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POINT OF VIEW: How Would a Civilization Evolve If…

alien world - pixabay

Last week I shared insights from a great author panel at WorldCon76 in San Jose. This week I thought I’d share another. The full title of this one was “How Would a Civilization Evolve If…: How Human and Nonhuman Concepts of ‘Universe’ Is [sic] Shaped By Their Environment.” It was a fascinating chat between an astronomer, a biologist, and a — for lack of a better term – historian/philosopher. It reminded me of nothing so much as those classic sci fi  tales where aliens arrive on earth and a team of varied scientific disciplines (and one guy out of left … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Writing Epic Fantasy

Worldcon76

Hey all, Mark and I just spent a few says at WorldCon 76 in San Jose, and one of the best panels we attended was the one on how to write epic fantasy. It was a two author chat between Kate Elliott, a veteran author with thirty years of publications under her belt, and Rebecca Roanhorse, a hot new “own voices” author who infuses her Anasazi and black heritage into her work. I thought I’d share a few of the insights from the panel here. 🙂 Background Kate started out by saying that epics happen in every culture – they … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Writing Different

I love you ASL

Hey all, As I continue to write, I like to find new ways to challenge myself as a writer. Yeah, I’m a glutton for punishment. 😛 Often this means working on my writing skills themselves. I love to watch really good films and TV shows and dissect how they put their stories together, and then apply that to my own work. It’s a great source of writing lessons and helps me keep advancing my skills. Sometimes it manifests in my characters themselves. In the last couple years, I have written a number of characters very different from myself that I’d … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Suck A Little Happy Juice

scott - happy juice

Hey all, It’s an amazing time in my writerly life. I’m starting to get some local press for “The River City Chronicles” (ok, so I begged and pleaded, but hey, whatever it takes, right?) – and I will do my first official bookstore reading and signing on October 4th at Time Tested Books in midtown Sacramento. (hint hint hint) You can sign up to go here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1180415018767294/ If you are in the Sacramento area, please sign up. I need to show the bookstore I have local support, so they will ask me back again. 🙂 At the same time, I … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: What’s Next?

blank page - pixabay

Hey all, As I work to finish the final book in the Liminal Sky series, I’ve been giving some thought to the question in today’s title – what’s next for me as a writer? I’ve done far more than I ever thought possible in this whole writing and publishing thing: Sold more than 20 stories (shorts, novellas and novels). Written not one but two series, to critical acclaim (and am wrapping up the last book now) Had a few certified Amazon bestsellers (albeit in smaller categories) Published my own works In the four years since I published my first short … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Amazon Bestsellers and The Long Game

Amazon Bestseller - Morgan

Hey all, This last month, I’ve hit the top of the Amazon charts not once, not twice, but three times. My friends and family have taken notice, and many have contacted me to express their congratulations. It’s an awesome thing to claim the title of Amazon Bestselling Author. But if you scratch the surface, it’s not quite as glamorous as it seems. Amazon books have thousands of categories. There are really big ones, like the overall Romance category, or other general genre ones like Paranormal, Fantasy, and Sci Fi. There are smaller ones, like Gay Romance. Then there are the … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Normalandia

Scott

Hey all, As I was thinking about what to write this week, it struck me that I am living in two very different worlds simultaneously. Bizzaro World and Normalandia. In Normalandia, life proceeds as usual. I wake up each morning, get some writing done, and get to work. Mark and I have breakfast together, work some more, and play a card game at lunch. In the evening, we binge-watch some shows on our Roku box, and then get to bed around ten o’clock. In Normalandia, the sun shines brightly outside, the sprinklers come one at 5 AM, the mailman brings … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: All the Pretty Covers

Gargoyle

Hey all, A fun one this week. I published my first story, “The Bear at the Bar,” in 2014. Since then, I’ve published more than twenty tales, and about half of them have come back to me as the journals and anthologies they were in have gone out of print. I self-published “Bear” a couple weeks ago, and it did pretty well. 🙂 So I am embarking on a campaign to republish each of my returned short stories, and a few that never saw the light of day. My next one out – Morgan – a short fantasy tale set … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: When Life Intervenes

Letter

Hey all, I try to keep this column generally light hearted, sharing news about my writing and tips for my fellow writers. And I am writing – I am plowing through the first part of The Shifting Current this week. But sometimes life picks you up and shakes you hard. So I’m gonna get a little real today. When I heard the news last week that Justice Kennedy had chosen this moment to retire from the US Supreme Court, it was like a physical gut punch. I look back at the steps that got us here – Senator McConnell’s huge … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: My Open Relationship With Book Distribution

Scott

Hey all, I’ve just started self publishing, along with my more traditionally published works. “The River City Chronicles” came out last month, and I just published my first re-release, my very first published story, “The Bear at the Bar.” I’m in a bit of a dating phase now, flitting from distributor to distributor to see who I like best. I’ve used Ingram Spark, Amazon, and Direct2Digital so far. Amazon has the biggest arms and the best pecs, but he can be kind of a douche sometimes, and he won’t give me his phone number or email. Direct2Digital is great, but … Read more