Point of View – Page 40 – J. Scott Coatsworth

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: Banana Surprise, Alligator Feedings and Platypus Horns

March 7, 2016March 7, 2016 by scott

Hey all… I just got back from Dreamspinner’s annual retreat. I had a fantastic time there with a bunch of QSFers, including but not limited to Angel Martinez, Jon Keys, Jamie Fessenden, Lloyd Meeker, Andrew Q. Gordon, Brandon Witt, Elizabeth Noble, Z. Allora, Shira Anthony, Skylar M. Cates, Wade Kelly, Gus Li, Clare London, Pearl Love, and Erika Orrick. If I left you out, I apologize in advance – it was a whirlwind! There were so many of us there, and I also met a bunch of fantastic non-QSFers at the retreat (or maybe future ones?) 🙂 Anyhow, I thought … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: Recognition

February 29, 2016 by scott

We all want to make a little money in this business. Yes, most writers write because they can’t NOT write. Because there’s something inside each of us that drives us to express ourselves through the written word, putting out into the world the stories we see in our heads. But we also want to make a living at this grand creative act, so we can afford to keep doing it. And yet, there’s something else that most writers crave as much or more than financial compensation. We dream of that person at a con coming up to us and fangirling … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: Dreaming of Making the Leap

February 22, 2016 by scott

I want to be a full-time writer. I mean, yeah, it absolutely scares the shit out of me. But right now, I barely have the time to shave once a week (as you can see), let alone write all the things I want to write. And yet, when I think about it, I realize that there are so many things that could go wrong: 1) I Could Run Out of Ideas: It’s true. There are a limited number of ideas in my writer brain. Last time I checked, it was hovering around 13,276. If I had enough time, I could … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: Getting Happily Sidetracked

February 15, 2016 by scott

OK, so I am knee-deep (or maybe neck-deep) in third drafts for Oberon, my NaNoWriMo sci fi project, prior to sending it out for submission. So what have I spent this last week doing? Writing an entirely new and unrelated project, of course. This is how writer brains work. You have to be at least a little ADD to be one – and often it’s the allure of the next shiny new thing which leads you on to the next story. So what is this new story I speak of? I found out that a friend of mine had submitted … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: The Cover Design Process

February 8, 2016 by scott

I am stealing this column from my blog tour stop at Elizabeth Noble’s Emotion in Motion blog. It was one of my favorites on the tour, and so I wanted to share it directly with y’all as well: I LOVE working with an artist on the cover for a new book. It’s your chance as an author to see your work through someone else’s eyes, made real. I’ve been through the process three times now, and it’s been fun every time (at least for me; I’ve probably sent at least one cover designer away screaming). This time around, I was … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: Writing for the Blog Tour

February 1, 2016 by scott

One of the many ways we try to get the word out about our new books is the dreaded blog tour. Don’t get me wrong – it’s wonderful how other writers and blogegrs open up their online homes to us when we have something new to share. But then comes the downside – you gotta actually write all those posts. And if you’re a prolific blog traveler like me, those posts can easily number in the twenties or thirties. Sure, you could cookie-cutter it – just take the same post and send it out to each place, making a few … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: The Me Me Awards

January 18, 2016 by scott

Today the winners of the MM Romance Readers Choice Awards were announced. I want to give a hearty congratulations to everyone who won – this is your day. You buckled down and worked hard, and it’s a wonderful thing that you won the award. 🙂 However, I am not one of those people. Oh, I know, it’s an honor to be nominated, right? And yeah, it actually kind of is, because it means someone else thought highly enough of me and my work to put me up next to all of those other great authors. But for all of us … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: Third Draft Hell

January 11, 2016 by scott

Anyone who follows me regularly will know that I decided to do NaNoWriMo (the writing challenge where you try to knock out a 50k novel in 30 days) for the first time in November. I survived the challenge and wrote Oberon, the first part of a trilogy I’ve been knocking around in my head for about a year. A week later, I dived back in for second draft, and thought that I had managed to iron out most of the problems with the story. I was fairly confident that it all when I sent it off for a beta read. … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: My Writing Plans For 2016

December 28, 2015 by scott

Hey all, Last week I reviewed my writing year in 2015. I thought I’d flip things around this week and look ahead to my writing plans for 2016. So here are some of the things I hope to accomplish: 1) Publish My First Novel: Or at least get it scheduled. Those who know me well know that I wrote my first novel in my early twenties, like twenty five years ago (I know, right?). But it never went anywhere – it was roundly rejected by ten mainstream publishers. In my more recent writing life, I’ve stuck exclusively to short stories … Read more