Thirty-nine years, 50 books, and 350 million copies into his literary career, Stephen King will discuss the writing life with his son, first-time novelist Owen King on the opening night of the 34th International Festival of Authors. In his only scheduled Canadian appearance, Stephen King and his son, Owen King, will headline PEN Canada’s annual benefit…
Read moreOne way to get out of having a beer with your sister
A story in the adventures of Stain and Sappho I’m sitting alone writing a short story for my blog when I see a text come in from my step sister. We don’t talk much anymore. Tammy writes: “Hey, lets grab a beer.” I write back: “I don’t know. I need to get a few things…
Read moreWriting Topics
Some people say to write something everyday. Let us imagine a world where all the writers have plenty of time, will, and talent to write anything they want. Now, you just have to find a topic to write about. As far as writing topics go, it’s great to find something unique, wonderful, amazing, and identifiable…
Read moreGhostwriters
Ghostwriting is evil. Now that I’ve shared my obvious bias, let me try my best to give you my impartial views on ghostwriting. Ghostwriter Defined by Son of Sappho A writer who writes anything for remuneration (usually money) without receiving the official credit for it. This means that you do the work, sell it to…
Read moreWriting Online
I often hear people saying how writing online is so drastically different from other kinds of writing. I’ll admit that online writing isn’t the same as academic writing, but despite the innovation of Twitter, the ideal article length online is around 300 to 400 words, about what you would want a newspaper article to be….
Read moreThe Soup (a story in the adventures of Stain and Sappho)
“Hey Sappho, man, hotel bar?” “Yeah. Yeah. You know I love hotel bars. Plus I’d love to see Winnie again.” Stain and I walk into this dimly lit bar, seating ourselves at the stools. Winnie is working, although, I think Winnie is always working weekday late shifts. She’s chatting with two reasonably respectable guys who…
Read moreOttawa Writing
Writing can be difficult for any particular market. Today, I’ll use Ottawa as an example. There are a few newspapers, but with today’s world of syndication, it can be difficult to get on staff anywhere. There are a ton of technical writing jobs, although many of them require field experience. There are also the less…
Read moreA Tablet to Bridge the Gap
Below is a portfolio piece that I wrote for Computer’s for Communities. You can find the article at http://computersforcommunities.ca/c4c/sites/default/files/C4C-Newsletter-March%202013.pdf The new PengPod touch tablet ships in January 2013 with Linaro, an Ubuntu based Linux kernel. What are the benefits for an average user? Affordable – the product will be selling for around $100 for a…
Read moreWrite Something Everyday
The greatest bit of wisdom I could share is to simply write everyday. This is advice that I need to follow too, but if you can write something everyday, anything at all, you are a writer. Write a poem, a story, a diary entry, or a tip in a writing blog about writing something everyday….
Read moreProgress
My last post was about my no grain diet. It has been a bit over a month. Although I’ve eaten a few grains along the way, when no other option has been available, I’ve stuck to the diet whenever possible. Less than 1 out of every 20 meals has included grains. I’m no longer taking…
Read more