Tag Archive: Writing

25 Things You Should Know About Plot

January 7, 2013 0 Comments

Chuck Wendig brings us an excellent blog post called 25 Things You Should Know About Plot. It’s about … well, I bet you’ve already figured that part out. Here’s an excerpt: Let Characters Do They Heavy Lifting Characters will tell you your plot. Even better: let them run and they’ll goddamn give it to you on a platter. Certainly plot can happen from an external locus of control — but you’re not charting the extinction of the dinosaurs or the lifecycle of the slow loris. Plot is like Soylent Green: it’s made of people. Characters say things, do things, and that creates plot. It really can be that simple. Authentic plot comes from internal emotions, not external mechanics. The whole post is full of great…
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Writing

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Hurricane Sandy: How We Saw It

January 3, 2013 0 Comments

When I was asked to engage in some first person journalism about being at the Jersey Shore for Hurricane Sandy, I was both excited to do it and a little hesitant. Excited because, like everyone at the Shore who experienced the storm firsthand, I wanted to share my experience with others. After all, that’s what you DO when it comes to life-altering experienced. You talk about them (even if just with a few videos). But hesitant because, unlike so many people in my area, including friends and family, my family and I came through okay. Oh, we lost some cars and have had our home life  turned a little upside down, but we still have a home to go home to. So I hesitated. But…
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Works by Eric, Writing

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Are you a writer if no one reads you?

December 8, 2012 3 Comments

The question seems ridiculous, doesn’t it? If you write, you’re a writer … right? Isn’t that how it works? But the fact is, whether they admit it or not, every writer has grappled with a variation of this question, subtle or otherwise. After all, we don’t simply want to write, we want to be read. We want to be experienced. We want to be RECOGNIZED … … as a writer. And there’s the crux. What separates “a writer” from someone else? When can Joe say it when Bob can’t? The basic answer is that if you write you’re a writer. If the statement isn’t presented in the context of “what do you do for a living” then that’s probably fine. You’re a writer if you…
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Random Musings, Writing

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So what’s next?

December 1, 2012 0 Comments

Wait, what? One of my huge problems is attention span. Always has been. Always will be. Just ask the people who had the unfortunate job of being my teacher back in Lakehurst. What this means is that even when neck-deep in a major project or three, my mind is on what’s next rather than what is right in front of me. This is true even right now. It’s not like I’m not busy. I’m currently working on a follow-up to A Year of Hitchcock with Jim McDevitt, the third installment of the Pitched! anthology series with a number of fantastic artists, a series on living through Hurricane Sandy, and whatever odds and ends come my way. And yet still my mind is on what’s next….
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Random Musings, Writing

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Why would you write about your lousy little town?

October 26, 2012 0 Comments

I never saw my hometown ’till I stayed away too long. –“San Diego Serenade,” Tom Waits This sort of sums up Lakehurst: Barrens, Blimps & Barons, a book I wrote and self-published about the tiny Pine Barrens town I spent years trying to leave. That’s right. For most of my teen years, I wanted to get the hell out of that place. So if I spent years trying to leave the town — and I jumped ship as soon as I could, fleeing at the age of 19 — why would I spend the time to write and publish a book about it? Tom Waits nailed it in the above lyric from “San Diego Serenade,” featured on 1974’s The Heart of Saturday Night. There is…
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Random Musings, Works by Eric, Writing

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