tech billionaire said. “You can have a job if you want to have a job — sort of personal satisfaction — but the AI will be able to do everything.” I normally try to keep this column (and my life in general) a Musk-free zone, but I think he’s getting at something important here. We are moving into an era where it’s … Read more

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Point of View: The Importance of Listening

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man listening - deposit photos

Last weekend, we attended Placer Pride. It’s one of the smaller local Sacramento area prides, but it’s also the most vibrant. It was launched just two years ago in a fairly conservative county, and the people who come to the festival are always thrilled to have us there because we provide something they have in short supply. This year, for the first time, some of the haters found the event too. Three young white men stood at the edge of the park with a bull horn and speaker (right behind our author booth, as luck would have it) and spent … Read more

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Point of View: The Wonderful, Terrible Act of Writing

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meme

I realized long ago that it’s possible to hold two entirely contradictory thoughts in your head at the same time, both of them equally valid. For instance, I can hear about a fellow author’s success – let’s say they won a contest that I also entered my own book into (and lost). I can be thrilled at their success and sad for my own loss. Both of these things are valid, and one doesn’t negate the other. That’s how it is with my relationship with writing. There’s nothing I’d rather do than be writing, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do … Read more

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Point of View: The (Questionable) Wisdom of Writing Four Things at Once

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Man with lots of ideas - deposit photos

My therapist thinks I have ADHD tendencies. That’s a fancy way of saying that I’m happiest when I am multitasking. I love round-robining through three different things at once, doing a bit on each until I wrap all of them up with pretty bows on top. Another way of saying this is that I’m a high-functioning ADHDer. I’ve learned to work with those tendencies, and to make them work for me. This came up again recently in my writing life. I’ve been stalled out on my latest WIP, my first “Forever Cycle” novel that seems to have me stuck in … Read more

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Point of View: Con Crud… Without the Con

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con crud - sick man - Deposit Photos

Anyone who has ever been to a con has probably heard of Con Crud – that catchall term for whatever cold or flu virus is circulating at the time that everyone seems to catch. I feel like that’s what I have – even though I haven’t been to a con since last year. Two week ago today, Mark got it – some kind of cold virus that gives you a headache, stuffs your sinuses full of cotton and makes you cough and cough and cough… and the damned bug is still lingering. I picked it up last Wednesday, and have … Read more

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Point of View: Getting Old is Not for Sissies (Like Me)

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Very old woman hands

OK, so those are NOT my hands. But sometimes it feels like it. I’ve been confronted with the specter of getting older lately in a number of unsettling ways. The first time it happened was at the dentist, two years ago. They took my blood pressure, which turned out to be abnormally high – to the extent that the dentist didn’t feel comfortable working on me. But it wasn’t my BP. Not exactly. It was the way I was suddenly transformed – in their eyes – into a frail old man who needed help to limp my weak and failing … Read more

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Point of View: Revisiting the Past

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River City OG

Eight and a half years ago, in late September 2015, I started out on a new writing adventure. It was just three months after the now infamous Golden Escalator Ride, and the world still seemed mostly sane. I decided to write a blog serial tale – a circle of friends story about found family, with just a dash of magical realism. It spring-boarded off my novella Between the Lines, and featured a wide cast of Sacramento characters, patterned on people and places I know well here in the River City. The serial ran every week without fail for just under … Read more