by Margaret Brownley The challenge for any Christian writer is to tell a good page-turning story that also enlightens and encourages readers. For the writer starting out, working a meaningful faith arc into a manuscript can be daunting (It was for me coming from the secular market). How much or little faith does a book require and what makes a …
I Don’t Write Correctly, But People Love My Books
by Mary Ann Kerr Writing has become a consuming passion. I can’t seem to stop and I don’t know from day to day what I am going to type next; it just seems to come. I am in the process of writing my sixth novel. This journey I am on was totally unexpected. I never thought to write a book …
Voice … Brand … Platform … Yikes!
by Ane Mulligan Each of these is something a writer must discover or develop. They have nothing to do with the mechanics of our craft, yet everything to do with getting published. Platform takes time and development. It equates to how wide your circle of influence is-or how many books you can sell. There are tons of great articles out …
Motivation to Write
By Linda Robinson When I retired from my accounting job outside the home, I had great plans to “write out the rest of my life.” I’d be doing what I loved most-writing fictional, family-oriented novels about characters dealing with the issues of life. Stories that showed God’s love, mercy, and provisions for each of us and would, hopefully, encourage and …
Slowing Down the Pace
by Kathi Macias I hear a lot about the need to “slow down the pace” of our writing, and I know that especially applies to me. I am definitely not one of those who spends too much time on descriptions and backgrounds. Anyone who’s read my books knows I like to throw the reader right smack-dab into the action from …
Do You Have to Write What You Know?
by Crystal Laine Miller Beginner writers are often told to “write what you know,” which isn’t bad advice. When you’re learning to write, it will keep you concentrating on the craft and not worrying about the research quite as much. What if you’d like to know some new things to write about? Or what have you always wanted to learn? …
How Do You Get Endorsements?
By Carrie Fancett Pagels I was recently asked this question. As a newly published author with an ebook novella, I hardly feel competent to answer. But someone asked how I got endorsements for another project (a not-yet-published manuscript) in which three multi-published authors gave me endorsements. And the questioner wondered how I already had a number of multi-published authors who’d …
The Transparent Writer
By Kathy Harris When you take time to get to know someone — to really know them — you may be surprised at what you learn. The battles they’ve fought and the triumphs they’ve won might very well inspire and humble you. The same, of course, is true of Christian writers. In fact, our personal stories can be just as …
I’m Not Called to Write
by Laura McClellan Are you called to write? That question has come up many times during the past fifteen months as I’ve worked on my first novel. At writing conferences, in blog posts, in emails on the ACFW loops-I’ve lost count of the number of times people have referred to being “called” to write, with not much discussion about what …
My Learning Curve
by Maggie Brendan As I embark on my seventh book in five years, The Arrangement, book one, in yet another new series, Virtues and Vices of the Old West, I look back on those brief years on what I’ve learned about the crazy world of being an author and thankfully, it’s way more than I can share in this brief …