Tag: Writing
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Review–The Second Most Dangerous Job in America
I revisited The Second Most Dangerous Job in America (Atticus Shorts, 2012) when I learned Steve Himmer was releasing his next book, Fram (ig Publishing), which came out in January this year. Any discussion of this short treat must focus on observable detail and rudimentary character. There’s little to be found by way of plot, but…
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Beginnings and Endings
You might inscribe the title of your novel a couple dozen times before it sticks. You might make it longer, shorter, TBD, Working Title, WIP, B.S., Nada, Whatever… whatever. And revert after all that to the original working title. Or not. But “The End”… this is a thing you only write once on a manuscript. Today was that…
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TITLES—ARGH!
One week to go before the deadline to submit your novel-length manuscript to the 2015 Leapfrog Press Fiction Contest. Get it done! The goal’s had me burning the midnight oil the past couple months, forcing me to put off a lot of other substantive posts. Among the big items I’d hoped to reflect on recently…
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Crime Fiction: The Cost of Doing Business
Jonathan Ashley crams a lot into The Cost of Doing Business, from ghetto shootouts with Tec-9s to sociological laments about middle class norms. It’s got elements of the tough-talking hood narrative, and the book is entertaining in places, but ultimately much of the action is muddled by drawn out sentences and the narrator’s distracted observations. What…
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Lang Speaks
Just stumbled upon Stuart Beaton‘s podcast featuring my old buddy Preston Lang. The conversation between the two is thoughtful and funny, a mirror of Lang’s writing. If you like noir, pick up The Blind Rooster; if you like crime fiction, it’s The Carrier, both released last year. As for this podcast: Do we really need a 90,000-word book…
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“Writer’s Block”: You Don’t Have It
I’ve been known to comment on various blogs: “I’ve never had writer’s block. I have no shortage of things to write about or the desire to write them. If I’m not writing, I’m chewing on it.” Ok. In January I blew through 20 chapters of a first draft. Four weeks and done, rough edges and all.…
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Banned Reading
Did you know that Popular Online Vendor X bans “distasteful content” from honest reviews of the very books they’d be happy to sell you? That’s right: reviews of books full of obscenities sold on their site won’t be posted if those reviews contain the same profane, immoral, or distasteful content as the product they want you to buy. I tried for two weeks to…
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Peace Corps Writer Awards 2014
Vote for your favorite Peace Corps Book of 2014. People in the Peace Corps community know well the agency’s three goals: To help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served To promote a better…
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To Bleed or Not to Bleed–(the Writer’s Question)
I don’t plan on writing porn any time soon. Probably never. But this article from today’s New York Times Magazine, about the life of one prolific pornographer, had me thinking about what I write and how I write it. The piece helped me calibrate the struggle against my greatest bane: The lack of time. I’m a career man with a job…
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Dundee International Book Prize
Two weeks until the February 15th deadline for submitting your manuscript to this year’s Dundee International Book Prize. Curious about what floats their boat? Read last year’s shortlisted works: My manuscript Sea Never Dry, thick with crooked cops, fetish priests, Internet fraudsters, and orphans turning a buck off a West African e-waste dump, made last year’s cut. Read the excerpt below. Now,…
Ben East Books 