By Tanara McCauley @TanaraMcCauley There’s a story my father loves to tell to anyone who’ll listen. It’s an embarrassing boast of the my-kid-could’ve-been-this variety, and I shake my head whenever I hear its intro. He recounts how, when I was a scrawny eighth-grade sprinter on the track team, I missed the start of an 800-meter race due to an untimely …
Bless You and Keep You
by Julia Fenstermacher The day after Christmas, “Poetry Moment” on NPR (National Public Radio) featured a poem I wrote. The poem came to me this past year out of a time of frustration. I was very busy with good writerly things: my new author newsletter, attending the Write to Publish conference, serving as our local ACFW chapter VP, and creating …
A Storyteller’s Tale
by Tanara McCauley There once was a teller of magnificent tales. He traveled vast lands and orated to diverse peoples, regaling them with stories of war and tragic love, of villains who could be mistaken for heroes, of whole nations ruled by lions or destroyed with song. Renowned for his audacity and for recitals that never failed to surprise and …
How a Troublesome Manuscript Was Saved
by Glynn Young Hold on to those unfinished or problematic manuscripts. You never know when they’re due for a rebirth. You pour everything into creating a manuscript. You type “The End.” You smile and give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back. It’s done. You finished it. You set it aside for a few days, and then you reread it. …
The Clock is Ticking
by Angela Hunt No matter what you write, no matter where you write, no matter how you write, you struggle with the same thing I do: time. How do we find the time to create great works of literature while juggling all the other things we have to do? And to top it off, once you realize that your LIFE …
On Becoming a Main Character
by Lori Domingo @LoriDomingo22 It’s safe to say that regardless of your chosen genre, when you write your story, someone’s life will be completely upended. Something will happen that will lead to change in this person – usually for the better, but sometimes possibly not so much. Some event, person, relationship – whatever it may be – will be what …
A Different Kind of Cover Story
By Deborah Raney @AuthorDebRaney I just love stories about how a book cover came to be—the process of working with a publisher’s design team and models, or for some of the more creative among us, how you designed your own cover. Or in my case, how my husband designs the covers for my books. (He designed these beauties below!) But …
The Author’s Stir Fry
By Kathy Maresca @so_tweet Have you ever taken a look at a menu and asked the server to hold a particular ingredient? Sometimes it’s possible, but other times the mix has been prepared and cannot be separated. Let’s consider a stir fry entree. It’s nutritious and well balanced, looks fabulous and smells great. But the sensational Asian spices, rice, chicken, …
Doing Big, Crazy Things
By Sara Davison Have you ever made the spontaneous decision to do something you know is crazy but that you also know is absolutely the right thing to do (but it’s still scary)? That’s how I felt a few weeks ago when I decided I was going to release a book, The Color of Sky and Stone, this November that …
Five Things I Learned from Launching a Book
By Felicia Ferguson @Felicia_writer 1: Marketing a book is more than hosting a launch party. From guest blogs, to book reviews, to social media posts and ads, the author must be 70% marketer and 30% writer. Yes, I know. Most of us writers didn’t major in PR or Marketing in college. If you’re like me, you have nightmares that book …