Welcome to The Creative Process with Dave Janas

Hello! I hope this blog finds you, and finds you well.

I am calling it The Creative Process with Dave Janas. There is a lot to the creative process, and I expect I will cover a lot of topics and categories as I go on. I will endeavor to not turn it into a “old man shakes fist at cloud” rant page!

About me:

My name is Dave Janas. I'm a husband and father; I’m a middle school teacher; I’m a writer; I read, or listen to audio books when I drive; I build sets for plays; I film and edit video; I’m an expert with the software I need to know about, but barely have a Facebook page; I travel around the world, and I like to meet people off the beaten path and share a glass of wine with them. I don’t have money, though, because I am a river to the people who mean the world to me.

I have been a writer for many years. What I’ve written has not appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List and you probably haven’t heard of me. That’s okay. I will be publishing a novel soon, and have two or three short stories published in the Prairie Light Review. Maybe I will link them somewhere in this blog.

As a public school teacher, I have taught Reading and Writing (English or Language Arts, depending on the grade) for twelve years, American History for six years, Filmmaking for two years, Speech (forensics) for three years, Acting for two years, and ran theater tech for fourteen years.

In other parts of my life, I was the instructor for Chicago stations for a major airline, and wrote a well-received training blog that started out just for the employees in my stations at MDW and ORD, but was popularized and read system-wide (nation-wide), much to my delight and humility.

I have written as part of a comedy team back in the 1980s. One of our members hit the big time, and I look, now and again, to see if any of the old material ever made it into his act (not for $, but for the pure fun of it!).

I have written stories for myself and friends, posted under my own name and under pseudonyms in zines and places around the web.

I work with a small number of writers to improve their stories prior to publication, most notably a European who writes in English very well, but whose lack of mastery of American phrases and grammar give him away as someone who lives across the pond.

The key to all this, I believe, is that when I work with writers from any background — students, teachers, pros, amateurs — is to not change their own style or their voice as I help them understand their own creativity.

So, to you the reader, I promise interesting topics, perhaps a lesson plan or two, frequent updates, and a personal take on the creative process that, I hope, may help you with your own writing.

Contact

Reach out with questions

Email

info@davejanas.com

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