By Kim Gilliland I am certain whatever genre of writing you favor there is some amount of research required. In today’s world that probably means getting online and typing in a phrase or word into your search engine. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo, pretty much anything you’ll ever need to know is instantaneously at your fingertips. …
Read to Write
By Cathleen Armstrong I have heard some writers say that they were never particularly great readers and that they never thought of becoming writers until it just…happened. I have to confess that on such occasions, and admittedly they have been rare, I regard the accidental writer with awe. How do you do that? How did you get up the nerve …
Productivity Hacks for the Procrastinating Writer
By Laurel Blount Self-discipline is…um…not my strongest spiritual fruit. So as a writer, time management is something I struggle with. I sit at my desk with every intention of writing, but then I just…don’t want to. I’d much rather check Facebook, make another cup of coffee, or rummage in my purse to see if I have any gum. In a …
Don’t Be a Troublemaker
By Davalynn Spencer Did your mother ever tell you to stop being a troublemaker? How about your teachers? Friends. Well, if that task was hard to achieve in your childhood, and you’re a fiction writer today, now’s your chance to shine. Making trouble is what novelists are called to do. We usually think of that trouble in terms of “conflict” …
Everything I Need to Know About Mysteries I Learned from Scooby Doo
By JPC Allen As a kid growing up in the ‘70’s, I lived to watch Scooby Doo. Little did I know that this first exposure to mystery stories would be a good foundation for trying to write my own. My very first attempt at writing a story was in second grade, and I wrote a homage (that sounds better than …
Perfectly Polished: What it Takes to Succeed as a Writer
By Loretta Eidson A manicure and perfectly polished fingernails make me feel better about the appearance of my hands. I love transferring to the nail technician the responsibility of clean-cut cuticles, hang-nail removal, filing, applying the polish and drying. It’s her job to make me happy with her work and leave me with the desire to return. Writers don’t have …
Making Personal Celebrations Impersonal
By Susan A.J. Lyttek I intentionally chose this date to write a blog because it’s the 35th anniversary of my (and my husband’s) church wedding. You might notice that I’m oddly specific. We had eloped in June of the same year, so it’s not technically our marriage anniversary, though we do celebrate both dates. Our story is almost strange enough …
Learning More
By Melinda Eye Cooper Last fall, I made an important decision about work. Not about my full-time accounting job where my paycheck comes from. But about the work I know God has called me to do. Writing. My first memory of writing a story was in the third grade. I don’t remember exactly what it was about but it made …
Create While You Wait
By Kariss Lynch We’ve all experienced these seasons: the endless waiting for a dream to come true. We wonder if God hears, or if we heard him wrong when He called us to this crazy writing gig. Wait—the word that can make us squirm with anxiety and doubt our stories and our skill. Or it can make us hope. I’ve …
Writing: Still Alive and Well in the Next Generation
By Sarah Hamaker Have you heard the news about the death of words? Every few weeks or so, a story pops up in my Facebook feed about how people aren’t reading like they used to, how texting is obliterating writing, and how the Generation Z will kill off books. But I don’t believe them, and you shouldn’t either. Consider my …