Category: Writing
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Bless Their (little) Hearts
It would be easy to give in to rage over this image in the NRA’s official organ, The American Rifleman. It would be natural and normal to descend into name-calling against them. But that’s exactly what the NRA wants, isn’t it? Emotional contagion. Rather than express my disgust at this callous provocation to violence, I’ll…
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Speaking of Oscar
Previously blogged: Oscar KeyE is Dead. Long Live Oscar Keye. Rather than dwell on my dislike for all things Oscar Awards, trying to unravel the reasons for my disdain, I’ll revisit one thing I do love about Oscar: his utility as an early alter-ego. ‘Oscar Keye is dead and I am free,’ I wrote in…
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Revising for Backstory
Emotion How does a writer revise an old manuscript? Skim the surface line-editing a well-worn draft? I suppose there’s a method for every problem. What if the problem is an absence of feeling and emotion? In this case the problem demanded the author talk himself to the solution. I sat down and wrote to myself:…
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In the Pathless Woods: Revising
Three years after writing a novel called The Fortress for my eight-year-old son, I’m taking on the fourth revision. It’s got a new title, In the Pathless Woods, inspired by Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, the 18th century narrative poem by George Gordon, Lord Byron. Byron’s verse replaces a simple placeholder I’d inserted at the time, filler…
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Finding Your Market
This video is about examining your manuscript to find its best market opportunity. For me the process took ten years, failed representation, and an entire rewrite. But it was worth it. In this segment from my interview with Matthew Whiteside, I share lessons learned from the process of bringing out my first novel. Hint: I…
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A BenEast FilmFirst Production
This week I enjoyed a 30-minute interview with Matthew Whiteside, head impresario at Uniweb Productions. The man’s doing a lot for indie writers, pumping out interview after interview exploring the challenges we face, the inspirations that drive us, and the rewards that come with pursuing our creative demons. He even inspired me to put up…
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Ele-Vader Pitch
Like so many of their peers, my sons are obsessed by the Harry Potter books. No wonder, then, that while introducing them to Star Wars I came upon this happy epiphany. As I brought popcorn into the living room, I overheard one of them reading the Amazon plot pitch for The Empire Strikes Back as if it…
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Darth Vader’s Henchmen…
Darth Vader’s taskmaster Admiral Piett, promoted under choking duress during the Star Wars Trilogy, bears an uncanny resemblance to a peculiar and unlikeable figure serving the current administration. See if you can tell them apart. That’s Piett in the Nazi-looking uniform. Miller, rhetoric notwithstanding, dresses a different part. But let’s go to the tapes. Here…
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First Lit Mag Layout in the Books
Last week I took on the role of layout designer for a community literary magazine. It was a satisfying experience with a few lessons learned. The Job The challenge included formatting and organizing 120 pages of photos, art, poetry, and prose fiction and nonfiction between 50 and 1,500 words, in three languages and three different…
Ben East Books 