Friday Freewriting – Megan – April 30, 2021

Posted on April 30, 2021April 30, 2021 by Epic Book Club

Another Friday, another freewrite. As I mentioned last week, my goal was to be serious this week in my attempt; I avoided humor, at least. I did not do a great job at capturing the “Romance” genre, per se. I could also see the argument that the main character is not a father, though he was offered the chance. Let me know what you think, and I’d love to read what you write if you try this prompt!

Character: Father

Object: Ottoman

Genre/Tone: Romance

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Friday Freewriting – Robert – April 30, 2021

Posted on April 30, 2021April 29, 2021 by Epic Book Club

Doing this every week is revealing, to say the least. The first thing it’s teaching me is how shallow my understanding of various genres really is. My writing is more of a parody of a stereotype of romance—to take this week’s exercise as an example—than it is actually evoking the genre.

Brown Leather Chair and Ottoman $1395 — Photo by Paris on Ponce & Le Maison Rouge

On the other hand, it’s proving that I actually can bring a story to completion under time pressure, if I’m given enough structure. I have not once had an idea of how any of these stories would end. But I’m able to find an ending in the roughly twenty minutes of actual writing. They’re kinda clichéd and lame (today, I had two endings, and I decided on this one; I’ll put the alternate ending in the comments), but they’re endings that wrap up the story. That’s honestly more than I thought I could do on a regular basis.

As always, we’d love to see your take on these prompts in the comments. Or just poke fun at our attempts!

Character: Father

Object: Ottoman

Genre/Tone: Romance

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Friday Freewriting – Robert – April 23, 2021

Posted on April 23, 2021April 23, 2021 by Epic Book Club

We’re writing new original stories every week, and we’ll be posting them on Fridays. Here’s Robert’s response to this week’s prompts. Feel free to use the prompts to write your own story, and to share it in the comments if you like.

Character: Photographer

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Friday Freewriting – Megan – April 23, 2021

Posted on April 23, 2021April 23, 2021 by Epic Book Club

We’re writing new original stories every week, and we’ll be posting them on Fridays. Here’s Megan’s response to this week’s prompts. Feel free to use the prompts to write your own story, and to share it in the comments if you like.

Megan here: I started writing this and I thought I’d try being serious for once. But then I couldn’t resist trying to tell a joke. Maybe I’ll be serious next week. Only time will tell.

Character: Photographer

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Friday Freewriting – Megan – April 16, 2021

Posted on April 16, 2021April 15, 2021 by Epic Book Club

As mentioned, we’re writing new original stories every week, and we’ll be posting them on Fridays. So here are the prompts we used this week, followed by Megan’s story. Feel free to use the prompts to write your own story, and to share it in the comments if you like.

https://flic.kr/p/dSAEtu

Character: Accountant

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Friday Freewriting – Robert – April 16, 2021

Posted on April 16, 2021April 15, 2021 by Epic Book Club

As mentioned, we’re writing new original stories every week, and we’ll be posting them on Fridays. So here are the prompts we used this week, followed by Robert’s story (crossposted at his personal site). Feel free to use the prompts to write your own story, and to share it in the comments if you like.

Character: Accountant

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Back to Basics

Posted on April 12, 2021April 12, 2021 by Epic Book Club

It’s been a while since our last post. We’ve been working on a writing project which has kept us pretty focused on our own little world. But we’re poking our heads up again, and looking forward to connecting with others!

One way we’re doing that is by writing an original story (each of us) every week, just to get in the habit of telling stories. These aren’t really serious stories, really just writing exercises – but they’re exercises that create a complete story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending.

There are lots of ways to do this, but for the moment we’re using what we’re calling the Mary Robinette Method.

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Lost in translations

Posted on March 30, 2020March 30, 2020 by Epic Book Club

An Italian pun notes that traduttore, traditore: to translate is to betray.

One of the great joys and frustrations of reading ancient texts—or more recent ones in languages I can’t read—is seeing all the differences in the translations, all the various interpretations of the original.

Tablet V of the Epic of Gilgamesh; photo by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin For example, right now I’m reading the Epic of Gilgamesh and I’m comparing three different recent translations and a couple of others in the public domain. The differences are sometimes minimal (“dwelling” vs. “home”), sometimes significant (“heard” vs. “told”), and sometimes hilarious (“he snooded his locks”).

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Epic podcast on its way!

Posted on March 29, 2020March 29, 2020 by Epic Book Club

Microphone; photo by Matthew Keefe Since we have a bit more time at home right now, being under a “stay-at-home-but-not-shelter-in-place” order, we’ve made a bunch of progress on our podcast. It looks like we’ll be able to launch sooner than expected! Hurrah!

We’re both new to podcasting, though, and we’d like to avoid reinventing any wheels. Please leave a comment if you have tips or advice on format, hosting, recording—anything, really! Thank you!

In process

Posted on March 3, 2020April 15, 2021 by Epic Book Club

Epic Book Club will explore the epic ideas and worldviews of both ancient and contemporary fiction and philosophy. We’re just getting started, so our site is unfinished. But check back soon – hopefully by May 2020 – and we’ll start posting regular content. Thanks for your patience while we build our site!