Point of View

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POINT OF VIEW: Looking Down the Mountainside

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Looking Down the Mountain - Deposit Photos

It’s been a long, hard couple years. Mark and I do our best to find a little hope and joy every day, but it’s not easy in this environment of pandemic, fear, and hostility. And the writing life’s not easy either. As a writer, I sometimes fall down the black hole of disappointment. I haven’t worked hard enough. I haven’t climbed high enough. I haven’t progressed far enough in my career. By now, I’d hoped I would be a household name, with a big NYC agent, a series on Netflix, and a royalty check which would allow me to keep … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Waiting for the Light

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Lightbulb Idea Rainbow - Deposit Photos

Anyone who regularly reads my newsletter knows I’ve been working on my Dragon Eater trilogy for five hundred years a very long time. I’d originally intended to query agents for the first book while I worked on the second, but my editor pointed out that I already essentially had the first two parts of the story in the first one, and so I should just split them in two and start on the final part. So I did, and sent the first book out to query. Then I started on the third one, and have been working slowly through it … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Dancing Between Your Ears

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River City Chronicles audible

My third audiobook release is coming out in November! The first one was for The Autumn Lands, done by the amazing Vance Bastian. The second, for my novella Cailleadhama, was narrated by Drew Bacca. Now I’m about to release the audiobook version of The River City Chronicles – my magical realism “circle of friends” tale that’s my love letter to Sacramento. It’s narrated by the talented Michael Lysan. And speaking about magical realism, there’s something magical about hearing your story come to life in the voice of a gifted narrator. Like when you see a film based on a book … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Doesn’t Remind Me of Anything…

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Chili Cheesecake - Deposit Photos

I like studying faces in a parking lot Cause it doesn’t remind me of anything I like driving backwards in the fog Cause it doesn’t remind me of anything –Audioslave, Doesn’t Remind Me I was talking with my art teacher from high school on Facebook Messenger the other day – what an amazing world we live in. I forget that sometimes when I get bogged down in doom scrolling the daily horror show. But I digress. She showed me some of the art she’s been making lately. They were beautiful – one of a hand clutching a fist-full of dandelions, … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: The Long Bleak August of the Soul

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Green Plant in Bleak Desolation - Deposit Photos

It’s been a bad month. Out in the world, fires are burning up the very trees we need to slow climate change, sending clouds of choking smoke into the air and filling the Sacramento valley with a nasty orange haze. Hurricanes are supercharging over the gulf and bringing torrential rains to the places that need it least, flooding people out of their homes. Religious extremists are taking over a country and shoving women and gays back into their respective closets. Covid, in the form of the cursed “Delta Variant,” rages on against a backdrop of idiocy, hatred, horse dewormer, and … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Keeping Track of All the Details

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Series Bible

I was just a part of a great online panel on story bibles. “What’s a story bible?” you ask. It’s a great way for a writer to keep track of all the nitty-gritty details of a story or series. The longer you write in a given universe, be it sci-fi, fantasy, or a sweet magical contemporary set in the eastern end of Sacramento, the details pile up quickly: Character Details: Hair color, eye color, height, race, history, relationships and personal tics. Place Details: Stores and restaurants, real and imagined. Neighborhoods. Moon bases or starships or enchanted cities. Cultural Details: What … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Writing in a Time of Chaos

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chaos - deposit photos

Damn, it’s been a week. The earth is shaking, a country is falling, and a virus is surging across the land. Mark and I find ourselves trapped inside our house again, staring out the windows at the excessive heat (and sometimes the wildfire smoke) and feeling like it’s 2020 all over again. My writing is in a shambles. Or maybe it’s not. I’m in the second third of the third book in a trilogy. I’m too close to it and I just can’t tell anymore. I am actually writing, but it’s too soon to know how it’s really going. Welcome … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Writing Alien

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Alien - Deposit Photos

I just finished reading The Bantam by RJ Theodore (review coming soon). I really enjoyed it – it’s like a crash course in writing a relatable alien. So how did the author do it? When writing truly alien characters, we have to discard everything we know: Why should they be bipedal? Why should they have hands or fingers, and why would these appendages be at the end of arms? Why would they have two genders? Why two eyes? Would they even have something we’d call eyes? Many sci-fi shows, books and films create aliens that are basically humans with different … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: There’s Always Beauty in the Garden

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Flowers From Scott's Garden

This column was going to be titled “Here We Go Again,” and would have been all about the delta variant and being a writer, and about Mark and I having to shrink the boundaries of our world once again. But fuck that. I am so sick of talking about Covid19 and conspiracies and vaccines and face masks and lockdowns and rabid politicians and shortages of Yasso Bars and cashews and boba pearls and Tazo green tea. I need a little beauty. One of our favorite TV shows is Arrested Development, the comedic story of a very dysfunctional family. In one … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Gone Wide

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Gone Wide - Deposit Photos

Last month, I talked about the pros and cons of “going wide” – selling my books through a bunch of vendors and venues instead of only Amazon. Today, I’m finally there. All of my books are available via Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble. And all of them that are published via our press, Other Worlds Ink, are also available through Thalia, Vivlio, Payhip, and to bookstores and libraries via Ingram Spark. So far, the results are encouraging. I’m seeing sales via Kobo and Barnes & Noble, and Amazon is holding its own. I’m even seeing some via iBooks. … Read more