Point of View

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Point of View: The Year That Was

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2022 - deposit photos

2022 was A LOT. To finish out the year, Mark and I both have the virus. As the last wave subsided in late summer, we slowly allowed ourselves to get back to normal, even if we took it slow, still wearing masks indoors, except when it was quiet enough in the cafe or restaurant we were visiting. And eventually giving them up altogether in restaurants, because, hey, at 5 PM they’re deserted anyway, right? Until this last week, when holiday-goers packed those same places, even in the early evening, and the rise in local cases finally caught up with us. … Read more

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Point of View: What We Have Left Behind

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nostalgia / clocks / time - deposit photos

Last week, I took a look at some of the sci-fi gadgets, discoveries and trends that are propelling us into a sci-fi, and why they are more disappointing (and in some cases frightening) than I hoped they would be. Today I’m taking a deep dive in the opposite directory, remembering my past, and thinking about some of the things we have left behind. When I was a kid, there were basically three ways to listen to music. Radio, record album, and cassette tape (okay, 8-track was a thing too, but it was already fading by the time I arrived on … Read more

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Point of View: The Future is Now (And It Kinda Sucks)

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flying cars - deposit photos

We all grow up in a world we think we know. Not just that, but we assume it’s always been like this. That’s natural – we have no other personal frame of reference, other than old TV shows and movies (and of course books) that offer us a two-dimensional look at life the way it used to be. But times change, and with them, almost everything we take for granted does too. When I was in high school, back in the early-to-mid eighties, World War II was in the way far distant past. So far back that films were in … Read more

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Point of View: Diving Into Your Characters

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Diving - deposit photos

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 can stop reading here. 🙂 I grew up devouring science fiction and fantasy, and I was hooked on the Big Concept. Dragons are real and can travel between in the blink of an eye? OMG, give me that book. Living space ships will carry humanity … Read more

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Point of View: It’s Halloween!

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Scott as Dracula

I’m not much of a cosplayer. When I attend conventions, I never manage to think of a good costume concept for the inevitable Saturday night party, let alone actually pull one together. But when I was a kid, I loved getting dressed up for Halloween. The photo above was taken probably in 1979 or 1980, in front of my Grandpa John’s church – he was a pastor for the Disciples of Christ denomination – for the annual Halloween party there. Back then, we had community parties like this, as they do today, but the actual Halloween night house-to-house get-as-much-candy-as-you-can thing … Read more

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Point of View: Where Are All the Gay Elves? (Spoilers)

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Elrond - The Rings of Power

So. I just finished watching one of my most anticipated shows in years. The Rings of Power is the Lord of the Rings prequel that explores the Rise of Sauron and the forging of the One Ring (and all the others that are linked to it). Going in, I was a bit concerned about this new franchise… after all, it was constructed from whole cloth from some appendices at the end of the Lord of the Rings by the corporate folks over at Amazon Prime. Epic fantasy by committee. Even so, I actually enjoyed it. The visuals are gorgeous, every … Read more

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Point of View: The Writer’s Garden

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bugs in a garden - deposit photos

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 planted some pepper and tomato seeds in the garage in February. They sprouted, and they grew and grew as it got warmer, stretching their leaves toward the sunny window. Then about a week before it was time to plant them, something in the garage – … Read more

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Point of View: When an Urse is Not a Horse

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alien world - deposit photos

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 reader, and was a card-carrying member of the Science Fiction Book Club. I worked my way through her shelf of other worlds one by one as a kid. I especially loved sci-fi that was set on another world, one that was full of strange ideas … Read more

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Point of View: That %$&*! Characterization Thing Again

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Characters - Deposit Photos

Every year or two, I circle back to my Achilles heel as a writer. I can build worlds with the best of them, and my intertwined plots are legendary. But I’ve always had more difficulty with characterization. I’m working through beta reads on book two of the Tharassas Cycle, and have been dinged by a couple readers for being inconsistent with a couple characters and drawing one too shallowly to support what comes later in the trilogy. And so I thought it would be fun to go back to my previous posts on the subject and see what I had … Read more

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Point of View: The Force is Strong in This One

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Star Wars

I just finished something I’ve been wanting to do for years but could never find the time for – I watched all nine of the main sequence Star Wars films in order, back to back. When I was nine, Star Wars: A New Hope came out in theaters. I was puzzled, then enchanted by the fact that it was called Episode Four – it seemed to promise so much more to come from this amazing universe. Back then the biggest cinemas in Tucson had only three or four screens, and Star Wars was a blockbuster on an order never seen … Read more