By Kathleen Y’Barbo Next year I will celebrate twenty years of being a published author. This year I surpassed the 90-book mark and reached more than two million copies in sales. Where have the years gone? When I sat down at my Canon StarWriter word processor, I had no idea that someday I would be looking back with a body …
A Virtuous Undertaking
By Ruth A. Douthitt The woman in Proverbs 31 is such an example of how a wife and mother should be, that many women feel threatened by her as if she accomplished all of these tasks in a single day, week, month, or even a year. Nonsense. The chapter provides an overview of what a virtuous wife did throughout her …
To Your Health
By Linda W. Yezak Yesterday, I couldn’t get my eyes to focus. I was trying to read something on the computer screen and none of the three lenses on my trifocals would make the print clear for me. If I brought the laptop a few inches from my nose or used the commands to make the print larger, I could …
The Writing Life
by Ane Mulligan My latest WIP is either going to kill me or be my opus. My main character did not reveal as much as I prefer before I started writing the story. I knew her home was steeped in secrets; I knew those. Or so I thought. But she withheld a few to spring on me at unsuspected times. …
What Is Your Hero Pursuing?
by Henry McLaughlin We’ve all heard story is about conflict and tension. And that is definitely true. Stories about happy people living in Happy Valley don’t excite readers. Frankly, they can be boring. The story becomes a story when something disrupts the status quo. As John LeCarré once said, “The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The …
With Whom Do You Write?
by Chandra Lynn Smith I started working on this blog entry weeks ago. There was a lot of writing and deleting and walking away from my computer. My efforts at writing eloquent words and imparting sage advice to fellow writers failed. So, I changed directions. Instead of offering advice, I want to encourage. No matter where we are on our …
The Reading/Writing Sisterhood
by Marianne Evans Today’s post is a shout-out to the Internet, and the power of social media to bring people together from all walks of life, all locations, and create a blessing. Yes, the advent of cyber-communication is a paradox—the best of things, the worst of things—but I’m fresh from the cobbled streets of historic Deadwood, South Dakota and a …
Put Your Heart in a Book
By Jodie Wolfe These are the types of reviews we long for as authors: I couldn’t put it down, and ended up starting and finishing the book in a few hours! … created characters that grabbed my attention and my heart right from the start. Never a dull moment in this story from beginning to end. … has a flair …
Keeping On Keeping On
By Donna L.H. Smith Isaiah 40:31 says, “They that wait upon the LORD, shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not grow weary. They shall walk and not faint.” Currently, we need to rely on God and persevere in order to improve our craft and our chances of getting published. We …
Resolving Tension
By Sarah Hamaker As writers, we work with tension all the time—without tension, our stories would sag and our heroes and heroines would have very boring relationships. But this blog is about the tension we experience between what we want to work on and what we have to work on. For many of us, writing is not our fulltime job. …