Point of View

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AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: Catherine Lundoff

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Catherine Lundoff

Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work. Today, Catherine Lundoff (she/her) is an award-winning writer, editor and publisher from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her books include Blood Moon, Silver Moon, Out of This World: Queer Speculative Fiction Stories and Unfinished Business: Tales of the Dark Fantastic and as editor, Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space), as well as a number of published short stories in multiple genres. She is also the publisher at Queen of Swords Press, a small press … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Finding the Character Heart

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fire heart - deposit photos

One of the first criticisms I received as a newbie writer was that my characterization was a bit thin. Readers loved my immersive sci-fi world building and my intricate plots, but my early characters fell a bit flat. Ever since, I’ve been on a journey to learn how to delve deeper into the hearts of my characters, to make them really come alive on the page. I’ve made some good strides, but I still sometimes come up short. Before I start a new book, I do a few things to learn more about each of my primary characters before diving … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: In the Shadow of Giants

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People shadows - deposit photos

This week we lost another great writer. Anne Rice passed off this Earth, leaving behind an impressive legacy. While I was never a big Rice fan, I was still in awe of her storytelling ability, and how she almost single-handedly created the sexy vampire (and the gay one, too). Sadly, many spec fic writers I idolized as a kid are no longer with us – Asimov, Clarke, Tepper, Le Guin… Each one had their own recognizable voice, their own stories to tell, and an audience waiting eagerly for their next book. Asimov thrilled me with his Foundation novels, and his … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: We Are A Community

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candles - pixabay

A couple years ago, I was preparing for an hour-long, solo author appearance at a local bookstore to promote The River City Chronicles. I was writing down all my ideas, along with a list of the websites Mark and I have created over the last twenty years, and a common theme emerged. Community. All my life, I’ve searched for people to connect with. First as a gawky teenager, hanging out with the rest of the geeks at lunch under the gnarled old pine tree on our high school campus in Tucson. Then I looked for other writers, helping to form … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Beating Up My Inner Asshole

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inner asshole critic - deposit photos

Almost every writer has what’s called an inner critic – a voice inside their heads that ridicules their work, tells them they’re not good enough, and generally makes their writing lives a living hell. It’s like your high school bully took up residence inside your head, where it’s really easy for him to figure out which buttons to push. I don’t buy it. The word “critic” implies that this jerk has some kind of actual, factual basis he uses for critiquing my work. Mine doesn’t – he’s just an asshole. This week, I’m diving into the second draft (or the … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Second Drafting

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edits - editing - second draft - Deposit Photos

I’m setting off on an epic quest today – the second draft of my Dragon Eater trilogy. It got me thinking – how do other writers handle second drafts? I usually do three drafts total. The first one is the get-it-all-on-the-page one.The second draft is the fix-all-the-broken-things-and-flesh-out-the-scenery one. And my third draft is the post-beta-clean-up. As I’m writing the first draft, I’m constantly making notes as I go about story holes, thin descriptions, and characterization / motivation. Here are a few of them from my current project: Show more of the training field in use More about the hydro dam … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: The Monster at the End of This Book

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The Monster at the End of This Book

When I was a kid, I had a few favorite picture books. At the top of the list was The Wump World – and it’s so freaking relevant now in regards to the human-driven nature of climate change that it’s scary. Get this book for your little kids NOW (and read it yourself). In a similar vein, I loved Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax, about the ills of deforestation and the impacts of environmental degradation on the world and humankind. But one of my all-time faves was the Little Golden Book called The Monster at the End of This Book. It … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Thirteen Years (Or Twenty-Nine Years) Later

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Mark Scott Wedding

Thirteen years ago today, on a rainy Saturday afternoon in San Francisco, I had the most amazing day of my life. I married my prince, my one true love, on a beautiful terrace in front of our closest family. It was our second wedding – the first was a hastily-arranged affair four years earlier, when then-Mayor Gavin Newsom threw open the doors of City Hall for gay and lesbian couples for the first time. And while that one didn’t stick, this one did, and remains one of the sweetest and most precious moments of my life. I still remember vividly … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Standing at the Gates

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Standing at the Gates

Traditional Publishing is infamous for its “gatekeepers.” They are the first line of defense against the ravening, unwashed hordes of authors trying to get their books published by Big Publishing. When I was growing up, you had two options – traditional publishing (the gold standard), and self-publishing, which usually meant a vanity press – a printing company you would pay to print your book and ship you a pallet’s worth of copies which you’d then try to sell to readers and bookstores, often out of the trunk of your car. This is where much of the stigma came from for … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: For the Love of Words

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Scott Millennium Falcon

I was a chatty, cheerful kid who loved words – speaking them, reading them, and even writing them. When I was in first grade, I joined the GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) Program. It was something that happened only because of a bit of childhood fraud on my part. On my way home from school in kindergarten, the teacher had given me a note to take home to my parents. I was not much of a reader yet, but I scanned the words, pretending to understand it, and the teacher noticed. A few weeks later, I was being tested for … Read more