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 …
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 …
Writing is a Calling
Good morning all of you fellow writers-some published, some working toward being published. God blessed you when He called you to write. Some write fiction, some non-fiction, but all members of ACFW fill their pages, their stories, with the love of God. He loved us so much, He sent His Son to die and live again so that we could …
The Upside of Rejection
By Brenda Anderson Rejection. A word most writers are intimately familiar with, a word filled with negative connotations. Merriam-Webster defines rejection as “the action of rejecting: the state of being rejected.” Sounds depressing, doesn’t it? In the midst of rejection, it’s difficult to find something positive, but I assure you, there is an upside. We learn from rejection: You’ve just …
An Unexpected Gift from Alzheimer’s
by Suzanne Woods Fisher A few years ago, I started writing a weekly column on my blog called “Conversations with Dad.” My father was in the middle stages of Alzheimer’s disease and, because my parents lived across the street, I was spending quite a bit of time with him. Quite a bit. For those of you who have had an …
How Writing Retreats Have Profoundly Impacted My Life
By Lindsay Harrel When I first began writing, I did everything I could to learn how to become a successful career novelist. I wrote a few books (kind of a given!). I read countless books and articles on craft. I stalked many an agent blog to discover more about the industry. I befriended other writers. All of these things were …
Writer, Examine Yourself
By Richard L. Mabry, MD Is the phrase “Know thyself” in the Bible? No. It was inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. But it’s still good advice…especially for writers. I’ve been chained to the computer recently – not writing another book, but rather doing interviews associated with the release of my medical suspense novel, Critical Condition. Sometimes the …
Finding that Masterpiece Within
by D.L. Koontz One of my favorite secular movies is Romancing the Stone. Kathleen Turner plays a lonely romance novelist named Joan Wilder. In the opening scene, she’s hunched over a keyboard crying as she writes a tear-jerking scene (that’s me). She’s so engrossed in her writing, she ignores her irritated cat (also me). When she finishes, she hurriedly types …