Elisa Beatty

I have an eyebrow problem.
And a chin problem. And a problem with shrugging and sighing.
Don’t even get me started on hands and fists. Or (bane of my existence) eyes.
In my first drafts, my characters almost invariably cock their eyebrows, lift their chins, ball their fists, shrug, and stab one another with glares. All perfectly good [...]

“Needs tightening.” My least favorite comment.
I hate tightening.  Hate it at the gym.  Hate it with my household budget.  Really, really hate it with my writing.
I love the luxuriance of books, the lavishness of language.  Back in first grade, I always needed extra sheets of story-paper for Writing Time, and never got around to drawing [...]

Last month, I blogged about the creative urge: that deep, fluid, irresistible drive to make something new.  When it’s flowing—oh, baby—writing’s like sledding down a perfect snowy hill….effortless, exhilarating…sheer joyous momentum.
But sometimes…you hit the metaphorical equivalent of a gravelly patch, and get thrown headfirst into a snowbank.  Have you been there?  You’ve got slush down [...]

Recently, an acquaintance told me, “I’m not a creative person. That’s just not something I have in me.”  She shrugged, as if this were a trivial admission, along the lines of saying she didn’t care for asparagus, or had never been to Wisconsin.

I’m going to embarrass myself today by confessing what REALLY obsessed me after that fabulous March 25 phone call telling me I was a finalist:  glamour.
I mean, Romance is a glamorous business, isn’t it?  Open your favorite novel, and the heroine’s resplendent in a teal silk gown or—depending on your genre of choice—scarlet Jimmy Choos and a butter-soft leather [...]