By Lena Nelson Dooley A teachable spirit is a major key to success in all areas of your life – family, work, any kind of relationship. You obtain wisdom when you become teachable. Giftedness is a dime a dozen, teachableness (Writers like to create their own words sometimes.) is a great treasure. All through the book of Proverbs, we are …
Something You May Not Know About Writing a Book
By Vickie McDonough The idea of writing a book sounds fascinating, and many parts of the process are. Research trips rank up at the top of the fun scale. Traveling to a place you may have never visited before and researching a town’s people and history is exciting–and tax deductible for writers. Brainstorming story ideas with friends can also be …
Benefits to the Digitization of Books
At a writing conference last year, industry professionals said publishing has changed more in the last seven months than in the last twenty-seven years combined. It’s true. Publishing is in frenzied state of mind-boggling change and rapid-fire flux. No one really knows what the new industry normal will end up looking like. While it’s a time of change, I don’t …
What I Learned on My Writing Journey
My writing journey began when I realized how much I like to make up stories and live in a fantasy world where I could create the perfect family, especially after my parents’ divorce. I made up stories for my paper dolls and my dolls using them as the characters. I wrote short stories as a teenager and my first novel …
After All, It is my Blog, Right?
One of the first things any writer needs to do is to establish a web presence. Following are a couple of tips to help you do it the right way. * Buy your own domain name. The friend that will develop your website or your blog may be your best friend — or your sister — or your brother — …
Learning to be Flexible
The first year I worked as a school principal I led my faculty in a year-long study of personality types. By understanding basic personality differences in individuals, we learned how to work with both children and other staff members whose personalities were different than ours. We started out by identifying the strengths and weaknesses in each personality type and deciding …
Using Real Life Experience in Fiction
People are always telling us to write what we know. The best way to do this is to write our real life experiences into our make believe world through the layered fabrics of our characters’ lives. This doesn’t mean that we can’t set a story in France if we’ve never stepped foot in France. It means we need to know …
Down in the Valley, Valley so Low
For those of you unable to attend the recent ACFW conference, there’s an understandable tendency to be down because you’d like to have been there. But right about now those who did attend may also be feeling a bit low. And that’s understandable, as well. One of my first writer’s conferences (before I was ever a member of ACFW) got …
God’s Plan for our Writing
Regency romance writing called me. Not the calm drawing room conversations and country walks of a Jane Austen, but the swashbuckling romance such as Sylvester or The Wicked Uncle by Georgette Heyer, or even better, the “Sanguinet” series by Patricia Veryan. I wanted spies and dead bodies amidst the glitter of the haut-ton. Who needed to find God’s Grace more …
Expect an Adventure
Writing is a tough profession. The competition in today’s publishing world makes the strongest writers think twice about their commitment to excellence. Those of us who are lured by the magnificence of story are committed to creating a world where our readers slip into the shoes of our characters and are whisked away to an amazing thrill filled with uncertainty. …