Jack Campbell Jr.

Category: Writing

  • The Aesthetic Tragedy

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    Every Monday, I contribute to a collaborative blog on writing. The group features a wide-range of writers. We range from the published and professional, to the up and coming. We are from genres including Fantasy, Horror, Non-Fiction, Science Fiction, and even the Mainstream. Our common thread is that we love to write. The Confabulator Cafe…

  • On Rejection: They Don’t Know What They Want

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    “Actors search for rejection.  If they don’t get it, they reject themselves.” – Charlie Chaplin The writer’s psyche, like that of all artists, is fragile.  When you live in a world of emotions, your own feelings have the volume turned up.  Sometimes, that can cause an emotional crash, of sorts. Couple that with rejection, which…

  • Writing from a parallel universe.

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    “Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.” – Walt Whitman I was mentioning to another writer this week how much I enjoy the use of parallels in fiction, particularly speculative fiction.  By parallel, I mean something that the reader can relate to their modern life, or the way the world currently…

  • Never let education get in the way of your kid’s learning.

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    The only thing interfering with my learning is my education. – Albert Einstein. There is a fundamental different between teaching and learning that we seem to be missing in our society.  We have become statistic-driven.  Our children, both yours and mine, are statistics in the war of education.  Unfortunately, true learning has never been about…

  • The Need for Criticism

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    To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. – Elbert Hubbard There are a few things that every writer should have.  When you get down to it, that is a pretty substantial comment.  Writing is largely individual and like many arts, is at least partially subjective.  That being said, there are things we…

  • 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…