A Liturgy for Beginning an Artistic Work
Happy New Year, dear friends. Here is a liturgy for all the beautiful things you will bring into being this year—both works of art and...
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Dec 3, 2014
Learning from the Masters
A style is found by sedentary toil And by the imitation of great masters. W.B. Yeats, Ego Dominus Tuus One of the classes I’m taking this...
Sep 22, 2014
Tradecraft: Seeing What You See
Originality may be the most overrated of the writerly virtues. Much more important is the skill of seeing what’s in front of you and...
Jul 28, 2014
Digging Tunnels
I’m writing from the bench at the bend in the trail. When we moved to the Warren these woods were a claustrophobic tangle of thorn,...
Jun 4, 2014
North Wind Manor
The Rabbit Room has surprised me once again. One of the questions I’ve gotten quite a bit about writing (and one I’ve also asked many...
Apr 28, 2014
Process: Starting from Scratch
It occurred to me this morning that it might be helpful to think through one really annoying aspect of creative work, which is that every...
Feb 27, 2014
Here Be Dragons
At the most recent Hutchmoot, Andrew Peterson and I gave a talk called “Writing Close to the Earth.” Andrew got on the subject of...
Aug 8, 2013
Metaphors, Double Vision, and the Gruesome Pit of Grossness (a writing adventure for your familyR
Jennifer Trafton needs no introduction here, but I’m doing one anyway because of my zealous commitment to the rigid terms of the Story...
Jun 20, 2013
Dave Eggers on The Writing Life
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by the artistic process as much as by an artist’s completed work. Whether it’s...
Apr 9, 2013
Why I Want to Be George R. R. Martin’s Neighbor
[Editor’s note: We’re really excited about having Jeffrey Overstreet as one of our guest speakers at Hutchmoot 2013. Jeffrey has long...
Apr 5, 2013
Tradecraft, Pt 2: Gamblers, Scotsmen, and Other Logical Fallacies
Tradecraft: noun ˈtrād-ˌkraft – skill acquired through experience in a trade; often used to discuss skill in espionage. One long standing...
Mar 8, 2013
Tradecraft, Pt. 1: Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling
Tradecraft: noun ˈtrād-ˌkraft – skill acquired through experience in a trade; often used to discuss skill in espionage. One long standing...
Feb 25, 2013
Fighting for My (Creative) Life
“Don’t be a writer if you can get out of it! It’s a solitary job, sometimes a rather lonely one (who’s listening? you say), and it...
Sep 30, 2011
George MacDonald Being Awesome
I just read this passage from a sermon by George MacDonald in a book called George MacDonald in the Pulpit (published by Johannesen) and...
Jun 22, 2011
Cultivating Discipline
One Saturday morning in February, I was reading through several old essays and detected a couple of threads where certain themes held...
Jun 8, 2011
Beauty Never Lies
One great delight of having a composer for a brother is the fact that he passes the best of his studies on to me. Joel explores reams of...
Mar 17, 2011
Ready, Set, Hut.
If you’re a writer, admit it. You have always wanted a “writer’s hut.” According to a source close to me, a writer’s hut is a little...
Feb 21, 2011
Five Ways to Improve Your Writing
Note: Yesterday I sat at a table on my back deck with Jason Gray, Pete Peterson and Jonathan Rogers and declared that I never wanted the...
Feb 14, 2011
The Empty Pages
My first journal was a yellow legal pad. So was my second. Then came a series of leathers, hardbacks and spiral bounds. The pens evolved...
Jan 2, 2011
Desire, Choice, Consequence: Building Character Through Stories
This is a version of an article I wrote for LifeWay’s ParentLife magazine. It appeared in the July, 2010 issue. At writing seminars...
Oct 26, 2010
“The Haunted House”, by George MacDonald
I recently discovered this creepy old George MacDonald poem and the painting that inspired it. It may take reading it a few times aloud...
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