point of view

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POINT OF VIEW: Making the Cover

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Lamplighter - J. Scott Coatsworth

Last Saturday, I released a new short story. Well, both new and old, as it was originally written in the 90’s and never published until Galaxy’s Edge picked it up recently. Even though this is a 99¢ short story, I still wanted a cool cover for it. The one I ended up making reminds me of the 80’s mass market fantasy covers I loved so much in High School. So I thought it would be fun to show you how it was done. The longest part of the whole cover creation process is finding the right image or images. In … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Choosing Person and Tense – Third Person

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friends - deposit photos

Last week we talked about writing in first person. This week I thought I’d tackle the more common third person usage. Third person means using he/she/they etc pronouns – stories that describe the action from outside of the characters. It comes in three basic flavors: Third Person Omniscient: The most common of the three. Omniscient allows you to have multiple viewpoint characters, and an outside “omniscient” narrator who’s basically describing the story as it goes (you). This version of third person gives you the most freedom, as you can head hop (although doing so within a scene is strongly discouraged) … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Giving Something Back

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Giving Back

A few months ago, I was asked to give a little of my time as a writer for a good cause. A fellow author had fallen on hard times, and one of my other writer friends – Chisto Healy – had decided to do something about it. It was a simple ask, a short story for an anthology to help raise funds for the author who had fallen on hard times during the pandemic. And yet, I had a business to run with my husband Mark, novels to write, and the whole covid-19 to worry about. I put Chisto off, … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: When Your Story Sucks

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Disapproval - Deposit Photos

I’ve been a bit stuck on my WIP novel The Hencha Queen for a couple weeks now. I’ve also sent my previously-written short stories to most of the magazines on my list. So it seemed like a great time to write a new short story – exercise those writing muscles and have something sparkly and new to submit on the SFF magazine circuit too. It would only take a coupla days, right? Famous last words… So I sat down and whipped up a new short set in the same world as my (as-yet) unreleased shorts High Seven and What the … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Amazon vs. Going Wide

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going wide - Deposit Photos

If you spend much time in indie-pub circles, you’ll hear a lot of discussions about “going wide.” This is short-hand for “selling through many/most/all available book vendors. You’d think it would be a no-brainer, right? Put your book in front of as many different audiences as possible? Surprisingly, it’s not. And it’s mostly because of a little thing called Kindle Unlimited. You see, Amazon sells books. Tons and tons and tons of books, along with hoses and candles and snow tires and just about everything else under the sun. But they always want to sell more books, and to find … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Feeding My Writer Brain

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Books on a Plate - Deposit Photos

It’s been forever since I sat down with a good book and just read the hell out of it. I’m a compulsive worker bee, and these last five years have not been kind to our business, requiring ever more of my time, focus, and energy just to try to keep things running with my husband Mark Reading is one of the things that had to go. There just wasn’t enough time. It’s funny. Writing a novel used to seem like such a daunting thing. Now reading one does. As writers, we feast on words. We absorb them from the world … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Book Birthday

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book birthday - dropnauts

It’s a very special day for me. Today’s my first new novel release since I left Dreamspinner, and since before the pandemic hit. I submitted Dropnauts to Pitchwars in 2019, and when it didn’t snag me a mentor, I put it out on the agent circuit for about a year. When it finally came back, limping and exhausted, to my doorstep, I picked it up and held it close. Both of us were beaten up by the experience. I sucked it up, and dove back into it, determined to make it shine.In the process, I rediscovered why I loved this … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Managing Imposter Syndrome

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Imposter Syndrome / Mask - deposit Photos

I try to stay strong. I try to project optimism into the world, because that’s what I want to come back to me. But damn, sometime’s it’s hard. Today I am struggling with my IC – my inner critic, but rather than wallow in all the messages it’s giving me, I thought it would be better to share the ways in which I deal with it when I’m feeling like the fake-est phony who ever lived. So here are my strategies for coping with imposter syndrome, in no particular order. I hope they’re helpful to you, too: Reread Some (Good) … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: The Publishing Industry

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Stress - Deposit Photos

Joel Arellano asked me to talk a bit about “Dealing with the volatility of the publishing industry.” I’m going to go a step beyond that and talk about the industry in general. I love publishing. I have been a book fanatic since I was a little kid, and always wanted to be a published author. When I was in my teens, it was a lot harder. There weren’t nearly as many publishers, and the big ones had the gates locked down tight. Sure, most took open submissions back then, but that was basically an invitation to languish in the slush … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Writers Who Inspire Me

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Inspiration - Deposit Photos

Fan Joel Arellano recently asked me what writers inspired me. Every author writes from a font of knowledge and a stew of weird ingredients created from a life’s worth of experience – where we grew up, how we were raised, and what we consumed over those (for me) long 52 years now. But one big piece of this is the other writers we have read. So here, in no particular order, is a non-comprehensive list of some of the writers who have inspired me, and why. Sherri S. Tepper: I first encountered Ms. Tepper’s work in the supermarket checkout line. … Read more