Point of View

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Point of View: Five Strategies for Winning NaNoWriMo

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NaNoWriMo is coming up next month, and authors all over the country will be sitting down at chaining themselves to their laptops, ipads, or notepads to scribble out a “winning” story – 50K words in 30 days (and don’t forget, Thanksgiving is in there too). So here are my tips for getting to 50k by November 30th. 1) Plan Out Your Story in Advance: This isn’t absolutely necessary – some of us are born pantsers, after all. And of course, if you are a plotter, you can plan out your story with varying levels of detail, from a note scribbled … Read more

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Point of View: Six Steps to Prepare for Your Adoring Public

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I’m about to meet one of my adoring fans. OK, so they’re also a great friend and writer, so it’s not the same as meeting a fan (or fans) cold. But it got me thinking – what are the things any writer should do before meeting their fans? So here’s my list – I hope you find it helpful: 1) Shave and shower. OK, so the shaving part may not apply to everyone. But it’s important to give a good impression to your fans. Sure, in their minds-eye, they see you in your writer cave. But they imagine it as … Read more

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Point of View: Trouble Right Here in River City

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River City Chronicles

I’m about to embark on a brand new adventure, something that I as a writer have never done before. I’m going to write a serialized piece of fiction, a story that unfolds slowly and publicly week by week on my blog. And as if that weren’t enough of a challenge, I’m going to release each new episode simultaneously in both Italian and English. Several things have come together recently to make this possible: I started a new blog for myself as a writer in June, which needed content I published Between the Lines with Dreamspinner Press in July, a magical … Read more

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My Top Five Excuses for Not Writing Today

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scott and parsley

As writers, we all know time is not our friend. We have stories to tell, and they won’t get told if we spend all day figuring out reasons why we’re not yet ready to write. And yet about ten percent of my potential writing time goes to procrastination. So here, without further ado… hey, what the heck is an ado, anyhow? My top excuses for not writing today. 1) I Got So Much Writing Done Yesterday: So I had a great writing day yesterday. I actually exceeded my goal, so I’m way ahead of the game. I can afford to … Read more

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WROTE – The Evolution of One Author’s Journey

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Hey all. SA “Baz” Collins here. When Scott asked me to guest blog on his site I was immediately intrigued. In the short time I’ve come to know Scott and his works I’ve been nothing short of impressed at the sheer volume of work he does in queer storytelling (writing novels being just one aspect). So what to write about? I pondered talking about my current work (Angels of Mercy – which has a new release coming out at the end of September) that dives into homophobia in competitive sports (in this case American high school football). And while a … Read more

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Point of View: Six Steps to Becoming a Better Beta Reader

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Hey all, Welcome to my weekly rumination on all things writing. 🙂 This week, I’m in the midst of beta reading several works for an anthology I’m involved in. I’ve only been beta reading for a year or so, though I was critiquing stories long before that. But it got me thinking. What are the things you need to do to be a great beta reader? Here are my thoughts: 1) Ask the Author What They Want: This is the most important, because it sets the ground rules. Some authors want just a high level storyline critique – does the … Read more

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Point of View – A Full-Time Writer With Part-Time Time

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Time selfie

If you’re a full-time writer, you may have so much time on your hands that you have a hard time finding enough stories to write to fill it. I do not have that problem. Stories swirl around in my head on spin cycle. They leak out in conversations, get themselves written down on napkins and bits of paper and note files on my mac and iphone and ipad. I have so many stories to tell, and so little time to tell them. You see, I’m a full-time writer with part-time time. Now I’m not complaining, exactly. I have a wonderful … Read more

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Point of View: The Eight Deadly Phases of Writing

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J. Scott Coatsworth

Almost every author goes through a certain set of phases when writing a new work, especially a longer work. Although the details may vary a bit from author to author, I think the broad strokes are probably the same. Here are my phases, gathered from my current work in progress, the Autumn Lands: Phase One – The New Journey This is the honeymoon phase. The story is fresh and new, and you know you’re gonna knock it out of the park. Surely you can get this thing done in days – a week at most. And you won’t need no … Read more

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Point of View: And Now for the Edits…

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scitt pulling out hair

Hey all… I just wrapped up the first draft of my latest work, The Autumn Lands, on Saturday night. And boy is it rough. Not rough trade rough. Nothing as sexy as that. Just… rough. I can only blame myself. I started the story out with a general idea of where it was going, a theme for the anthology (“fall”), and a snippet of a story I wrote maybe twenty years ago that I decided would “work” for this project. But I didn’t sit down to do even a rudimentary outline. I’ve been trying to force myself to take this … Read more

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Point of View: Under the Gun

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Pantser vs. plotter

There’s a lot of discussion these days about whether, as a writer, you are a pantser or a plotter. Pantsers, as the name implies, write by the seat of their pants. It’s like they open the door to their new story and just go out wandering in the world to see where they end up. Plotters, on the other hand, are the folks who sit at the kitchen table with a map and a copy of the AA hotel guide (geez, that dates me, doesn’t it?) and know every step they plan to take, though of course it’s all subject … Read more