On the 20th last week, I celebrated with my dad his 91st birthday. I took him to lunch, then sat with him in his apartment and talked about the past: “The Good Ol’ Days” as many people who lived in the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s tend to call those decades. He grew up in a … Continue reading For the Love of Short Stories
Category: Gist of Writing
A look at my writing process, poetry, and the process of self-publishing my books.
Discovery, Surprise, and Fun When Writing
I am neither a plotter nor a pantser when I write my books, yet I do both. Plotters blueprint their stories with outlines; pantsers don’t. Authors who don’t outline, “walk with their characters and listen to what they have to say,” to paraphrase William Faulkner. As a mostly-writes-short-stories author, I don’t outline my plots but … Continue reading Discovery, Surprise, and Fun When Writing
Write More Stories
I posted the second book of the Ridgewood Chronicles Trespassing: A Vree Erickson YA Novella on my My Books page. No sooner had I finished than I heard an objection from Lenny Stevens, one of my characters. His objection is about me changing Vree’s point of view in her stories from third person to first. … Continue reading Write More Stories
Remembering, Poem 2025-0104
There has been A LOT of snowfall where I live, so I’ve been snowed in during the past few days. While taking down some of my Christmas decorations, this time of isolation has given me a chance to go through boxes of stuff I have saved over the years. One of them contained some of … Continue reading Remembering, Poem 2025-0104
Looking Back and Ahead
I hope you and yours had a merry Christmas. Now that the big event is over, the end of the year is approaching fast. That means making promises to keep in the new year for a lot of us, and a look back at the outcomes of our promises made for the past year. I … Continue reading Looking Back and Ahead
Girl on a Train, Poem 2024-0831
Below is a poem I wrote in 1977, a year after I met the girl featured in the poem. I kept it to myself until April 6, 2016, when I published it on my Art ~ Writing ~ Life blog. Enjoy. I awoke this morning to voices on the wind, Echoes of past, present, and … Continue reading Girl on a Train, Poem 2024-0831
2011.12.13 Writing: Fictional Characters
Thank you for joining me today for another post from the past with reflections about writing and my life as a writer. If you’re a writer of fiction, you likely subscribe to the newsstand magazines that publish articles on how to write better fiction. Lately, I’ve seen articles that claim story characters react more to … Continue reading 2011.12.13 Writing: Fictional Characters
Steve Campbell Creations 