writing

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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: Writing to Distraction

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squirrel - deposit photos

There’s a great skit in Portlandia where Fred Armison plays a character working on his computer, getting calls and messages on his cell phone, alerts on his iPad, and “Netflix” style DVDs in the mail, all of which drives him to distraction. It was hilarious at the time. Who would let themselves be sucked into dealing with so many devices at once? Now a decade later, this is my life. My computer is my window into the world at work. I am constantly checking my email box (twelve separate email addresses and counting), my Facebook comments, and the news – … 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: Writing and A Flicker of Hope

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Joy in Writing - Deposit Photos

I’m writing again. OK, so not anything new yet. But I’m back into book one edits in preparation for getting it off to my new publisher – Water Dragon Publishing – around week’s end. And I have release dates (at least tentative ones) for all three books: March 2023, September 2023, and March 2024. More importantly, I can see a path forward, both for publication of these books and for writing something new. 🙂 Recovery-wise, I am typing with both hands again – yay! And in a week and a half, I will enter my next phase of physical therapy. … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: What Matters

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Thoughtful

I want an agent. I want a big publisher, a Netflix deal (or maybe HBO Max). And eventually, a little world domination would be nice too. I want people to read what I write and tell their friends, and for them to tell their friends too, until hundreds of thousands of readers know my name and my work. I want the world to know my name. And I have to come to terms with the fact that it’s quite possible that none of those things will ever happen. It’s a clarifying moment. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not giving up … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Just Keep Climbing

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Helping Hand - Deposit Photos

Writing is hard, y’all. And I’m not just talking about the actual typing-words-onto-paper part. Which, yeah, is hard enough – trying to keep a million ideas and a plethora of characters, plot points, and locations in your head, and then spewing them out onto the page in a pleasing order. You also need to advocate for yourself – finding publishers and agents and review opportunities, and putting yourself and your work out there in a way that makes many of us want to scream and retreat into our quiet, happy little writer caves. That’s why it’s so vital that we … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Just Another Manic (Covid) Monday

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Monday - Deposit Photos

I’ve started to dread Mondays. After a quiet weekend, everyone wakes up Monday morning with one thing on their minds – fill Scott’s email box with inquiries, problems, announcements, and enough spam to make a Monty Python film. Add to that the unremitting dull, grinding sameness of life under lockdown – sleep, eat, rinse, repeat. And we do a LOT of rinsing, emptying the dishwasher seven times a day and wash enough clothes to string a line from here to Rome every week. Thank heaven I have a husband who does as much – and probably more – around the … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: Navigating the Story

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Tharassas map

I thought I’d have a little fun today and share a unique part of my writing process – navigating my worlds via maps – along with my hand-drawn draft version of the map for my WIP trilogy The Tharassas Cycle. For my sci-fi and sci-fantasy stories, maps are one of the first things I make. Growing up, I was entranced by maps of Middle Earth and Pern in particular (I may or may not own atlases for both worlds) and would refer back to them multiple times during my reading of each story, figuring out where my favorite characters were. … Read more

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POINT OF VIEW: In the Shadow of Giants

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People shadows - deposit photos

This week we lost another great writer. Anne Rice passed off this Earth, leaving behind an impressive legacy. While I was never a big Rice fan, I was still in awe of her storytelling ability, and how she almost single-handedly created the sexy vampire (and the gay one, too). Sadly, many spec fic writers I idolized as a kid are no longer with us – Asimov, Clarke, Tepper, Le Guin… Each one had their own recognizable voice, their own stories to tell, and an audience waiting eagerly for their next book. Asimov thrilled me with his Foundation novels, and his … Read more