Point of View

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POINT OF VIEW: I Am My Father’s Son

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Bill Coatsworth

I am my father’s son. My father and mother separated when I was a little kid. Near as I can tell from the pictures, it was in 1973, when I was four or five. My Dad and Mom were… let’s just say, less than a perfect match for each other. When they divorced, my Dad moved out to an apartment across town, and I stayed with my Mom. That’s not to say that my Dad moved out of my life. Far from it. For all the angst in their relationship with each other, they always agreed on one thing – … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Crashing Back to Earth

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Two weeks ago today, “Ithani” hit the stands. Well, not so much the stands as the ‘zons and ‘nobles and ‘spinners of the virtual world. It started out amazingly, with five-star reviews – deep, insightful ones that made me cry and feel like I had finally figured this whole writing gig out. I sold some books, and basked in the praise. I even asked Angel to call me a “soulless, derivative hack”, to help bring me down a few pegs from those shining heights. It’s never good for your writing when you become overly confident, and sometimes you need life … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Finding the Flaws

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I’m coming up on my five year publication anniversary in May. Interestingly, it’s not the first story I sold – “The Bear at the Bar.” That honor actually goes to “Avalon,” originally published by Mischief Corner Books in their wonderful and now defunct MCB Quarterly journal. When I was first starting out, I got two main complaints from readers in my reviews. The first one was that my stories just weren’t long enough. This kind of pissed me off at first – I mean, you knew you were buying a novella, right? – until a friend pointed out that it … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Finding Beauty and Love in the Face of Chaos

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chaos - pixabay

Ithani comes out tomorrow, the culmination of three years of work and the conclusion to the Oberon Cycle trilogy. I am so not ready. It should be a triumphant moment for me, and I should have been deep in pre promo and preparation these last three days. Instead, I have been on the phone to Apple Care for the last three days almost non-stop, trying to fix Mark’s email app, which has suddenly swirled down into chaos and stubborn non-functionality. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a driven person, one who fills his days with IMPORTANT things to … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: When the Story Takes a Twist

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Every writer who has been doing this gig for a while has probably experienced something like this: A character suddenly reveals something about themselves that you’d never guessed when you first created them. Or maybe what was just a minor throw-away plot point or description suddenly blossoms and veers the story off onto a whole new course. Or that guy you mentioned waaaay back in book one suddenly wants his own plot arc in book three. As a writer, I live for those moments – when the writing feels alive, when it practically sings under my hands on the keyboard. … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: I Am My Mother’s Son

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Mom and Scott

My mother is one of the strongest people I know. She brought me up to be self sufficient, to stand on my own and to go after what I wanted. She made me my own man. There was a period in my childhood when she was single and supporting us both on a teacher’s salary. I never once felt like we were poor. I always had what I needed, and often enough I had the things I wanted. The shirt above was one of them – Quicksilver and Ocean Pacific shorts were all the rage when I was in Jr. … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Writing Short vs. Writing Long

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Hey all… I am finally moving along on my latest novel, “The Long Redemption” – it’s set in the same universe as the “Liminal Sky” trilogy, but with a whole different setting and cast of characters. For the last three years, I have written two novels a year, and this year, I am giving myself a little break and just doing this one. It’s due by the start of October, so I have nine months to complete it instead of six. So what am I doing with the extra time, you ask? I hav set my sights on conquering SiffWah. … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: The Blood Moon

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Last night we saw the blood moon. Okay, technically it was a “super” blood moon, as it was at close approach to the earth, but it actually looked kinda small to me. But it tickled a memory, something from a very long time ago. When I was a kid–maybe four or five years old–we lived in a quiet residential neighborhood in the middle of Tucson, Arizona. This would have been in the arly to mid seventies. I remember lawns and small houses there, the oleander bushes and lone saguaro cactus in the back yard surrounded by a chain-link fence, the … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: To the Moon Part Two

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Last fall, I took a deep dive into Antarctica to write my novella “Slow Thaw.” It was an amazing experience to immerse myself so deeply into setting. Now I’m setting my sights a little higher. My next novel is a stand-alone in the Liminal Sky universe tentatively titled “The Long Redemption.” I am pulling together everything I have learned over the last four years of writing – plot, characterization, overall fabulousness – and I am really excited to get into this one. Much of this new story is set on the Moon, a place which I have never visited. To … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Three Cats Short of a Horde

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Warning/Disclaimer: In today’s column, I discuss phrases that are colorful synonyms for when someone is “crazy.” I want to distinguish this from mental illness, which is not what I am referring to. Instead, I am referring to people who espouse crazy ideas, often knowing they are not true. Every good writer loves words. It’s an inherent part of the job, just like good lawyers love the law and good pilots love their planes. Words are an integral part of our trade, and we delight in the weird and wonderful nature of the language and enjoy twisting it around like warm … Read more