by Kim Vandel In her debut novel Lights, Cowboy, Action, Lesley Ann McDaniel takes us behind the scenes of North to Montana, an epic western sure to be a box office hit. Well, it will be if Courtney can keep Hollywood diva Angela Bijou from walking off the set. As assistant to the A-list actress, Courtney is expected to perform …
New Releases: June 2013
More in-depth descriptions of these books can be found on the ACFW Fiction Finder website. Romance Releases: A Bride for All Seasons by Robin Lee Hatcher, Margaret Brownley, Debra Clopton, and Mary Connealy — 1800s mail-order bride catalogs facilitated many happy marriages. Here are the stories of four couples who owe their wedded bliss to creative editing by The Hitching …
Pinkerton Agents, Inventions, and the Charming Villain: Three Essential Ingredients of a Good Bad Guy
By Kathleen Y’Barbo Will Tucker is a handsome fellow with enough charm and drop-dead good looks to gain more than one wealthy fiancé. And he does. Not exactly hero material, is he? That’s because Will Tucker, the subject of my new Southern-with-a-dash-of-Steampunk historical series The Secret Lives of Will Tucker is not the hero. He’s the villain. Writing a series …
Plotting With God: Turning Story into a Journey of Faith
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 …