Jack Campbell Jr.

Author: jack

  • Beneath the Avalanche of Previously Read Pages

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    I  have a very good memory for images and phrases.  I have largely relied upon that memory when it comes to one of my favorite hobbies, used book stores. I will find a book by an author I like, or simply something sitting in the $1.00 bin that looks interesting.  I will then mentally compare…

  • You Are Not a Beautiful and Unique Snowflake

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    Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. – Tyler Durden in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club Writer’s are a fragile bunch.  We are primarily solitary creatures, except when we are gathering with other writers to talk about writing.  We…

  • Fahrenheit 2011

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    The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame – Oscar Wilde September is Banned Book Month. I have to confess that I never realized just how important it was while I was in high school.  I was lucky enough to attend a school where The Scarlet…

  • What the Fire Consumed

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    A member of a writer’s group I’ve been attending suggested we all write a 140-character short story for Thaumatrope.  For those who don’t know about it, Thaumatrope is a Twitter-based magazine of flash fiction.  The character limit for Twitter is 140, thus, the guidelines.  You can check them out at http://thaumatrope.greententacles.com.  I wrote a stor,…

  • The Horror of 9/11

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    Ten years ago, the world changed.  9/11 is the most significant event of my generation.  With any luck, it will be  the last of it’s kind.  But I doubt it.  There has always been terror, and there have always been those who wield it.  Some, like myself and other writers, wield terror creatively, not to…

  • Thousands Died This Morning

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    I wrote this short story several years ago as an experiment with second-person viewpoint and a more lyrical prose style.  I thought I would post it since it took place on Sept. 11 and the tenth anniversary is coming up.  The concept was that while 9/11 was a great tragedy, individual tragedies continued to occur, …

  • Truths of the Group Mind

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    I recently went to a couple of writer’s groups.  I have not had my work actively critiqued by another writer since college, unless you count a couple rejection letters. Writing groups are a very interesting place, and I had almost forgotten what they are like.  There are several truths about writing groups.  I am posting…

  • Parenting in the Modern Age

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    A couple of weeks ago, I read a Freshly-Pressed blog on how our parents put us to shame in parenting.  Check it out, it is a good read. http://mommabethyname.com/2011/08/05/why-our-parents-put-us-to-shame/ With all due respect to our parents, and particularly our grandparents, parenting is much harder in the modern age.  Parenting has changed a lot, but so…

  • Opening a Vein

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    “There is nothing to writing.  All you do is sit at a typewriter and open a vein.” – Red Smith Writing can be difficult, especially knowing what to write.  I’ve been reading several blogs lately about ideas and the constant influx of them when you don’t need them, their apparent extinction when you do, and…

  • Mirrors to Remind Ourselves

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    There is a quote in the movie Memento.  “We all need mirrors to remind ourselves who we are.”  I thought of that movie in relation to writing, just recently. I was shocked to realize that I did not have a copy of any of my writing from my college creative writing courses on my laptop. …