I get a slightly less severe form of this writer malady – I call it Writer’s Wait. It usually means there’s a problem with the plot of the story, something mu unconscious mind recognizes but the conscious part does not. When this happens, I usually switch tracks and work on a different story, often a short story to clear the palette. In the meantime, I let my subconscious work on the problem, and eventually it comes up with a solution.
Do you use a pseudonym? If so, why? If not, why not?
No, this is my real name. There are many valid reasons for doing so, but I always wanted to do the Coatsworth name proud. One of my distant relatives, Elizabeth Coatsworth, was a children’s writer of some renown, and even wrote a fox shifter story years and years before it was fashionable. So I’m proud to be the second Coatsworth with a bunch of books to their name.
How long do you write each day?
Between forty-five minutes and an hour-and-a-half. I get up early and write while my mind is freshest. I go into the kitchen with a laptop that’s been stripped of Facebook and email, and put on my noise cancelling headphones and a bit of music and just write. On a good morning, I can knock out 2000 words, but I consider anything a success – as long as I keep the writing moving.
How did The River City Chronicles get started?
I was looking for blog content, and some other writers were doing serial tales on their own blogs. I thought “how hard could that be?” (Sidebar: a shit-ton of work). I was writing in part about some friends from Italy, so I also arranged to have the story translated into Italian. I wrote, edited and posted a story a week (with the amazing help of Angel Martinez as a proofer/you-don’t-want-to-say-thater, and Claudia Milani, who did the translatons. It took two years (102 chapters), but eventually the story wrapped up, and soon after, I published it in novel format. The rest, as they say, is history.
What are you working on now?
I’m almost finished with a new YA sci-fantasy trilogy. For folks who are familiar with my work, The Tharassas Cycle (The Dragon Eater, Then Gauntlet Runner, and The Hencha Queen) is set in the same world as “The Last Run” and “The Emp Test,” and develops ideas from those two earlier works. It’s almost finished (first draft) and planned for release in 2022. Once that’s done, I plan to return to the characters from Dropnauts for the sequel, Coredivers.
Everyone in the River City has a secret, and sooner or later secrets always come out.
A group of strangers meets at Ragazzi, an Italian restaurant, for a cooking lesson that will change them all. They quickly become intertwined in each other’s lives, and a bit of magic touches each of them.
Meet Dave, the consultant who lost his partner; Matteo and Diego, the couple who runs the restaurant; recently widowed Carmelina; Marcos, a web designer getting too old for hook-ups; Ben, a trans author writing the Great American Novel; teenager Marissa, kicked out for being bi; and Sam and Brad, a May-September couple who would never have gotten together without a little magic of their own.
Scott is giving away a $25 Amazon gift card with this tour:
The sign on the window read “Ragazzi” (the boys), lettered in a beautiful golden script just two months old. Investing in this little restaurant his uncle had left to them when he’d passed away had been their ticket out of Italy. But now with each passing day, as seats sat empty and tomatoes, pasta, and garlic went uneaten, the worry was gnawing ever deeper into Matteo’s gut.
Behind him in the open, modernized kitchen, Diego was busy cooking—his mother’s lasagne, some fresh fish from San Francisco, and some of the newer Italian dishes they’d brought with them from Bologna. The smells of boiling sauce and fresh-cooked pasta that emanated from the kitchen were entrancing.
They’d sent the rest of the staff —Max and Justin—home for the evening. The three customers who had shown up so far didn’t justify the cost of keeping their waiter and busboy on hand.
Matteo stopped at the couple’s table in front of the other window. “Buona sera,” he said, smiling his brightest Italian smile.
“Hi,” the man said, smiling back at him. He was a gentleman in about his mid-fifties, wearing a golf shirt and floppy hat. “Kinda quiet tonight, huh?”
“It always gets busier later,” Matteo lied smoothly. “Pleasure to have you here. Can I get you anything else?”
“A little more wine, please?” the woman said, holding out her glass so the charm bracelet on her wrist jangled.
“Of course.” He bowed and ducked into the kitchen.
He gave Diego a quick peck on the cheek.
His husband and chef waved him off with a snort. “Più tardi. Sto preparando la cena.”
“I can see that. Dinner for a hundred, is it? It’s dead out there again tonight.”
Diego shot him a dirty look.
Matteo retrieved the bottle of wine from the case and returned to fill up his guests’ glasses. “What brings you in tonight?” Maybe they saw our ad.…
“Just walking by and we were hungry. I miss the old place though.… What was it called, honey?”
Her husband scratched his chin. “Little Italy, I think?”
“That’s it! It was the cutest place. Checkered tablecloths, those great Italian bottles with the melted wax… so Italian.”
Matteo groaned inside. “So glad you came in” was all he said with another smile.
Scott lives with his husband Mark in a little yellow bungalow with two pink flamingoes in Sacramento. He inhabits the space between the here and now and the what could be. Indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine, he devoured her library. But as he grew up, he wondered where the people like him were.
He decided it was time to create the kinds of stories he couldn’t find at Waldenbooks. If there weren’t queer characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.
His friends say Scott’s brain works a little differently – he sees relationships between things that others miss, and gets more done in a day than most folks manage in a week. He seeks to transform traditional sci fi, fantasy, and contemporary worlds into something unexpected.
A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, and Other Worlds Ink with Mark, sites that bring queer people together to promote and celebrate fiction reflecting their own reality. Scott is a full member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).
Author Website: https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com
Author Facebook (Personal): https://www.facebook.com/jscottcoatsworth
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Author Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8392709.J_Scott_Coatsworth
Author QueeRomance Ink: https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/j-scott-coatsworth/
Author Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/J.-Scott-Coatsworth/e/B011AFO4OQ
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/j-scott-coatsworth
