writing

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Point of View: The AI War

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We’re in the middle of an AI war, but it’s not the one you are thinking. Yes, every company of any size is trying to shove generative “AI” down our throats, scraping our content without commission, and filling their apps with AI “functionality” that in many cases makes those apps work worse than they did before. Notice how your voice to text is suddenly less accurate, and won’t type the right word sometimes no matter how many times and how clearly and slowly you say it? Microsoft has taken this to the next level, renaming its Office suite, a brand … Read more

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Point of View: Why We Do This

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Every now and then, I sit back and reflect on what it means to be a writer in this crazy world we live in. There are so many of us now, especially with the advent of self-publishing technology. And with the arrival of AI, many of us expect to eventually be snowed under entirely. Every day as an author is an exercise in shouting into the cold, uncaring void, and hoping, every once-and-a-while, to hear a friendly “Hello?” back from the other side. We writers wrap ourselves up in blankets in our chilly, lonely writer caves and painstakingly extract stories … Read more

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Point of View: The Weight of Worlds

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The weight of the world is on my shoulders. Well, technically, three worlds. I’m currently writing three different novels, complete with three different universes of people. And sometimes it weighs on me as a writer to have to be the only person who knows about this world. To be responsible for everything: The people, the society, the religion, the economy, even the fricking plumbing. And as writers, we have to keep it all straight in our head somehow. And yeah, I have a story Bible for each of these worlds, but even that is a daunting task – maintaining it, … Read more

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Point of View: Wanting to Be Big

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I’ve been writing seriously now for over eleven years. As regular readers of this column will know, I’ve climbed a long ways up Writer Mountain, but not as far as I hoped I would. Still, I haven’t done badly. And yet… I had a few things happen this last week that brought me down a peg. First of all, I was going to be a featured author at an event next year. Or at least thought I was, but unfortunately, it didn’t work out. There are a few reasons for this, but one of the main ones is that I’m … Read more

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Point of View: Finding the Theme

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book magic - deposit photos - theme

Every story begins with something. Sometimes it’s an especially vivid image of a character that you want to write. Sometimes it’s a shiny plot object, the big idea that you want your whole story to revolve around. And sometimes it’s a theme. No matter where you start, the theme is an important part of your story. You are asking readers to buy into your view of the world, and that viewpoint should be about something. The tricky part is figuring out what that something is. For me, the theme is usually not apparent to me until I get partway or … Read more

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Point of View: I’m Happiest When I’m Writing?

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We writers are a strange and contradictory breed. Take the act of writing itself. When we’re not writing regularly, we can be sullen, morose, unhappy creatures. And yet, when we are writing… my husband would say “how can you tell the difference?” The actual act of writing can be exalting, even thrilling, as the strength of our ideas and our connection with our characters carries us forward like an unrelenting wave. But even then, we surf at our own peril. Because every wave eventually crashes. More often than not, writing is a long, boring grind. My writer brain has to … Read more

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Point of View: The (Scary) Art of Self Promotion

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Most of us writers are, by nature, solitary beasts. We are happiest when holed up in our writer caves, interacting only with people whom we control – our characters. Although many writers I know claim it’s the other way around! We decide what they are feeling, where they are going, and how and when that journey ends. Woe to the character who crosses an angry writer! We engage with them when we are ready, and there are no critics (outside of the inner one) to tell us we are doing it wrong. Sooner or later, though, we finish a story, … Read more

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Point of View: On the Downhill Run

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Over the last decade that I’ve been a serious writer (defined as someone who loses sleep at least three nights a week because their writer brain won’t shut up), I’ve become accustomed to the various stages of my writing projects. There’s the initial honeymoon phase, where I’m convinced I have a fantastic idea and nothing is going to stop me from writing this amazing book that everyone will be clamoring to read. Then there’s the coasting phase, when everything is running smoothly. Sure, it’s not as exciting as it was at the get-go, but the story is unfolding nicely, and … Read more

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Point of View: Writing With My Mouth

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I don’t have enough time to write. To be fair, this is a perennial problem. Most recently, it’s been related to the many hours I poured into the Sacramento Book Festival which happened a week and a half ago, and also to the other weekend events during Pride Season that I attend, and where I manage a table for our local Queer Sacramento Authors Collective group. So I’ve been scrounging for more writng time. A few days a week, I walk over to meet Mark at the Starbucks on the Sacramento State campus. These solo walks take 15-20 minutes, and … Read more

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Point of View: Adrift

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And the river flowsI am never gonna get it back againAnd the river flowsI am never gonna take it back again… “Take Me Back”, by Erasure Sometimes a song speaks to you in an unexpected way, and the music unlocks something you’ve been feeling for a long time, but couldn’t quite name. Our world is in a state of flux, where everything we thought we knew is being questioned, threatened, and overturned. Most of us just want to go back to the way things used to be, when we were standing on what we thought was solid ground. As I … Read more