By Glynn Young The idea has been in my head for years – a story about my great-grandfather. But I knew only a few facts about him, passed down by my father. Research has filled it in – a little bit. Too young to enlist as a regular soldier, he’d been a messenger boy in the Civil War. He’d lost …
If You’re an Author, You’re Multilingual—Whether You Know it or Not
By Lana Christian How many languages do you speak? I speak English and German. English is my dominant (first) language, but sometimes German pops into my thoughts, dreams, and writing without my bidding. That can be good or bad, depending on how you look at it. My handwritten notes combine English, German, and a personal shorthand—whichever is shorter …
What It Takes to be An Author in The 21st Century
By Rachel Hauck On a plane ride from Kansas City to Atlanta, I watched a film called “Best Sellers,” a comedy-drama starring Aubrey Plaza and Michael Caine. The premise caught my eye. It was Old World, harkening to another age in book publishing. The time of the big-name author, book tours, peer and literary reviews, the literati, even where a …
Prioritizing the Important Things
By Donna Wichelman Authors know the business of writing takes hard work and consistency. Though we love wordsmithing, it still requires a commitment to the daily task—whether it’s ten minutes or ten hours—to achieve the word count or get out the next email or marketing material to our audience. Whether you are a traditionally published or an indie-published author, you …
Worthy Words: Creative and Compelling Characters
By Christine Sunderland As I reflect on my next novel, The Music of the Mountain, I return to the importance of creative and compelling characters. In some way my characters must change in the timeline of the plot, and this arc is determined by their own ability to change, their creative ability to learn, turn, confess, repent, and be reborn …
Writer Beware
By Tracy Morgan I counted the days until Christmas break by placing bright red numbered index cards on my bulletin board in my study. In five days, I would be free of all my teaching responsibilities. My mind focused on one mission of finishing my book. I planned the two weeks with charts of writing schedules and what day to …
Embrace the Messy
By E.V. Sparrow It’s easy to suppose as Christian fiction writers we’ve all studied and memorized Bible verses, right? I developed Scripture knowledge later. Therefore, I intentionally create people of fragile faith. Where is God in their mess? It’s delightful weaving in redemption, confession, forgiveness, reconciliation, and mercy into fictional plots. Raised in the Roman Catholic Church, my belief was …
Heart to Heart Connection
By Tracy Morgan “In seeking to reach the world, we must learn to connect with others.” Joy K. Massenburge September 18, 2020 (ACFW) The pandemic ushered in an array of changes in everyday life. It presented me with the opportunity to attend the ACFW Conference virtually. I prepared for the classes as if I were embarking to set sail on …
Real Places: Do Them Right or Don’t Do Them
By Gordon Saunders I got kicked out of a novel the other day. Here’s how it happened. I was reading along okay, suspending disbelief and all, sort of getting into the head of the protagonist. She and her friends were ‘vansters,’ that is, they lived in vans and traveled all over the place, the place mostly being southeast England as …
Starting from the Middle
By Cathleen Armstrong And we turn the calendar page, and suddenly it’s July 14 and summer is half over. How’s that to-do list you started in the cold of last winter coming along? Perhaps it wasn’t quite a list but more like little vignettes that floated through your mind as you bundled up against the icy wind: You sitting outside …