By Susan May Warren Can you write a book in a month? YES! We had a conversation about this last Thursday during the MBT OPEN HOUSE webinar. Writing a book in a month is a great way to jumpstart a new idea, get a head start on a longer story (you only have to write 50K for NaNo) or to …
Love Does Stay True
By Martha Rogers Today is our 55th wedding anniversary, and what better way to celebrate than to tell how my novel, Love Stays True, came to be. It’s a story loosely based on my great-grandparents love story after the Civil War. The idea sprang from three letters my dad gave me in 1995. His father had given them to him …
There Is No Magic
by Eddie Jones When it comes to book promotion there is no magic. Authors may think a version of pixie-dust can be purchased and sprinkled on their book, but they are mistaken. The book buying business is mysterious but the formula for success is not. Write a great book and get it into the hands of influencers of that genre. …
To Fight or Be Still
by Brenda S. Anderson The writing life is a battle. Raise your hand if you feel like you’ve been fighting hard at this writing business. You’re doing everything the right way, but still you’re getting nowhere, and you’re losing. You’re going to conferences, taking classes, getting critiques, yet no publisher or agent wants you. Or you’ve written a fabulous book, …
Invest in Your Writing Dreams
By Donna K. Rice My other career is as an estate planning attorney. In that capacity, I’ve spent many hours visiting with clients about what will happen when they pass away. To me, the personal matters, family values, and legacy development are most important, but money is what most people think about when considering estate planning. With that in mind, …
Stimulus Plan: Five Tips for Re-Igniting Your Writing Career
By Janice Hanna Thompson Many writers-even published ones-go through career stalls. Things fizzle out. Interest (among editor, agents or readers) wanes. Some authors face tough times, even after experiencing great success with a first or second novel. Still others feel the downward spiral after being on the best-seller’s list. I know, from personal experience, that these seasons can be discouraging. …
A Time to Write
By Loretta Eidson God must think our time is extremely important for the Bible to reference it with such repetition. In Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (NIV), a brief explanation of time is mentioned twenty-nine times, and thirteen of those are found in the first four verses: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: A time …
Modern Day Parables Without Preaching
by Cathy Gohlke We all crave stories that raise our moral bar, lift us higher, that show us clearly how we, too, can live cleaner, purer lives with hearts on fire. But no one wants to be preached to in a novel. And yet that’s just the challenge Christian writers face. We’re desperate to share the love, the very breath …
Beating the Post Conference BLUES
By Susan May Warren Are you home from the ACFW conference? Finally unpacked? I hope you came home filled with encouragement and new ideas on how to make your writing breathtaking. Now what? Conferences can be overwhelming, between the requests for proposals or full manuscripts, new story ideas, craft lessons, marketing epiphanies and loads of new friends. Where and how …
Every book deserves a party
By Judy Christie With the launch of my eighth novel, I’m in the mood for fried pies. Make that chocolate fried pies. That’s what the protagonist cooks–and what I’ll serve to say thanks at my upcoming book party at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in northwest Louisiana. As authors, we spend lots of time talking about the serious business of writing …