|
Today J. Scott Coatsworth brings us not one but TWO releases! Thanks, Elizabeth, for welcoming you to your blog for my blog tour. I'm excited to have two new novellas coming out in the same month – "Between the Lines", my political magical realism romance; and "The Homecoming", my sci fi spaceman-meets-wolfman story. I thought I'd share with you and the readers the things about writing I've learned in the last year, since I published my first short story with Dreamspinner: 1) Be nice. There are so many great people in this business. But it's a small pool, and if you're a jerk, you'll find yourself without friends pretty quickly. 2) Write every day. It doesn't matter how much you get done (well, unless you're on a deadline). If you do a little bit each day, you'll get there. 3) Do your research. There are few things worse in fiction than getting the details wrong. Writing a story set in a faraway city? Talk to someone who lives there. Read or watch something set there. Check out the streetscapes in Apple Maps or Google Maps. Know that about which you speak. 4) You're the boss. So ultimately the decision on what to write and how to write it is up to you. So stick to your convictions. But… 5) No one is an island. So reach out for other opinions. Join a critique group. Find a beta reader. Get someone else who is more critical than you to read your work. 6) Start small. For new writers, I recommend starting with short stories. You can finish these a lot faster, and there are many markets, free and paid, for them. Plus, the boost you get when you sell a story, even if it's just for $25, will keep you moving along. Plus it's great exercise for your writing muscles. 7) Write for you. Because you have to. Because you have all these stories in your head that want to come out. Don't write for money. Unless your name is Steven King, you may never get rich doing this. And hey, if you DO get rich, it's all gravy. :) The Homecoming Publisher: Less Than Three Press Cover Artist: London Burden Blurb When his own world is destroyed, Aldiss and his crew barely manage to escape, leaving friends and lovers behind. What was meant to be an exploratory trip back to the home world turns into a mad dash for survival. When they awaken from stasis on Earth, which was abandoned by humanity five centuries before, they must quickly learn about their new home. While exploring the region around the ship, Aldiss meets Hari, a shape-changer, whose people harbor secrets that might cost the crew their lives. Excerpt Hari reached the edge of the woods just in time to see Neru crouching to leap at the two-legs. Young fool. He gathered himself and jumped after Neru, knocking him aside as his teeth reached for the two-legs' throat. Neru turned and snarled at him, backing away toward the woods. Hari stood firm, ears back, hackles raised, and drew the corners of his mouth back to reveal his teeth. Back off, Neru. The whelp shook his head and grinned with the brashness of youth, until Hari leaped at him and nipped his ear. With a surprised yelp, Neru turned his head, deferring to Hari's strength. As you say, brother. There was a cockiness to Neru's look that unsettled him. The other wolf backed up slowly then turned to disappear into the woods. Hari caught a glimpse of Mavi watching from the shadows. The old wolf snarled, and slunk off after her son. What do you seek, old mother? Hari wondered, watching Mavi's silver-tipped tail flicker into the darkness. It was clear where Neru's courage and cunning had come from. Hari turned back toward the two-legs. He was holding a strange stick, not unlike the one that Hari's grandmother had shown him in the wolf dream. But it was his face that caught Hari's eye. He knew that face. The two-legs' eyes were white-gray, and his jet-black hair was swept to the side. Despite the danger, he shifted in the manner only a few of the clan are able to do in the cold. He grew quickly taller and less hairy but no less muscled, and stood naked before the two-legs. They stared at each other for a long moment. Hari felt an immense attraction washing over him. He saw in his summer form that this two-legs was beautiful. His own body responded to this… man… in an unexpected way, seeing and feeling things his winter form could not. Hari leaned forward and sniffed the stranger, drinking in his musk. It smelled enticing. Strangely familiar. He sensed the two-legs stiffen, and to reassure, him, Hari licked the man's neck. The two-legs was trembling now like a young whelp, so he tried something else. He took the stranger's face in his hands and kissed him. The shaking slowed, and then the man was kissing him back. Hari was hungry for him, like a starving wolf at the end of a long, hard winter. It is not the time for this, the keh whispered in his ear. He broke contact and turned away, ashamed that he was betraying his Clan, and for lust. An emotion of his summer form. "I'm sorry," he said to the two-legs, without looking back. "It won't happen again." Even he was not sure if he meant Neru's attack, or the kiss. He shifted back into his winter form and loped off into the woods after his pack mates. Between the Lines Publisher: Dreamspinner Press Cover Artist: Aaron Anderson Blurb Brad Weston’s life seems perfect. He’s GQ handsome, the Chief of Staff for a Republican California State Senator, and enjoys the power and the promise of a bright future. And he’s in a comfortable relationship with his boyfriend of six years, Alex. Sam Fuller is Brad’s young, blond, blue-eyed intern, fresh out of college, running from a bad break-up, and questioning his choices and his new life in politics. To make things worse, Sam also has a thing for the boss, but Brad is already taken. While looking for a gift for his boyfriend, Brad wanders into a curiosity shop and becomes fascinated by an old wooden medallion. Brad's not a superstitious man, but when he takes out the medallion in his office, he sees the world in a new light. And nothing will ever be the same. Excerpt It began with a medallion. The piece was a simple wooden disk, hand carved with the shapes of leaves and forest boughs and polished by centuries of use, giving it a patina of great age. It sat upon a small green velvet pillow—the kind jewelers sometimes use, rather unsuccessfully, to enhance a plain necklace of false pearls. The kind you might expect to find on your grandmother’s settee, in a slightly larger size, embroidered with “Home Sweet Home.” Yet there was something compulsive about it—something hidden in the dark crevices of the carving, filled with the dust of ages. At least that’s what Brad would recall years later, when he thought back on the first time he saw it: the moment when the lines of his mundane life suddenly snarled, snapped, and ultimately recombined into something quite different. Of course, he didn’t know any of this at the time. Meet J. Scott Coatsworth Scott has been writing since elementary school, when he and won a University of Arizona writing contest in 4th grade for his first sci fi story (with illustrations!). He finished his first novel in his mid twenties, but after seeing it rejected by ten publishers, he gave up on writing for a while.
Over the ensuing years, he came back to it periodically, but it never stuck. Then one day, he was complaining to Mark, his husband, early last year about how he had been derailed yet again by the death of a family member, and Mark said to him “the only one stopping you from writing is you.” Since then, Scott has gone back to writing in a big way, finishing more than a dozen short stories – some new, some that he had started years before – and seeing his first sale. He’s embarking on a new trilogy, and also runs the Queer Sci Fi site, a support group for writers of gay sci fi, fantasy, and supernatural fiction. Comments are closed.
|
 Welcome to My World
|
RSS Feed
