By Shirley E. Gould As we strive to craft amazing manuscripts, our plots and genres are nothing without great characters. An interesting hero or heroine coupled with a riveting plot keeps us at our laptops creating word count. For our characters to be imprinted on our reader’s memory, we continue to search for unique people to put on the page. …
Unexpected Blessings
Unexpected blessings could be waiting for you in your writing life . . . My first winter in Florida, I visited churches to call “home” while there. My church in Ohio I love has a little over five hundred. I visited one church, and I walked into a room of thousands of people. Overwhelmed, I stayed. I loved the kind …
Power’s Back On
by Cynthia Ruchti Summer storms sometimes mean power outages. A recent storm left our neighborhood without power for five days. The electric company crews were busy around the clock trying to remove fallen trees and repair line damage. Our neighborhood hummed with the sound of back-up generators—for the blessed houses who had one. The generators worked hard to keep frozen …
Editing as Writing, and Writing as Editing
By Glynn Young A friend and fellow writer asked me if I edited my writing as I wrote or after I finished a draft. My answer was yes. I do both. I edit as I write, over and over again, and I edit once the draft is “finished,” if that’s possible. The question provoked a deeper thought. Is it possible …
Where Does Your Validation Come From?
By Tammie Fickas Early Tuesday morning my phone vibrated with an incoming text from a friend congratulating me on being a finalist in a flash fiction contest. A whoop of surprise burst out before I could stop it. I quickly found the email that congratulated me on being chosen and relished the excitement. Later in the day, while I was …
Heading for Heaven
by Christine Sunderland In The Fire Trail (eLectio, 2016) I considered the border that runs between civilization and un-civilization, between the civilized world and the wilderness. Once Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, mankind has worked to tame the natural world and its wild-ness in order to survive. Man created communities, cities, safe shelters, protected from …
Vacations Can Stimulate Novel Writing
By Gail Gaymer Martin Anything we experience that’s new to us is something we can keep an eye on and tuck into our mind and memories. As a novelist, I tend to view my surroundings with creativity and story possibilities. It’s amazing what can come from visiting new places using all of one’s senses to capture the aura and experience …
Get Closer to Your Story With the Power of “Why?”
by Carol Alwood Space exists between us and our stories. As much as we can imagine these fictional dreams, we can’t transcribe unfolding events. There’s a rift between what we imagine and what we write. This gap, depending on how wide it becomes, can be the victory or downfall of our books. It may be why readers continue or stop …
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 …
The Puzzle Method
By Kristi Holl Starting a new novel can be overwhelming. Our minds jump around as we fill dozens of colored sticky notes with snippets of ideas. Eventually we end up with hundreds of bits of information. Where do we start to make sense of it all? One summer I found a solution when putting together a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle with …