E.P. Beaumont's Blog

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So it’s that time of year again. This time I’m not doing a whole project from scratch, because there’s already a suite of novels awaiting expansion and revision. If there is one thing I’ve learned over the last 12 years, it’s this: The starting point isn’t the novel, but the universe.
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So your Third Shift ML did a third-shift all-nighter the other day, which is a very sneaky beast because it looks like Normal Daylight Life, except I’m supposed to be sleeping during the day. Anyway I did some of the discord server sprints and it was awesome and I hit 10K. Which is pretty much where I’m going to park. Meanwhile, my pre ordered winner shirt arrived in the mail, and I decided I was going to wear it. Manifesto follows: “I scored 10K and I am wearing the winner’s shirt dangit” ...

National Novel Writing Month is a fresh challenge for me every year because I use it for an opportunity to try something new. Last year’s challenge, which has become this year’s practice, was Small Writing.

This year, I’m going back to the roots of storytelling and Writing for the Beloved Reader. My writing-brother Lev Mirov will be seeing my work for November in real time. Poet, editor, and scholar, Lev has had a huge influence on the way that I work. His brilliant essay On Small Writing has...

It’s been nearly a year since I posted here, so I’m beginning again with my tenth National Novel Writing project, Night Shift Variations.

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NIght Shift Variations: Tales from the Hidden Hours

On either side of the story-gate between here and there, strange things happen in the dark hours.

Two storytelling mages duel for control of the future. A piece of the future lands in the past, rousing untold stories in a family of Black necromancers. In the shadow of a shuttered asylum, three ge...

Given what just happened and what has been happening and what is yet to happen and some of us are dreading, I present the Revolutionary Fluff Manifesto. Happy stories give us hope. They give us a shape for the future we want.  They feed us while we’re at war  they remind us that we’re human, because humans are distinguished by laughter. They let us relax for a while

They keep our eyes on the prize, a world where love and laughter can happen in he open square under the sky. They remind...

So in my NaNoFeed post about not being the pope of the non-existent One True NaNo, I wrote this piece of deathless wisdom:

Some of the best mysteries are about sorting through the debris field to figure out what happened.

Which of course turns out to be the frame for this year’s novel project. We open with a bang (which you can read here) and the rest of the novel is the answer to the question “why’d she do that? how’d she do that? was he really that bad a guy?” (spoiler: he was, and then som...

Each week, Weekend Writing Warriors presents a selection of excerpts from writers in a variety of genres. Check out the other offerings here.

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V told me about their first visit planet-side, that sense of space and terror, the hair-raising sensation of oceans and poles driving the motion of the air. It’s one thing to know it in th...

Each week, Weekend Writing Warriors presents a selection of excerpts from writers in a variety of genres. Check out the other offerings here.

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Who was Phila, anyway?

What a question to ask, after I’ve spent two decades working my way through the available records, learning all the things I never bothered with when I was told to do so as Naime.

I’m not Naime.

He nicknamed me Chaika, seagull, and laughed at my appetite (in all senses) and my bright flashing manner. If only one still wore due...

Two years ago, I got recruited as a Municipal Liaison for National Novel Writing Month. One of my less visible duties alongside my colleagues is to moderate threads on our regional forum.

So of course my first question was “What’s the most troublesome topic?”

Answer: “The one true NaNo.”

Which I guess shouldn’t have surprised me. Wherever people are doing a thing, there will be other people stepping in to tell them that they are doing it wrong.

It also gave away the secret behind the consiste...

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