Musings from the basement...

Dealing with criticism

December 10, 2009 5 Comments

One of my favorite bloggers on writing and the publishing industry, literary agent Nathan Bransford, recently made an excellent post about dealing with criticism. Excellent reading for any and all aspiring writers. Confronting a critique or criticism need not be a gut-wrenching trial. It can, and should, be a valuable learning experience. One of the first and most difficult hurdles on the road to publication is learning to cope with criticism. Yet you must. No matter how good you think you are, criticism is inevitable. It is also vital to your growth as a writer. The ability to solicit critiques knowing they will poke holes in your work, and to then listen to said critiques objectively and with an open mind, is one of the…
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Writing

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Writing, old age, and late bloomers

December 8, 2009 3 Comments

This piece from The New Yorker is well worth reading if you’re on the wrong side of 35. Which probably sounds pretty insulting to people on the wrong side of 35, but keep in mind that I am one of you. Which is why my bones ache. And I can’t remember what I had for dinner last night. And I want those damn kids off my lawn. Anyway, this excellent piece notes, “Genius, in the popular conception, is inextricably tied up with precocity—doing something truly creative, we’re inclined to think, requires the freshness and exuberance and energy of youth.” But does it? Not according to University of Chicago economist David Galenson: (Galenson) looked through forty-seven major poetry anthologies published since 1980 and counted the poems…
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Writing

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The first music I ever “released” — it’s back!

December 7, 2009 0 Comments

It’s hard to believe it’s been 15 years since I first did this little tape. It was the summer of 1994. I had just gotten my trust TASCAM Porta 7, a four-track tape recorder that allowed talented people record demos and such, and allowed people like me to ruin the definition of “music.” Which is exactly what I did for the last few months of 1994, the time period from which this “music” springs*. I “sampled” (read: stole) chunks of music from elsewhere, slowed it down or played it backwards, laid other stuff on top of it, and generally just played around with things. Also recorded some noisy nonsense. And so on. Then, I made tapes. Remember cassingles? I grabbed every last one I owned,…
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Music, Works by Eric

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The Unexpected Death Scene

December 2, 2009 1 Comment

So I’m writing last night, plugging away at my work in progress. Working on this major action sequence, a series of four or five brief chapters that (hopefully) string together like a Spielberg setpiece. Think the truck scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark meets Minority Report and you have the idea. And right in the middle of it, this character … he died. I didn’t expect him to die. Hadn’t included it in my outline. Hadn’t plotted for it. But he’s there and this situation arises and I realized as I was writing, “He’s not going to make it, is he?” And he died. I don’t regret the unexpected death. Turned out to be the ideal resolution to his story arc. The exact place…
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Writing

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Bust my website, please

November 30, 2009 0 Comments

Spent a good portion of the other day fixing, tweaking, and redesigning my personal website. Please take a look and if anything looks out of place, broken, or otherwise awful, let me know by commenting here, on FaceBook or Twitter, or by emailing me. The kind of browser you’re running will be helpful, along with whatever didn’t work for you. Thanks.

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