writing

The Art of Language

June 28, 2010 — Hello friends! Here’s a treat for you: an inside look at the creative process from one of the most creative people I know. Stephen Parrish is author of The Tavernier Stones, a masterfully crafted story of a treasure hunt with memorable characters and fascinating details about cartography and gemology. Stephen also has one of the most entertaining blogs on the Internet at stephenparrish.blogspot.com, and he is sponsoring an online treasure hunt to win a 1 carat diamond!

I grew up among artists who encouraged me to draw and paint; my room always smelled of turpentine and linseed oil and my pants were often streaked with charcoal dust.  Since I write visually—I first see the scenes in my head and attempt to record them faithfully—it was only natural that I come up with an approach to writing that paid tribute to all those canvases I sacrificed.

Sneak Preview

May 24, 2010 — Hello Friends! There are a lot of new developments at Dream of Things. Here’s a sneak preview of coming attractions:

Everything I Never Wanted to Be by Dina Kucera: We’re about to print review copies of Everything I Never Wanted to Be, which I would describe as a cross between Mary Karr’s The Liar’s Club and

Today Arrived Sooner Than I Expected

May 5, 2010 — Hello Friends! No, the headline is not a quote from Moe, Larry or Curly. I’m saying that after only a few months of accepting submissions, we are almost ready to publish the first Dream of Things anthology. Submissions will close for the “Saying Goodbye” anthology on June 30, 2010,

Dream of Things Around the World

Hello Friends! I recently received a note from Maria Duffy of Dublin, Ireland, inquiring about a submission. I answered Maria’s question, then I thought to myself, “Wow, people in Ireland have heard about Dream of Things!” (By the way, thank you to Vanessa O’Loughlin of the INKwell Writers’ Workshops in Ireland for mentioning Dream of Things in Inkwell News.)

Maria’s note got me curious, so I looked at Google Analytics. Turns out a lot of people around the world have heard about Dream of Things. In fact, since the Dream of Things website launched on Thanksgiving Day 2009, 5,418 visitors from 77 countries speaking 31 different languages have visited the site. I think that’s very cool! And the 665 fans of the Dream of Things Page on Facebook include folks from every continent except Antarctica. Again, pretty cool.

A few interesting tidbits…about 80% of visitors are from the United States, followed by Canada and the United Kingdom. Rounding out the top ten: Philippines, Australia, Ireland, India, Japan, Germany and Bangladesh.

Who spends the most time on the site? People from South Korea average nearly 16 minutes per visit. (I suppose it could just be a slow Internet connection.)

Who visits the most pages per visit? A visitor from Hong Kong visited 11 pages. (I didn’t even know there were that many pages on the site.)

Most surprising visitors: I had a visitor from Myanmar/Burma, which is a little surprising—until I recall that my friends, John and Julie Rember, were recently in Thailand and had to cross the border into Myanmar on a Visa technicality. There were also visitors from Nepal and Mongolia.

For a complete list of countries and visitors, see Dream of Things Visitors.

Now I’m even more curious…where are you from and how did you hear about Dream of Things?

Introducing Dream Catchers

Dream of Things “Dream Catchers” are authors who have captured something magical with their writing, and we’re going to share some of their stories on the new Dream Catchers section of our website. We get lots of great stories at Dream of Things, and our editors are constantly reviewing new submissions. The best creative nonfiction will be published in our anthologies. But putting an anthology together takes months. Meantime, we’re sitting on all these great stories.

Not anymore! We plan to feature selected stories on the new Dream Catchers section of dreamofthings.com. Featured here is a story is “Forever Sharp” by Terri Elders of Colville, Washington, which will be published in an anthology about great teachers later this year.

PS: I contemplated names other than “Dream Catchers” for the selected stories…Cup of Soup for Chickens… Great Gumbo for the Noggin… Hearty Stew for the Heart… Block of Bouillon for the Brain… But in the end, I decided on a name that would honor the authors, not embarrass them. I hope you enjoy the stories.