The Gift of Waiting

ACFWAdvice, Authors and writing, Encouragement, Friends of ACFW, writing 2 Comments

By Suzanne Bratcher December 20, five days until Christmas. The waiting is almost over! Then come the gifts. Right? Waiting isn’t a gift: waiting is the time before the Big Event. For most writers, the Big Event is publication of their debut novel. Everything that comes before is waiting. I felt called to be a fiction writer when I was …

What Inspires a Writer

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By Elizabeth Musser I often get asked the question by readers, “What inspired you to write this novel?” And my answer is usually the same each time. “Life.” So, so many things in life have inspired my novels. My first novels, a trilogy, were inspired by the Huguenot cross, the first Protestant cross made in France in the late 1600s. …

What Inspires a Writer

ACFWAdvice, Authors and writing, Friends of ACFW, writing 5 Comments

By Elizabeth Musser I often get asked the question by readers, “What inspired you to write this novel?” And my answer is usually the same each time. “Life.” So, so many things in life have inspired my novels. My first novels, a trilogy, were inspired by the Huguenot cross, the first Protestant cross made in France in the late 1600s. …

The Writing Life Interrupted

ACFWAdvice, Authors and writing, Encouragement, Friends of ACFW, writing 3 Comments

By Michelle Shocklee Interruptions in life happen to all of us at some point. Sometimes they’re dark and scary, perhaps due to a storm raging that has nothing to do with the weather. (Although as many of our friends and family on the Texas and Florida coasts know, weather storms wreak havoc and disrupt life in ways they’d never imagined!) …

The Writing Life Interrupted

ACFWAdvice, Authors and writing, Encouragement, Friends of ACFW, writing 3 Comments

By Michelle Shocklee Interruptions in life happen to all of us at some point. Sometimes they’re dark and scary, perhaps due to a storm raging that has nothing to do with the weather. (Although as many of our friends and family on the Texas and Florida coasts know, weather storms wreak havoc and disrupt life in ways they’d never imagined!) …

When a Writer Hits a Wall

ACFWAdvice, Authors and writing, Encouragement, Friends of ACFW, writing 8 Comments

By Joanna Davidson Politano “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” ~Ernest Hemmingway Writers often find we cannot escape the lure of creating stories, yet it’s both freeing and frustrating, isn’t it? It’s a voluntary invasion of privacy, a big emotional investment, and it’s never as easy as it seemed before …

When a Writer Hits a Wall

ACFWAdvice, Authors and writing, Encouragement, Friends of ACFW, writing 8 Comments

By Joanna Davidson Politano “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” ~Ernest Hemmingway Writers often find we cannot escape the lure of creating stories, yet it’s both freeing and frustrating, isn’t it? It’s a voluntary invasion of privacy, a big emotional investment, and it’s never as easy as it seemed before …

Why I Tried to Quit Trying­

ACFWAdvice, Authors and writing, Encouragement, Friends of ACFW, writing 2 Comments

by Victoria Buck The last book in my trilogy released in October. Soon after, panic struck. Had I wasted years writing three books for the Christian market on a subject not widely understood or appreciated by Christians? Why would I do that? Why couldn’t I just write sweet romance or Amish fiction or one good historical saga? My WIP, though …