by Elizabeth Musser I just launched my new novel, When I Close My Eyes, last week at the Atlanta History Center, a novel about mental illness and God’s grace. The novel opens with a hitman failing in his attempt to assassinate a middle-aged novelist. No one has ever tried to assassinate me, but I share a lot in common with …
Tis the Season To Remember
by Gail Gaymer Martin As autumn passes, we remember our gratefulness as we celebrate Thanksgiving. Soon everyone’s mind turns to the next holiday, Christmas, as we again give thanks for the gift of the babe born in Bethlehem, our Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord. Yet sadly our focus often shifts to the traditions of Christmas—gift buying and wrapping them, Christmas …
Skydiving – Shifting Our Writer Expectations
by Deborah Clack My stomach dropped, but my feet were still on the ground. Staring at a man who was four inches shorter than my five feet nine, all I could think to myself was, “This is not who I thought I would be jumping out of an airplane with.” When I initially decided to do the insane and go …
Is it Faith or Is it Trust?
By Davalynn Spencer I am not the first person to realize that ninety-nine percent of the things I’ve worried about never happened. Nor am I the first to discover that God is never late. Oh, He’s really good at working close to deadline, at least from my time-constrained viewpoint. But He never fails to show up. So why do I …
Going For It
by JPC Allen I couldn’t have heard that right. Last December I was talking to author and editor Michelle L. Levigne at the Faith and Fellowship Book Festival in Etna, Ohio. Michelle is also the co-founder of Mt. Zion Ridge Press. That afternoon, she said the deadline for submitting short stories for the press’s Christmas anthology was December 15. I’d …
The Doctor Is … In
by Jamie Chavez You’ve been there, I know. Those moments of extreme manuscript fatigue. You just want to walk away. I get these emails. Stop me if you’ve heard this one. You: I will never finish this book. And it doesn’t matter, because it’s no good! The writing’s crap! The plot’s crap! The dialogue’s crap! I think I’m just gonna …
Put Out to Pasture—Or Not?
By Kristi Holl I just returned from a research trip in the Yorkshire Dales in northern England, the setting of my historical work-in-progress. It was my second time to stay in this small village, whose buildings date back to the 1600’s. I wrote, I visited museums, and I hiked the hills two or three times each day. I will never …
Nine Things You Learn when You Write (That You May Not Learn if You Don’t)
by Kathy Harris If we study the craft of fiction, we can learn a lot of important things, from how to write proper point-of-view to how to format a manuscript. And, while each of these skills is vital to becoming a great writer, there are other important lessons we can learn only through writing, i.e. putting words on paper and …
Managing the Post-Conference Checklist
By Kariss Lynch Right about now, many of you are chugging coffee, staying up late, and stressing out over your post-conference checklist. Many of you may have met new writing partners or received requests from agents and editors. And some of you are madly googling “How to Write a Proposal” or considering rewriting your entire manuscript because it no longer …
All Things through Christ—Even Write
By Suzanne Bratcher Most of the writers I know personally are, like me, newly published. Almost all of us write in spite of daunting life challenges. One friend home schools her four small children. Another one works forty hours a week. A third friend provides full-time care for a grandmother suffering from dementia. My life challenge is medical: I live …