By Kathy Maresca @so_tweet Have you ever taken a look at a menu and asked the server to hold a particular ingredient? Sometimes it’s possible, but other times the mix has been prepared and cannot be separated. Let’s consider a stir fry entree. It’s nutritious and well balanced, looks fabulous and smells great. But the sensational Asian spices, rice, chicken, …
Doing Big, Crazy Things
By Sara Davison Have you ever made the spontaneous decision to do something you know is crazy but that you also know is absolutely the right thing to do (but it’s still scary)? That’s how I felt a few weeks ago when I decided I was going to release a book, The Color of Sky and Stone, this November that …
Make Them Believe
by Tanara McCauley @TanaraMcCauley Long Beach, 1997. I sat in a movie theater with a friend doing something I’d never done before in my life: ugly crying in public. I couldn’t pull myself together, and the frustration of trying made me cry even harder. My only consolation was that my friend didn’t let me cry alone. At the conclusion of …
Goal Oriented or Deadline Driven
By Marguerite Martin Gray Are you goal oriented or deadline driven? I would like to say deadline driven is purpose driven, but it is not all the time. I have always been an over achiever in school, work, life. That has landed me in places where I look around and wonder “Now, what do I do to sustain this?” For …
Five Things I Learned from Launching a Book
By Felicia Ferguson @Felicia_writer 1: Marketing a book is more than hosting a launch party. From guest blogs, to book reviews, to social media posts and ads, the author must be 70% marketer and 30% writer. Yes, I know. Most of us writers didn’t major in PR or Marketing in college. If you’re like me, you have nightmares that book …
The Scent of Manual Typewriter Ribbon
by Jenny Powell MD Twelve men sat around a large, round table. I typed out the sentence, hunt-and-peck style, on my father’s manual typewriter. The paper was legal- size, the blank side of a form no longer used at my father’s office. He had brought stacks of it home, as suited a child of the Great Depression: never waste what …
Average, But Obedient
by Heidi Gray McGill How do I stand out and reach the top in the Christian Indie world when I’m average? There are authors with English degrees and years of experience under their belt. Others don’t need to choose between paying for an editor or rent. I have a decent number of followers on social media, but Twitter and TikTok …
When Dreams Age
By Tanara McCauley @TanaraMcCauley I attended my first writer’s conference over a decade ago. I don’t know how I learned writer’s conferences were even a thing, but I remember packing up my work-in-progress and flying to Denver with a mini entourage of husband, young kids, and in-laws all cheering me on. Although already in my mid-thirties at the time, I …
Writing a Dual-Time Novel
By Carrie Turansky @carrieturansky My latest novel, The Legacy of Longdale Manor, releases this month, and it’s my first dual-time novel. People have asked why I switched from writing historical novels to dual-time stories, so I thought I’d share a bit about that decision and what I’m learning in the process. I’ve written almost thirty novels. Earlier in my career …
God’s Inspiration and The Butterfly Effect
By Darlene Corbett @darlenecorbett.com Remember the Butterfly Effect? For those who forgot or are unfamiliar with its origins, here’s a quick reprisal: In 1963, the scientist Edward Lorenz proposed a startling idea. He suggested that the slight movements of a butterfly’s wings could create tiny changes in the atmosphere, causing a greater impact later. Many scientists viewed this as outlandish, …