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. …
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 …
Battling the Chickenhawks of Writing
by Laurel Blount Let’s talk about chickenhawks–and writing. My sister and her husband recently adopted a beautiful little girl, and our whole family fell in love. Hayleigh is spunky and and refreshingly honest–as three year olds tend to be. My sis, previously blessed with an adorable, rough-and-tumble little boy, has entered the world of pink dresses and oversized hair ornaments. …
A Writer’s Whisper
By Shannon Redmon Writers run scared sometimes. Like my friend Chelsea. She loves to write, but her fear of rejection has kept her fiction writing hidden away in the cave of her desk drawer. When I encouraged her to let others read her stories, she refused with the reason she was to afraid she wasn’t good enough. Elijah, God’s chosen …
Lessons in Resilience
By Laurel Blount Sometimes God uses unlikely people to teach us valuable lessons. For example I learned most of what I know about resilience from a seven-year-old boy who knew only three words of English. Resilience is usually defined as “the ability to recover quickly from difficulties,” and as every author knows, that’s a much-needed trait in the writing business. …
What Would I Tell My Unpublished Self?
By Patricia Bradley The day this posts my tenth novel, Justice Delivered will release. For the past five years I have been living my dream of being a writer published writer. I’ve been a writer much longer. Much longer. As I thought about this tenth book, I thought about all the things I wished I’d known when I first started …
Failure or Success – Our Choice
By Henry McLaughlin I experienced two what might be called failures recently. In the space of three days. On Saturday, I received a rejection from an agent. On Monday, a publisher declined to consider my manuscript. It was the same book in both instances. To me they were failures. Something about my writing did not strike either the agent or …
A Pick-Me-Up for the Weary Writer
By Cynthia Herron As a little girl, I created masterpieces. I rocked my world with art and zany inventions. I made stuff from unusual materials—egg cartons, fabric swatches, wallpaper samples—you name it. I used it. I adored anything I could put my creative stamp on and call my own. I liked to color, paint, and make things with my hands …
Let Go and Let God Write
By: Lenora Livingston In my seventy-nine years of living, never once in my wildest dreams did I ever envision myself writing a novel. No, not me, no way! In my school days, I always cringed at the very thought of rough drafts and rewriting themes and term papers. If I couldn’t write it right the first time, forget it. It …
Perfectionism: How Can Something So “Perfect” Be So Wrong?
by Kathy Harris I’m a perfectionist. And that’s not a good thing. Taken to the extreme, perfectionism can lead to serious psychological issues and is, in fact, on the rise, especially among young people. (See, Harvard Business Review, January 26, 2018.) But, even those of us who have a casual acquaintance with perfectionism will find that our work can suffer …