By Les Stobbe I’m constantly amazed by the fixation of fiction writers on novels, as if that is the noblest expression of the art of fiction writing. Yet there are a variety of other opportunities to employ fiction to present the life-giving message of Jesus Christ. Let me illustrate with my experiences. In my first real job in journalism I …
Adding Flesh to the Bone: Writing Compelling Historical/Biblical Fiction
By Mesu Andrews If you’re invited to my house for a quiet evening, you should hope I only serve dessert. I’m not a terrible cook, but my main dishes usually come from a box. Why? Because the only seasonings I know how to use are salt and pepper, which makes most of my food-from-scratch taste…well, bland. When our daughter and …
When Mentoring Goes Wrong
By Ramona Richards You know, you do need mentors, but in the end, you really just need to believe in yourself. –Diana Ross Who knew such a simple piece of advice could make someone burst into tears. All I said was, “You might want to consider deleting this prologue.” I then stared as the writer in front of me started …
The Importance of Reading
By Katherine Reay Today is my birthday…. An unusual way to open a post on writing, but I chose this day because I thought visiting here would be a fun way share/mark the day. But we will not discuss my age… 🙂 Instead we’ll discuss one of my favorite aspects of writing: Reading! And if we’re going to talk about …
How to Know When It’s Time to Give Up
by Cathleen Armstrong I met her the second day of the ACFW Conference when I sat down next to her at the lunch table. “How’s your conference going?” I smiled at her as I opened my napkin. This is conference-speak for, “How are you?” The usual answer is, “Great! How about you?” Not this lady. “Not so good. In fact, …
Tosca, On Research
By Tosca Lee I get asked (a lot!) how I research my historical novels, which always surprises me because it seems like a) kind of a boring thing to talk about and b) a personal process based on a person’s goals and interests and penchant for chasing rabbit trails. That said, having had to pack a dissertation’s worth of research …
Building a Genuine Platform
By Emilie Hendryx What is a good platform base? Do I need a platform? How do I build a platform? What will a platform do for me? What is a platform, anyway? These questions are enough to make your head spin. My simple definition of platform is this: Platform is a genuine community of people who “get” you. That is …
Fritter Not Away the Hour
By W G Reese Sitting at the computer in the far right corner of my basement, my eyes fix on that annoying sentence that rambles no matter what I do. I blow a puff of air in frustration which loosens a small ball of dust in the screen’s upper right side. Hmm… Dust. My finger lifts and wipes it free. …
The Marvelous Middles
By Lauren H. Brandenburg We are the writers for the Marvelous Middles. At writers’ conferences, we don’t quite fit in with the crowd. True, we have characters that we love, worlds that we have delicately designed, and plots that will entertain and excite like everyone else, but we are different. Sessions on social media marketing don’t apply, as most of …
Where Are You Going?
By Lillian Duncan Hebrews 11:8 says, “By faith, Abraham when called to go to a place he would later receive his inheritance obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” This verse should speak to every writer, every artist, every dreamer out there. God gives us dreams, but like Abraham we don’t know where those …