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Point of View: Con Crud… Without the Con

con crud - sick man - Deposit Photos

Anyone who has ever been to a con has probably heard of Con Crud – that catchall term for whatever cold or flu virus is circulating at the time that everyone seems to catch. I feel like that’s what I have – even though I haven’t been to a con since last year. Two week ago today, Mark got it – some kind of cold virus that gives you a headache, stuffs your sinuses full of cotton and makes you cough and cough and cough… and the damned bug is still lingering. I picked it up last Wednesday, and have … Read more

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Point of View: Getting Old is Not for Sissies (Like Me)

Very old woman hands

OK, so those are NOT my hands. But sometimes it feels like it. I’ve been confronted with the specter of getting older lately in a number of unsettling ways. The first time it happened was at the dentist, two years ago. They took my blood pressure, which turned out to be abnormally high – to the extent that the dentist didn’t feel comfortable working on me. But it wasn’t my BP. Not exactly. It was the way I was suddenly transformed – in their eyes – into a frail old man who needed help to limp my weak and failing … Read more

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Point of View: Revisiting the Past

River City OG

Eight and a half years ago, in late September 2015, I started out on a new writing adventure. It was just three months after the now infamous Golden Escalator Ride, and the world still seemed mostly sane. I decided to write a blog serial tale – a circle of friends story about found family, with just a dash of magical realism. It spring-boarded off my novella Between the Lines, and featured a wide cast of Sacramento characters, patterned on people and places I know well here in the River City. The serial ran every week without fail for just under … Read more

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Point of View: Being On Brand

brand

In just two more days, I’ll be releasing my book about indie writing, sharing everything I’ve learned over the last seven years. You can preorder Suck a Little Happy Juice here. I’ll be sharing some of my most popular columns that are now in the book to whet your appetite… Every now and then, an author should give some thought to their  “brand”—the sum total of how they are perceived in the world as an author. I had reason to do so recently because of a few unrelated events. First off, in a con panel on “going mainstream,” we discussed … Read more

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Point of View: The Eight Phases of Writing

writer, frustrated - deposit photos

In a little over a week, I’ll be releasing my book about indie writing, sharing everything I’ve learned over the last seven years. You can preorder Suck a Little Happy Juice here. I’ll be sharing some of my most popular columns that are now in the book to whet your appetite… Almost every author goes through phases when writing a new work, especially a longer one. Although the details may vary a bit from author to author, the broad strokes are probably very similar. Here are mine: Phase One—The New Journey: This is the honeymoon phase. The story is fresh, … Read more

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Point of View: I Wish I’d Known…

regret - deposit photos

In less than three weeks, I’ll be releasing my book about indie writing, sharing everything I’ve learned over the last seven years. You can preorder Suck a Little Happy Juice here. I’ll be sharing some of my most popular columns that are now in the book to whet your appetite… Every writer has a list of things they wish they’d known when they started. Writing is a craft, like any other, and each mistake teaches us something new. Here are a few things I would tell my younger self if I could, knowledge that would have made my writing journey … Read more

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Point of View: Seven Things to Live For

hope - deposit photos

It’s been a rough year. We’ve lost four friends, three of them to cancer, and most recently, one who passed away in the middle of the night unexpectedly. So many other bad things have happened, both large and small, that I started a list called The Time of Shit, to chronicle them, and to reassure myself that I wasn’t going crazy. And yet, life goes on. So it’s time for a little counter programming. My optimistic side won’t be held down for long. I give you seven good things in my life (from the serious to the seriously goofy) that … Read more

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Point of View: The Hencha Queen Chapter One

The Hencha Queen - J. Scott Coatsworth

Another tease for next week’s release. But first, some great deals on the earlier books in the series. Both books one and two – The Dragon Eater and The Gauntlet Runner – are on sale wherever eBooks are sold for just 99¢, so this is a great time to get in on the series: And order any one (or all three and let me know at scott@jscottcoatsworth.com, and I’ll send you the prequel – Tales From Tharassas – free! Now, on to chapter one, Rise: A SHARP CRACK FILLED the wine cellar. Kerrick swung the heavy mallet back and then … Read more

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Point of View: Cover Reveal / Preorder

The Hencha Queen - J. Scott Coatsworth

It’s time for the cover reveal for the third book in the “Tharassas Cycle.” The Hencha Queen will be out on March 14th, and so I thought it would be fun to share the cover evolution. Kelley York at Sleepy Fox Studios started with a general concept: Okay, so it’s a good start. But the pose was too static, the clothing too flat, and the staff just wasn’t right. So Kelley adjusted it a bitL Much better pose. But the eyes and expression are a bit vacant. Not sold on the staff, and the dress color and fabric – just … Read more

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Point of View: Six Indie SFF Authors You Should Be reading

Colin Alexander

I thought I’d do something a bit different today, and share with you six Sci Fi and Fantasy authors you may not have heard of but whom you should definitely be reading. These are drawn from my own personal book reviews over the last 12 months. Here we go: Colin Alexander Colin Alexander is a writer of science fiction and fantasy. Actually, Colin Alexander is the pseudonym for Alton Kremer, maybe his alter ego, or who he would have been if he hadn’t been a physician and biochemist and had a career as a medical researcher. He’s been reading science … Read more