By Victoria Bylin This past year, I decided to stretch my wings. In addition to writing the proverbial “book of my heart” aka BOMH, I started working with a critique partner. I’ve written fourteen books for Harlequin Historical and Love Inspired Historical, but I’ve always worked alone. I thought I was an experienced writer. I thought I knew how to …
Writer Interrupted
By Deborah K. Anderson Have you ever felt as though someone, or something, tries to stop you from writing? You know, an evil force on a perverse mission hinders you from finishing an article, a short story, or perhaps even that next novel? It may sound crazy, but I’ve encountered this more times than I can count. Several years ago, …
A Thousand Words a Day?
by Donna L. Rich “But, let’s just stop and ask for directions,” I plead. “I don’t need directions.” “Honey, come on, I feel like Moses’ wife, here. We’ve been wandering for an hour now, and I want to get out in that sun. There’s a gas station on the corner. Let’s stop, please.” “I don’t need directions. I feel like …
Congratulations Christy Award Finalists
ACFW sends our congratulations to the 2012 finalists for the Christy Awards, especially to the many ACFW members! The 2012 Christy Award nominees are: CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE My Foolish Heart by Susan May Warren* (Tyndale House Publishers) Larkspur Cove by Lisa Wingate* (Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group) Wolfsbane by Ronie Kendig* (Barbour Publishing) CONTEMPORARY SERIES, SEQUELS, AND NOVELLAS …
Revising My View of Rewriting
by Beth K. Vogt It’s often said that writing is rewriting. And I’ve often said how much I love rewriting. But if you’d seen me a few weeks ago as I rewrote the fast draft of my second novel, you would have doubted not only my love of rewriting-but my emotional stability as well. Over the course of three days, …
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
by Richard Mabry When I began writing, I had an idea-just one-and wondered if I could turn it into a novel. My idea involved a young man who wanted more than anything to play professional baseball. He never made it past the minors, so he decided to make his father happy by going to medical school. Then he had one …
A Writer’s Passion
by DiAnn Mills How can a writer expect readers to be excited about a novel unless the writer feels the same passion? Does enthusiasm for story mean having passion for every word? Absolutely! Every grueling step of the process must be met with a committed spirit. Passion for The Chase kept me spellbound, as though the world around me had …
I WAS WRONG!–When Life Gets in the Way of Writing
by Lillian Duncan I am not a drama queen. In fact, I am the anti-drama queen. My life is calm-some might call it boring. And that’s okay with me. But all of sudden, it seemed as if my life was filled with drama-and not the good kind. Since my last release, DECEPTION (Harbourlight Books),came out in December, my husband had …
Talk it Out with SRS
By Mindy Starns Clark “I could hear the sound of Travis’s breathing.” That’s what I said, anyway, into the headset for my voice dictation program. As sometimes happens, it didn’t quite get that. Instead, it typed, “I could hear the sounds of Travis breeding.” Uh oh! Not in the CBA! Occasional gaffs aside, I’m a huge fan of writing by …
How Do You Talk?
by Bonnie S. Calhoun In my novel Cooking the Books, I have several unique characters with a particular speech pattern for each person. Listen to the kids, and how they talk, listen to your teens with the text speech…IDK. Dialogue is nothing more than having a conversation. How hard can that be? “Yo G, it is, what it is!” Well …