By Lana Christian Like many of you, I’ve been in the querying trenches for some time. So I was Snoopy-dance thrilled when a publisher reviewed my full manuscript and asked me to revise/resubmit it. I spent three weeks slaving over changes I thought the publisher was looking for, knowing full well I could do my best and still not garner …
Hidden Blessings of Writing
By Sarah Sundin Trying to get published can be painful and frustrating and disheartening. Can I hear an amen? It took ten years from when I began writing for publication until my first novel hit the shelves. I lost track of how many rejection letters I received during a time when historical fiction wasn’t selling—especially historical fiction set during World …
To Judge or Not to Judge
By Tammie Fickas It’s contest season at ACFW – First Impressions just finished up, while Genesis and the Carol Awards are open for submissions. Contests are a great way to hone our craft and get your work noticed. Across the nation, each year, organizations sponsor writing contests, and thousands of writers put their work to the test. Have you ever …
Does Writing Scare You? Here’s One Thing You Can Do Today to Overcome Your Fear
By Tammie Fickas Are there writing opportunities you regret not taking? How about dreams you’ve put aside? Do you ever wish your life was different? What’s holding you back from taking chances and fulfilling your God-given purpose? For me, the answer is fear and more questions. What if I fail? Or look like a fool? Sometimes I let the “what …
Writing & Researching Historical Fiction
By Carol Buchanan, PhD In 1962, the first graduate school class at the University of Kansas required of English majors was called “Bibliography and Methods of Literary Research.” Literary research in that class meant historical research. The professor gave each of us a name from the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries and told us to compile a bibliography of everything we …
Christmas Stories
By Lisa Loraine Baker It’s December, which reminds me how much I love Christmas stories, both reading and writing them. All our favorite seasonal books have been brought up from storage and I placed them on a shelf above the one holding our manger scene. One by one I hope to pour through them and re-live the wonder of each …
What About Those Innkeepers?
By Donna Wichelman Most of us have heard the Christmas story. Even if you don’t subscribe to the whole message of a Christ child who was born to redeem and save a lost world, you most likely have some knowledge of the characters in the story—shepherds abiding in the fields, angel choirs in the heavens singing glory to God, a …
How Culture, Heritage, and Geographic Region Influence Our Stories
By Cynthia Herron Rich in heritage and unique in culture, The Ozarks region is a place like no other. Amidst a lush backdrop of rolling hills and hidden hollows, stories abound. Some remain elusive while others beg to be shared. In Her Faith Restored, book three of the Welcome to Ruby series, Mel’s and Matt’s story takes center stage as they attempt to …
Lessons Along the Road to Publication
By: JPC Allen Thirty-two years. That’s how long it’s taken me to see my first novel in print. Thirty-two years since I was a freshman in college and recovering from an emergency appendectomy over Christmas break. To ward off boredom, I began writing. I’d written in bits and pieces, fits and starts, since second grade. But, for the first time, …
Mother and the Chair
By Nancy Ellen Hird Writing a novel is daunting. Not the beginning. That’s all flash and magic and excitement. It’s the middles and the middles and the endings and the endings and THE endings. It’s the hundred thousand times you quit—had enough—it’s a disaster—I’m taking up kayaking. Then God breathes on you, whispers to your heart or pokes you with …