Writing fascinating, well-rounded characters comes easily to some people. Character traits, past histories, and quirky, unique personalities seem to just flow out of their fingers and onto the page, and every book is a new adventure filled with a fascinating new cast. I am not one of those people. Are you? If you are, you … Read more
There’s a great skit in Portlandia where Fred Armison plays a character working on his computer, getting calls and messages on his cell phone, alerts on his iPad, and “Netflix” style DVDs in the mail, all of which drives him to distraction. It was hilarious at the time. Who would let themselves be sucked into … Read more
Regular readers know how much pleasure I take in my vegetable garden. In many ways it’s like writing – you carefully nurture each sprout until it grows into a beautiful plant which bears delicious fruit. Well, this year my garden has been an apt metaphor for my writing life. It started out promisingly enough. I … Read more
I’ve been reading fantasy and sci-fi since I was in second grade – for those counting, that’s forty-six years. I always loved escaping into a different world through a good book, somewhere utterly unlike the place I knew growing up. I came by this desire honestly. My mother was (and still is) a voracious SFF … Read more
I’m writing again. OK, so not anything new yet. But I’m back into book one edits in preparation for getting it off to my new publisher – Water Dragon Publishing – around week’s end. And I have release dates (at least tentative ones) for all three books: March 2023, September 2023, and March 2024. More … Read more
I want an agent. I want a big publisher, a Netflix deal (or maybe HBO Max). And eventually, a little world domination would be nice too. I want people to read what I write and tell their friends, and for them to tell their friends too, until hundreds of thousands of readers know my name … Read more
Writing is hard, y’all. And I’m not just talking about the actual typing-words-onto-paper part. Which, yeah, is hard enough – trying to keep a million ideas and a plethora of characters, plot points, and locations in your head, and then spewing them out onto the page in a pleasing order. You also need to advocate … Read more
I’ve started to dread Mondays. After a quiet weekend, everyone wakes up Monday morning with one thing on their minds – fill Scott’s email box with inquiries, problems, announcements, and enough spam to make a Monty Python film. Add to that the unremitting dull, grinding sameness of life under lockdown – sleep, eat, rinse, repeat. … Read more
I thought I’d have a little fun today and share a unique part of my writing process – navigating my worlds via maps – along with my hand-drawn draft version of the map for my WIP trilogy The Tharassas Cycle. For my sci-fi and sci-fantasy stories, maps are one of the first things I make. … Read more
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 … Read more