Point of View

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: Scenes from a Con

by
Alex Wifi Dance

So we’re about to hit the road (or the sky) for our trip home from Nijicon in Philadelphia. It was a good con – come next year, y’all! But we had a blast, and met some great folks. So I thought I’d share a few moments with you from our time at the con: 1) The Dancing Alex: Our buddy Alex Woolfson, of “The Young Protectors” fame, was at Niji with us. The Hall wifi kinda sucked, so every time he made a sale (which was fairly often). we’d look over to see Alex doing his wifi dance to try … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: Five Things You Have to Do Before a Con

by
Scott swag

We’re getting ready to go to Nijicon next weekend in Philadelphia, so I thought this would be a great time to go over the steps we take to get ourselves ready for a writer con. 1) Shave. And Shower. Seriously. We all get wrapped up in our writing, sitting in our little writer caves, and many of us work a second (and sometimes third) job to pay the bills to allow us the ability to write. And it’s easy to forget to comb your hair, put on clothes, and wear deodorant like a regular person every morning when you get … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: Five Strategies for Winning NaNoWriMo

by

NaNoWriMo is coming up next month, and authors all over the country will be sitting down at chaining themselves to their laptops, ipads, or notepads to scribble out a “winning” story – 50K words in 30 days (and don’t forget, Thanksgiving is in there too). So here are my tips for getting to 50k by November 30th. 1) Plan Out Your Story in Advance: This isn’t absolutely necessary – some of us are born pantsers, after all. And of course, if you are a plotter, you can plan out your story with varying levels of detail, from a note scribbled … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: Six Steps to Prepare for Your Adoring Public

by

I’m about to meet one of my adoring fans. OK, so they’re also a great friend and writer, so it’s not the same as meeting a fan (or fans) cold. But it got me thinking – what are the things any writer should do before meeting their fans? So here’s my list – I hope you find it helpful: 1) Shave and shower. OK, so the shaving part may not apply to everyone. But it’s important to give a good impression to your fans. Sure, in their minds-eye, they see you in your writer cave. But they imagine it as … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: Trouble Right Here in River City

by
River City Chronicles

I’m about to embark on a brand new adventure, something that I as a writer have never done before. I’m going to write a serialized piece of fiction, a story that unfolds slowly and publicly week by week on my blog. And as if that weren’t enough of a challenge, I’m going to release each new episode simultaneously in both Italian and English. Several things have come together recently to make this possible: I started a new blog for myself as a writer in June, which needed content I published Between the Lines with Dreamspinner Press in July, a magical … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

My Top Five Excuses for Not Writing Today

by
scott and parsley

As writers, we all know time is not our friend. We have stories to tell, and they won’t get told if we spend all day figuring out reasons why we’re not yet ready to write. And yet about ten percent of my potential writing time goes to procrastination. So here, without further ado… hey, what the heck is an ado, anyhow? My top excuses for not writing today. 1) I Got So Much Writing Done Yesterday: So I had a great writing day yesterday. I actually exceeded my goal, so I’m way ahead of the game. I can afford to … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

WROTE – The Evolution of One Author’s Journey

by

Hey all. SA “Baz” Collins here. When Scott asked me to guest blog on his site I was immediately intrigued. In the short time I’ve come to know Scott and his works I’ve been nothing short of impressed at the sheer volume of work he does in queer storytelling (writing novels being just one aspect). So what to write about? I pondered talking about my current work (Angels of Mercy – which has a new release coming out at the end of September) that dives into homophobia in competitive sports (in this case American high school football). And while a … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: Six Steps to Becoming a Better Beta Reader

by

Hey all, Welcome to my weekly rumination on all things writing. 🙂 This week, I’m in the midst of beta reading several works for an anthology I’m involved in. I’ve only been beta reading for a year or so, though I was critiquing stories long before that. But it got me thinking. What are the things you need to do to be a great beta reader? Here are my thoughts: 1) Ask the Author What They Want: This is the most important, because it sets the ground rules. Some authors want just a high level storyline critique – does the … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View – A Full-Time Writer With Part-Time Time

by
Time selfie

If you’re a full-time writer, you may have so much time on your hands that you have a hard time finding enough stories to write to fill it. I do not have that problem. Stories swirl around in my head on spin cycle. They leak out in conversations, get themselves written down on napkins and bits of paper and note files on my mac and iphone and ipad. I have so many stories to tell, and so little time to tell them. You see, I’m a full-time writer with part-time time. Now I’m not complaining, exactly. I have a wonderful … Read more

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Point of View: The Eight Deadly Phases of Writing

by
J. Scott Coatsworth

Almost every author goes through a certain set of phases when writing a new work, especially a longer work. Although the details may vary a bit from author to author, I think the broad strokes are probably the same. Here are my phases, gathered from my current work in progress, the Autumn Lands: Phase One – The New Journey This is the honeymoon phase. The story is fresh and new, and you know you’re gonna knock it out of the park. Surely you can get this thing done in days – a week at most. And you won’t need no … Read more