Eating Isn’t Selling Out

There’s a common image of artists as starving, acapitalistic beings, refusing to sacrifice their art for the worldly pleasures of money. The successful artist, the myth goes, is a sell-out: to make money means one is no longer a real artist. Scraping by is the sign that one is…

The Un-Lavish World of Writing

All writers remember their very first story or poem, penned by their own hand.

The feeling of success and the sigh of accomplishment. We have had the feeling of excitement, as we think, “this is what I am meant to do with my life!” We imagine that we…

Experience Is Invaluable

Throughout most of my educational career, my mentors preached the importance of grades and test scores. I was told that these were the primary things that I would be evaluated on when searching for opportunities to further my education. This was relatable advice in high school while…

Clickbait: The New Headline

What I have surmised through this course thus far is that when considering writing as a profession, the core goal is to provide words or content with carefully selected language, which reveals specific information that is easily understood (at the very least by your intended…

Dude, Where is my motivation?

I recently read an article on medium called “How to stay motivated: When Ernest Hemingway nearly gave up on his writing dreams.” The story of this article took place in 1922 and was about a fiction writer named Ernest who was wiped of his motivation and how he used his loss…

Write and Wrong

The terms “writing assignment” or “essay” or “report” have this remarkable ability in which they, after being seen or heard, promptly instill disgust or anxiety into those that are being subjected to them. I’d argue that most people would rather get stung by a bee than write a paper; the pain of…

Writing Creatively

So, it’s no secret that I love to write. That’s probably why I’m a WRD major. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been writing stories. Of course, the ones that I wrote when I was, say, 10 are absolute garbage. At the time though, they meant something to me. And the writing that I do today means even…

“What do you want to do with that?”

Last week in class I had the opportunity to listen to a presentation from David Ballou, a technical writer for Belcan Engineering Group, LLC. While technical writing doesn’t particularly peak my interest for an internship or potential career, David provided plenty of…

Art or Work? Or Both?

Writing and reading has been a concrete foundation in our society. It’s been around since humans could communicate. Writing and reading are just forms of communication throughout history. Writing is to preserve what happened, and reading is to pass along the knowledge that humans have…