By Kathryn Haueisen I can still clearly remember one particular day when I was a teenager reading in a wingback chair. What I remember most clearly is that day I realized I want to be a writer. That idea planted a seed that has sprouted into a lifetime working with words in a wide range of contexts. At that point …
To Follow a Dream
By Chandra Lynn Smith I entered my first Genesis contest in 2002 before it was the Genesis Contest. I think about that pitiful entry now and feel very sorry for the judges who struggled through reading it. The thing is my brave move to enter the contest was the beginning of quite a journey. In August of 2003, I attended …
Building Back the Walls
By Elizabeth Musser Lord, reading Nehemiah 3 this morning has brought me to tears. It’s basically just a list of names of people that I don’t recognize. There are not many who are superstars in the Word of God. Just a lot of ordinary people. Oh, but what they are doing is extraordinary. They’re rebuilding the walls around Jerusalem. The …
Are You a Scribe?
By Terri Gillespie These also are proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied . . . Proverbs 25:1, TLV Why did King Hezekiah’s men transcribe King Solomon’s proverbs over two hundred years after Solomon’s death? As novelists, we know those seemingly obscure Bible verses can inspire incredible stories. They can also be great writing exercises. …
Writing Regrets
By Henry McLaughlin After several years on this writing journey and from talking with others on the same path, I’ve found six things I wish I had done differently. Maybe you share some of them. 1) Following trends instead of my heart We all have stories in our hearts. Stories that we need to write. Sometimes it’s for our own …
Perseverance and Dreams
By Darlene L. Turner Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. – James 1:4 (NIV) What happens when our well-thought out plans for our writing journey start falling apart? We receive rejection upon rejection. We get to the point where we shudder every time that dreaded ding announces an incoming email. …
Unexpected Blessings
Unexpected blessings could be waiting for you in your writing life . . . My first winter in Florida, I visited churches to call “home” while there. My church in Ohio I love has a little over five hundred. I visited one church, and I walked into a room of thousands of people. Overwhelmed, I stayed. I loved the kind …
Where Does Your Validation Come From?
By Tammie Fickas Early Tuesday morning my phone vibrated with an incoming text from a friend congratulating me on being a finalist in a flash fiction contest. A whoop of surprise burst out before I could stop it. I quickly found the email that congratulated me on being chosen and relished the excitement. Later in the day, while I was …
Heading for Heaven
by Christine Sunderland In The Fire Trail (eLectio, 2016) I considered the border that runs between civilization and un-civilization, between the civilized world and the wilderness. Once Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, mankind has worked to tame the natural world and its wild-ness in order to survive. Man created communities, cities, safe shelters, protected from …
Can God Use Your Writing?
By Tammie Fickas Can God use you for His glory? Do you ever wonder about that? Writers are often their own worst critics, and the enemy loves to capitalize on that. He can get your thoughts all tied up in knots until you are certain that your life has nothing of value to offer in written word, and that God …