Point of View

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POINT OF VIEW: Writers Who Inspire Me

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Fan Joel Arellano recently asked me what writers inspired me. Every author writes from a font of knowledge and a stew of weird ingredients created from a life’s worth of experience – where we grew up, how we were raised, and what we consumed over those (for me) long 52 years now. But one big piece of this is the other writers we have read. So here, in no particular order, is a non-comprehensive list of some of the writers who have inspired me, and why. Sherri S. Tepper: I first encountered Ms. Tepper’s work in the supermarket checkout line. … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Reworking/Extending an Old Story

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Today I’m answering a fan question from Joel Arellano… Which of your works would you extend or rewrite? I’ll start with the rewrite one. In general, I don’t like to go back and mess with my finished work too much. But I often do a light-to-heavy rewrite for most of my shorter work when it goes out of print and I re-release it. For instance, Homecoming, one of my earliest published works, got a “smoothing” rewrite, incorporating some of the things I’ve learned since, like not taging every utterance with “he said” and “she said,” and I also added a … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Shouting Into the Void

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Every author reading this knows what this column will be about, just from reading the title. Well, at least every self-published author. You have done everything right. You have a website, a blog, a facebook profile (and page/group!). You’re on Twitter, the ‘gram, Slack, Zoom, Discord, and a hundred other apps you probably forgot you downloaded. You’ve writen your ass off, paid a professional editor, and have created or commissioned covers that would make the Gods weep. They ought to – they cost you enough. You have Nanowrimo’d, workshopped, critique-grouped and edited your writing to a finely honed skill, and … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: After the Con

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The Rainbow Space Magic virtual con ended yesterday, and I’m feeling that weird post con mix of elation and let-down. It was wonderful to see many of my fellow authors and readers, and to spend time moderating a couple topic panels, and to hang out in the reading panel with Angel Martinez and Rory Ni Coileain. The read and the discuss aspect of the RSM reading hours is one of my favorite things about the con. I really miss in person cons, though. The ability to meet somebody and grab a coffee with them at the hotel Starbucks, or to … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Damage

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“What’s your damage, Heather?” We all carry damage around with us in some way, shape or form, like an unwanted hitchhiker. Damage from things that were done to us as children. Damage from things we did to others. Damage from the world and society at large. I carry the damage of homophobia. Of being called a faggot and queer and a sissy, damage from the nasty looks straight guys sometimes gave me when I was a teenager. I carry the damage of shattered hopes, dreams, and expectations, and the damage of a few hundred writing rejections that feed my imposter … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Technobabble

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One of my friends/fans, Joel Arellano, asked me to talk a bit about technobabble in sci-fi, so here we go. Oxford defines technobablye as “incomprehensible technical jargon.” Basically, in sci-fi, it’s when a writer throws in a bunch of high-tech words to make their story sound all sciencey and shit: Jelyk pulled the thromb-whistle to spin the arkensphere up to speed. Somewhere in the guts of the Hawkthorne, the mighty raction engines powered up, ready to thrust the massive ship into hyperspace. See? I really know my technobabble. I bet you don’t even know what an arkensphere is, but now … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: I Wish I’d Known

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Joel Arellano

Last week, I asked The Universe for ideas for my future columns, and The Universe, personified in one Joel Arellano on Facebook, replied: “A list of 10 Things you wish you had known before publishing your works.” I’ve been doing this writing thing semi professionally since 2014, so I should be able to come up with ten things to tell my newbie writing self, right? Here it goes: Rejections Happen. Don’t Let Them Stop You. If you give up being a writer because of rejections, you’ve lost the game. You may be an awful writer, or you might be the … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Help Me! I’m Falling!

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Each Monday, I wake up and sit down to pen this Point of View column, and the words pour out of me, a writer in his prime, pontificating on the art of the written word, my life, and the world around me. Usually I scribble out a pithy, insightful screed that makes my readers smile and nod, or sometimes grimace and cry. Today, I got nuthin.’ On the rare occasion when such a tragedy occurs, I turn to you, dear reader, to see what you’d like me to talk about. So please tell me in the comments below what you’d … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: A Noisy New Adventure

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This month I’m embarking on a grand new adventure – putting my books out on audio. There are a few ways to do this, but there’s really only one game in town if you want wide distribution. That’s ACX, which sells audio books under the audible.com website, as well as under another name that you might be more familiar with: Amazon. Side note: my iPhone’s speech-to-text translator really doesn’t know what to do when I say “ACX-com.” My favorite transcription? Ineedsex.com. *side-eyes iPhone* Amazon owns the market for audiobooks distributed online. There are a couple other companies that can help … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Stanislavski-ing My Characters

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man in mirror

Constantin Stanislavski came uo with a theory of acting that I’m loosely going to describe as “become the character” – a method of connecting with the personality of the person you’re playing, and learning how to think and feel like they did. It’s also known as Method Acting, and taken to its extreme, it can mean basically living as the person you are portraying. As folks who regularly read this column know (thanks to both of you!), I’m working on going deep with my characterization. Lately, I’ve found myself thinking about method actors and how they get into the heads … Read more