by Patricia Bradley I met a writer once who kept every rejection letter she ever received. Over 10,000 letters. I was thinking about her the other day, and not just her, but all the writers out there who keep writing through rejections. I was one of those writers. I never received 10,000 rejections, mostly because I didn’t send my manuscripts …
When Jealousy Interferes with Spiritual Growth
by Mary Ellis Writers often create characters with some rather profound lessons to learn. If we’re smart we can learn those lessons along with them. Working in the competitive world of publishing, I often struggle with ego and pride. Authors are asked to blog and Facebook, tweet and pin, to draw attention to their books and ultimately to themselves. Available …
An Ordinary Writer Writing Ordinary Books
By Sarah Hamaker Who wants to be ordinary? If I asked that question at an ACFW conference, I doubt anyone would raise their hand. For some reason, ordinary has become associated with dull, listless, uninteresting and uninspiring. As writers, we may be content to live ordinary lives, but we want our writing to be extraordinary, to be the kind of …
A Prayer for Writers
By Beth K. Vogt I’ve come across different writers prayers throughout the years. I’ve even collected a few of them from various conferences, tacking them up near my desk so I can stop and pray through them as I fast draft or edit manuscripts. The writing life has certainly strengthened my prayer life as I’ve offered up innumerable prayers both …
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 …
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 …
Mirror, Mirror: Using A Character’s Surroundings to Show & Not Tell
By Hannah Conway Show, don’t tell. I’m sure we’ve all heard that before. Some of us may have even rolled our eyes a time or two upon hearing those words from a critique partner, or editor. I may, or may not, have rolled my eyes…no judging. Show. Don’t tell. Um, hello, it’s a novel. We HAVE to tell some things. …
Unlocking the Doors
By Donna Schlachter Do you sometimes feel, in trying to get your book published, that you’re rattling at one locked door after another? Perhaps you’re struggling to find an agent, or maybe you’ve been submitting directly to publishers and gotten nothing except rejections. Or worse, silence. It’s okay. We’ve all been there. Some of us are still there. And we …
Writing Through Grief
By Darlene L. Turner “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help” (Psalm 121:1 KJV). I stare out the living room window, my vision blurring and tears forming. I shuffle into the kitchen and peer out the back window. Perhaps the view from there would be different and change my situation. It didn’t. My …