FICTION: The Girl and the Gold Watch

Posted inWorks by Eric, Writing
This short piece sprang from a title an online acquaintance threw at me, one I thought he had made up. The title was so evocative, I immediately got a vision in my head of a little girl and ... well, you can read it below. The problem? He hadn't made it up. That was a poor assumption on my part. The title was The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything, and it belongs to a book I did not know existed. Regardless, it inspired this short piece of fiction that will maybe one day turn into a full-blown book. With…
Why I chose to self-publish

Why I chose to self-publish

Posted inRandom Musings, Works by Eric, Writing
When I decided to take Lakehurst: Barrens, Blimps & Barons and publish it on my own, I did not take the decision lightly. After all, I had been on a modest roll, with three traditionally published books I authored or coauthored hitting shelves in three years. Advocates of self-publishing are often driven by a "screw the man! Don't let corporations decide what deserves to be published!" attitude, which is in and of itself not a bad thing ... they just forget to tell you how much work self-publishing is, and shrug away any explanation of what traditional publishers do for…

Writing is like acting

Posted inWriting
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…
A Year of Hitchcock

Five years ago…

Posted inAlfred Hitchcock, Random Musings, Works by Eric, Writing
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…
Always thrilling when someone reads your work, but…

Always thrilling when someone reads your work, but…

Posted inWorks by Eric, Writing
... 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…