By Suzanne J. Bratcher “Do you know the theme of a story before you write it?” When a reader asked me that question, I answered “yes.” While I don’t always know the exact passage that will surface as the key verse, I know the theme will be an invitation to a deeper faith. Even though my answer seemed to satisfy …
The Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and the Lion
By Julia Kay Being a women’s fiction writer, I’m a big fan of spiritual leaders who teach and champion other women. Specifically, Lisa Bevere is one of my favorites. I recently read a comment on social media from someone saying that her hand motions were annoying in one of her videos. As writers, we’ve been there, right? Rude comments. Random …
How Long Do You Write Before Writing It Down?
By Glynn Young I spent almost four years writing my first novel before I put a single word on screen or paper. Writing a novel wasn’t intentional. A song had captured my imagination, a single image formed in my mind, and gradually a story unfolded to accompany that song and image – all in my imagination. I mentally nursed the …
How Do Book Launch Teams Help Authors?
by Cynthia Herron Anticipating a book launch is a little like anticipating childbirth, both thrilling and terrifying. We’re excited about our book birthday, but there’s a lot of hard work leading up to that point. In addition to writing the book, launching it takes coordinated effort by the author, the publisher, the marketing team, and so on. Cheerleaders—those who will …
A Balancing Act
by Shirley Gould Lately, life has been a balancing act as the coronavirus ended life as we know it and we faced major changes. Covid-19 caught us off-balance—totally unprepared. We have quarantined, worked from home, educated our children, and watched businesses close. Now we are social distancing, washing our hands, and wearing masks…and it’s not over yet. As writers of …
The Beauty of Falling Leaves
By Kariss Lynch When seasons change, I celebrate. In general, I struggle with change, but something about nature changing and ushering in something new is exciting and familiar, even as things shift. As an adult, fall has become my favorite season. I love the color of the leaves changing, the crisp mornings and evenings, cozy drinks, firepits, and the permission …
What Driving Taught Me About Writing
By Lynn H. Blackburn It’s hard to turn a parked car. Ever heard that one before? I can’t remember where I heard it first, but it’s so very true. You can be in the car, behind the wheel, motor running, ready to go. You may even have the brute strength to force the steering wheel to make the tires twist …
Put Your Feet on the Desk
By Terri Gillespie “. . . and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.” 1 Kings 19:12, NKJV I have a friend who was a vice-president of a major financial institution in Manhattan. He’s an incredible idea person—a real visionary. While overseeing operations for a ministry, …
Haircuts & Hurricanes
by Kathleen Denly This year has been full of surprises, and few of them pleasant. It can be difficult to understand what God is thinking during times like these. It can be tempting to believe what we are going through is so terrible it cannot possibly result in something good. Take my hair for example. It’s very thick and dense. …
How to Be a Real Writer in Four Easy Steps
By Kimberley Woodhouse Step One: Write. The best way to become a real writer is… you guessed it: to write. You might have one thousand amazing ideas but you’ve flitted from one to another and never finished one of them. My suggestion is to keep a journal of all of those fabulous ideas and then sit down and focus on …