Writing

General posts about writing (sometimes my own, but not always)

Writing is like acting

February 28, 2012 0 Comments

Sometimes, two seemingly unrelated worlds have more in common than you realize. Consider the worlds of writing fiction and acting. To some extent, writing fiction is a lot like acting. When you’re writing fiction you’re also playing a role, or rather, many roles. Part of your job as a writer is to immerse yourself in these characters. To know them with a great degree of intimacy and, most importantly, to guide their actions in a way that feels natural and believable. You’re trying to convince your audience that these are real people facing real obstacles, not pawn’s in the author’s plot. So part of being good at writing convincing characters is the ability to be a good actor. You can’t just write yourself. You can’t…
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Writing

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Five years ago…

February 24, 2012 5 Comments

A Year of Hitchcock

Jim McDevitt, my friend and coauthor of A Year of Hitchcock, just sent me this email: Last night I stumbled across some old MySpace blogs I had written back in 2006-7. On Feb. 24, 2007, I noted that I had finished writing my part of A Year of Hitchcock. If I recall correctly, you finished your part a few days later. Hard to believe it’s been five years. Five years. It really is hard to believe. Things have felt like a whirlwind since. A Year of Hitchcock was my first published book, the culmination of a lifelong dream, and remains something I’m proud of. Others followed. Stuff Every Husband Should Know, the recent Barrens, Blimps & Barons, and contributing to Geek Wisdom, along with two…
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Alfred Hitchcock, Random Musings, Works by Eric, Writing

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Always thrilling when someone reads your work, but…

December 26, 2011 0 Comments

… nothing has been as personally gratifying as the response to my book on Lakehurst. I’ve written about legendary film directors, relationships, geek culture and more, but this is something special to me — and it’s made even more special by the fact that old friends, teachers, people I knew in my youth, their parents, and many others are getting it and are interested in it and are reading it. I’ve gotten random calls at home, emails from people I’ve never met, invitations to do presentations and interviews, requests to sign books for the holidays, and more. Considering I just sort of quietly slipped it out there at the last minute, no adverting or promotion outside this blog and Facebook, the positive response has been…
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Works by Eric, Writing

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Art does not require pain; joy is worth celebrating

December 13, 2011 0 Comments

I’m not much for the whole posting quotes thing, but this quote from Ursula le Guin’s award-winning ‘Those Who Walked Away From Omelas,’ which can be read in full here, strikes me as worth sharing: “The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain … But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” In the world of…
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Random Musings, Rants, Writing

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The Ghosts of Hangar No. 1

December 10, 2011 0 Comments

Lakehurst: Barrens, Blimps and Barons

The following is a brief excerpt from Lakehurst: Barrens, Blimps & Barons, available now at Amazon and Lulu, as well as at the headquarters of the Lakehurst Historical Society. It recounts one of the many ghost stories that still haunt Navy Lakehurst’s famous Hangar No. 1. As Navy veteran Don Adams recalls, Hangar No. 1 briefly served as a morgue, the results of a disaster that still cannot be explained. Do the ghosts of Hangar No. 1 originate from the now unassuming rooms once used to house those who fell like angels in flame? Some believe they do. Maybe a clue lies with the ghosts. A long passage once spanned the length of the over eight hundred-foot-long hangar. To this day the doors of what’s…
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Works by Eric, Writing

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