By Glynn Young I recently reread David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, a work I had first read in high school. It was every bit as good as I remembered it. The most autobiographical of all of Dickens’s novels, it is full of intrigue, suspense, betrayal, meanness, kindness, and love. I would even go so far as to call it a …
Never Underestimate the Power of a Prayer
By Sharlene MacLaren I didn’t write my first word of fiction until age 52. I had just come through a year of clinical depression (1999-2000), and I knew I needed a purpose, something that would make me excited about getting up in the morning. “God, please reveal to me what I can do for You,” I prayed. “I long to …
Connections Matter
By Donna L.H. Smith I’ve always heard it said, “It’s not always what you know, it’s who you know.” It’s the same for Christian publishing, too. When I first started writing, I knew very few people, and had few connections. But I continued to learn by attending larger Christian writer’s conferences. My best connection came from my first ACFW conference …
Teaching Tools for Writers: 4 Steps to Building a Public Speaking Platform
By Hannah R. Conway As a teacher, I speak on a daily basis, all day, five days a week–and I truly love it. Speaking comes natural to me, as does public speaking, but it may not to others. Building a public speaking platform can be a valuable asset to authors in many ways, but what’s the key to getting started? …
Have You “Arrived” Yet?
By Patricia Bradley Do writers ever “arrive”? You know, get to the point where they quit learning? Or studying the craft? Not if we want to be good writers, we don’t. And now is one of the best times in the history of writing to get help if you’re just starting out or to hone your craft if you’ve been …
Got knots in your wood?
By Dana Mentink Clergyman Howard Thurman once said, “Follow the grain in your own wood.” Sounds great, doesn’t it? Figure out what you’re meant to do, what your gifts are, and everything will fall into place, right? But what if your wood is you know, a little warped? I’m pretty sure when God made me, He threw in an extra …
Waiting for the Sun to Shine Again
By Linda Robinson Writing through grief and loss is not only difficult, but at times, impossible. Toss in health issues and loss of family members, and it’s a recipe for abandonment of not only writing but all normal routines. I had spent the fall of 2016 working on my current project, a manuscript titled Wheels of Home, but the new …
Do We Need Milk?
By Linda W. Yezak We spent part of last week in Matagorda Bay, Texas. Our little house faced the Colorado River as it rolled down to the Gulf of Mexico. Across the street were the marshes, and down the road–not five minutes away–was the gulf’s sandy shore. Fishing, crabbing, beach combing. Watching the sea gulls and pelicans, shrimp boats and …
When Research Becomes an Addiction (or Procrastination?)
By Eileen K Parsons “Look. Are you writing another novel or becoming an historian?” I looked across the table at my friend. “What do you mean? Of course I’m writing another novel.” “It just seems to me that this research has been going on for a long time. I mean, really, how much is necessary?” I wasn’t sure my friend …
Destroy to Create?
By Dennis Ricci “In the creative process, the whole idea is to destroy ninety percent of your work.” I heard those words eight weeks ago at the Robert McKee Story Seminar in Los Angeles. At first his principle struck me as a brute-force approach–produce one hundred pounds of ore from which you extract ten pounds of story gold. Then I …