writing advice

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.

Legendary Commencement Addresses

June 22, 2010 — June is all about “commencement” and new beginnings. Here are some great commencement addresses:
Stephen Colbert at Knox College, 2006
Steve Jobs at Stanford University, 2005
Jon Stewart at the College of William and Mary, 2004

In addition, Kurt Vonnegut’s address to Lehigh University graduates in 2004 (which I can no longer find on the Internet) was amazing and served as the basis for many lectures during the last few years of his life, and while Dr. Seuss (aka Theodor Seuss Geisel) gave a commencement address at Lake Forest College in 1977, more people are familiar with Oh, the Places You’ll Go, which still sells 300,000 copies every year at graduation time.

Add to those illustrious commencement addresses one given this year by John Rember, long-time creative writing professor and author of MFA in a Box, to be published later this year by Dream of Things. Read this address to the end, and you’ll see why many graduates and their parents were wiping away tears.

Freelance-Zone Named to “101 Best Websites for Writers”

April 24, 2010 — Hello Friends! I post regularly on Freelance-Zone’s blog (more regularly than I do on my own site…deadlines are a good thing). Despite adding me as a guest blogger, Freelance-Zone has again been named to the Writer’s Digest “101 Best Websites for Writers.” Congratulations to editors Catherine Tully and Joe Wallace, and to my fellow writers/guest bloggers, Erin Dalpini and Amanda Connor.

Writing for One Person

Whether you are writing a book, a short story or essay, or a blog post, it’s important to know who you’re writing for — and, ultimately, to remember that you are writing for yourself first and foremost. See my latest post on Freelance-Zone for more…

Making It vs Not Making It as a Writer

The difference between making it as a writer and not making it is simply sitting down and writing every day. See my recent guest post on Freelance-Zone.