Category Archives: Writing

The Demon of Originality, or Lessons from Fanfiction

Posted on September 16, 2011 by epbeaumont

This time we’re going to talk about every writer’s bugaboo: the Demon of Originality. That nasty little voice in your head tells you, in the sneering tones of the high-school English teacher from hell, that your idea is ‘not very … Continue reading →

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Research as Muse

Posted on September 14, 2011 by epbeaumont

A good writing buddy of mine once said to me, “Research is how you do writer’s block.” At that time, I was working on performance pieces based in history and I was getting distracted by the temptation to get it … Continue reading →

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Six Sentence Sunday, 11 September 2011 (The Lost Pissarro)

Posted on September 11, 2011 by epbeaumont

She painted. Outside, the sun crossed the sky. Under the unchanging light, she painted and fought the difficulties. The impressionist method meant doing it all at once: light and dark, hue and chroma all balanced at once. Not like the … Continue reading →

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Six Sentence Sunday, 4 September 2011 (The Lost Pissarro)

Posted on September 4, 2011 by epbeaumont

The herd-mothers approached as well, and circled around her. She ought to have been frightened (said the city girl in her head) but wasn’t, for all that those deadly horns were flourishing around her, held aloft like lances on festival … Continue reading →

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Six Sentence Sunday, 28 August 2011 (The Lost Pissarro)

Posted on August 28, 2011 by epbeaumont

She shook her head, to clear the dream: she’d slipped, momentarily, into the person of a raven soaring over a line of knights on horseback. Clearly not her real self. The unicorn foal not twenty paces away shook its head … Continue reading →

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The ten-percent solution: a tale of literary liposuction

Posted on August 27, 2011 by epbeaumont

I’ve heard this advice from multiple sources: Write, and then cut 10%. I’m here to say it works. No, I’m here to say how it works. Between 5 August and 19 August, I banged out the draft of my superhero … Continue reading →

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Lessons from National Novel Writing Month: a charter for your novel

Posted on August 25, 2011 by epbeaumont

One of the really valuable lessons of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is thinking out what you love and what you hate in a novel. In Chris Baty’s classic manual for the event, No Plot? No Problem!, this is called … Continue reading →

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Novel soup, or how to cook a superhero romance

Posted on August 22, 2011 by epbeaumont

Novel pre-writing is a lot like making soup. Here’s the stuff I threw in the cookpot for my Superhero Romance project, currently in raw draft and being beta-read: Superhero romance. OK, for some reason I liked the setup. I read … Continue reading →

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Six Sentence Sunday, 21 August 2011 (The Lost Pissarro)

Posted on August 21, 2011 by epbeaumont

The world had shifted around them, and Angie Stavros took a sort of grim satisfaction in it, that now most of the world felt as dislocated as she did. Welcome to my world, she thought as she caught a glimpse … Continue reading →

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Goals check-in (September 1 goal): we have a draft!

Posted on August 20, 2011 by epbeaumont

Well, I’ve met part of my goal for September 1 (see last post): the superhero romance is in raw draft, at 33,000 words. I took off some vacation days from Ye Olde Day Jobbe to do that (what better use … Continue reading →

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