by Lynn Hobbs Remember the wildfires of Texas during 2011? I lived through them as did many of my friends. When the fires came within two miles of my home, I had to evacuate. Later, after fire lanes were dug and officials cleared everyone in my neighborhood to return home; I carried important belongings with me for weeks in the …
Writing Spaces
By Ane Mulligan Where we write, at least to me, is paramount to creativity. I prefer my office or nook to be neat and organized. My muse likes my writing space neat and only comes out to play when it is. It’s hard to keep a nook clean, though. Where can you keep all the things we writers need? Unfortunately, …
That time I found maple syrup in my bed (aka Deadlines and the Beauty of the Undoable)
by Melissa Tagg Recently I’ve been in the throes of deadline life. And it’s been…interesting. I’ve had deadlines before. As a former reporter, they’re really not anything new to me. But I’ve never faced one quite this tight. Or this, um, challenging to my daily living and common sense abilities. Examples of things I’ve done in the past few weeks …
Christian Novels and Things that Go Bump in the Night
By D.L. Koontz “Christian authors should never touch this topic!” “Thank goodness – something fresh that isn’t afraid to push the edge.” “Clearly this author doesn’t know her Bible.” “I love how she wove spiritual truths throughout the story.” You probably guessed by now that these disparate comments were written about the same book – my novel, Crossing into the …
The Writer’s Journey: When Free Climbing is a Team Sport
by Dani Pettrey In my latest novel, Silenced, my lead character Kayden McKenna has a passion for solo free-climbing. If you’re like me, when you first hear the term “free-climbing”, you picture a lone climber with zero fear (and very little sanity), hanging by their fingernails from a 90 degree angle on a cliff face, with no anchors or ropes. …
Finding Satisfaction In Him
by Becky Wade “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” – John Piper My pastor shared the above quote with the congregation recently. How it struck me! So often, I seek to find satisfaction in things that are fleeting, things that are of this world. I’m continually tempted to look for satisfaction in the …
Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About
by Cynthia Ruchti Like many authors, I wrote several novels before writing the first one that would be picked up by a publishing house. When working on what would become my debut novel, I didn’t-couldn’t-envision the path ahead. Celebrating this month’s release of my third full-length novel, fifth fiction work, eighth book in the past four years, I think back …
The Pushmi-Pullyu of Publishing
by Beth K. Vogt I had a perfect publishing analogy for today’s blog, using the pushmi-pullyu from The Story of Dr. Doolittle. Imagine my distress when the analogy didn’t work … well, at least not in the way I had planned. The fictional pushmi-pullyu created by author Hugh Lofting has no tail, but with a head at each end, no …
Using the Keys
by Shirley Gould Don’t you love receiving something you know much thought and care had been given when it was chosen for you? My daughter gave me that kind of present. It was a bracelet made out of vintage typewriter keys, a perfect gift for a writer. It brands me as it inspires me to continue pounding the keyboard toward …
Social Engagements
By: Suzanne Kuhn, SuzyQ I often receive feedback from friends — those I know me both in real life and only through social media — about how much they have enjoyed getting to know me through my social media. I recently asked this question on my personal Facebook page: “Name one thing that you know about me solely because of …