As I mentioned last week, today is the official launch day of a new book, Letters to Me: Conversations With a Younger Self. About half-way through the book, you’ll stumble across my name, and my letter to a younger Eric in which I try to give him a little advice about the long transition into adulthood. (Spoiler alert: He doesn’t listen.) I’m very happy to have been asked by the book’s editor, Dan Schmidt, to be a part of this project. The other contributors come from a wide

CRAZY! That’s a great way to describe my writing life the last few months. Here’s what I’ve been working on: Trying to finish a draft of one long-standing writing project that isn’t my own (I’m writing based on a story created by someone else) Reading a ton Critiquing manuscripts (lots of them!!) for friends, clients, and students Dipping my foot into the world of poetry (ack!!!) Editing, revising, and submitting several “old” short stories Teaching two writing classes (Ficti

I used to post, quite often, about the best music deals I found on Amazon. For me, music is a big part of my creative process. I don’t always listen to music as I write (though, sometimes, I create a sort of soundtrack for a story, especially in the editing phases) but music dramatically influences everything I write. The best music moves me emotionally, sonically, and creates a moving picture in my head. Amazon has some great artists featured in their $2.99 MP3 album sale ri

I try to post the Unblocker prompts on Tuesday and Thursday, and post the video blog in the middle, but I wasn’t very good with reading the calendar this week. Today’s episode of The Three Minute Writer is dedicated to thinking about how we structure our writing lives. Check it out: [su_youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68MOl_2hiKM”][youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68MOl_2hiKM] [/su_youtube] If you’ve missed prior episodes of the video blog (or want a quick w

Sometimes, even a traditional writing prompt isn’t enough to get us through that writer’s block, so I’ve decided to start featuring some photographs to use as inspiration. The idea is to take the photo and write something–anything, really–about what you see. Build a scene or story around the photograph. Use characters that you are already writing about, and somehow put them in the picture. (Even if…ESPECIALLY IF…the picture seems to make no sense what-so-ever in the story/nov