With a Little Help from My Friends

By Darvell Hunt


I now have over a dozen new writing friends, each of whom helped me with my writing last week. I hope I helped them as well.

I feel a strange but pleasant buzz rushing through my body, because my writing batteries are all charged up, thanks to the BYU Childrens Writers and Illustrators Conference. This was my fourth year in attendance and it was a as good as ever. Lots of writers, authors, illustrators, editors, and even a literary agent, were all gathered together in the same place, which made for a fun week.

The conference worked my writing muscles pretty hard and, while each day left me practically exhausted, each day I went back for more, I felt renewed strength. I left on Friday evening with a new toolbox full of writing goodies that I hope to use in the near future.

One of the reasons I go to conferences like this is to meet other writers, like myself. It’s nice to know there are others who are pushed from within to write compelling stories that inspire readers everywhere.

Tracy Hickman, co-creator of the popular Dragonlance fantasy world, basically taught us the tree-in-the-forest allegory as it relates to writing: If you write and nobody reads it, is it really writing at all? (That’s my translation of it, anyway; he didn’t actually say it using those words.)

I’d like to add my own little phrase to his. How about: I write, therefore I am. Hey, I like that!


Now back to writing.