By Donna L.H. Smith If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been disappointed in writing or life — or had unmet expectations — I’d be a rich woman. Because disappointment is a part of life and how we handle ourselves, our feelings, our responses when life throws us a sucker punch… Let me tell you a story. Eighteen …
Writing from the Shadow of God
By Linda Thompson I’ve been asking the Lord what kind of encouragement I could pass on today, and He reminded me of this. A couple of years ago, I met a Bible character who really inspired me on my writing journey. Whenever I get blocked, I come back to his example. And I’d never heard of him before that day! …
The Ultimate Story
By Darlene L. Turner Recently, my pastor did a series on evangelism and spoke on how we need to tell our stories to reach others for Christ. Our mandate is to go into the world and share the gospel. This made me think about why and what we write. Sometimes I get caught up in the writing journey—the pitches, time …
How the Power of My Mom’s Walk with God Paved My Writing in Favor
by Lauren Gail Today, November 24, is no coincidence for this blog post as it is my mom’s birthday and this post is in her honor. Happy Birthday, Mom! Ever since my brother, David, and I were very young my mom has been a woman of faith and an example of God’s love. We’d climb on her and cuddle as …
Learning More
By Melinda Eye Cooper Last fall, I made an important decision about work. Not about my full-time accounting job where my paycheck comes from. But about the work I know God has called me to do. Writing. My first memory of writing a story was in the third grade. I don’t remember exactly what it was about but it made …
Create While You Wait
By Kariss Lynch We’ve all experienced these seasons: the endless waiting for a dream to come true. We wonder if God hears, or if we heard him wrong when He called us to this crazy writing gig. Wait—the word that can make us squirm with anxiety and doubt our stories and our skill. Or it can make us hope. I’ve …
Four Observations from an ACFW Conference Newbie
By Lauren Gail The 2018 American Christian Fiction Writers Conference held in Nashville, Tennessee was my first ACFW conference. The amazing Frank E. Peretti and the awesome town of Nashville were two of the main reasons I was compelled to register. Add to those the number of agents, editors, publishers, and authors available to network with and the decision was …
Post Conference Blues
By Dani Pettrey I’m excited to be guest posting today. It’s been a while since I’ve been on the blog and I’m really happy to be back. I gain so much insight and wisdom from the posts here and am just thrilled to be taking part. I hope all of you who were able to attend the ACFW conference had …
5 Things to Do After Attending a Writers Conference
By Beth K. Vogt We writers talk a lot about how to prepare for a writers conference, don’t we? We discuss our elevator pitches and our one sheets and how to polish our manuscripts, all the while planning our travel itineraries and our roommates and our wardrobes. Hundreds of you attended the ACFW conference in Nashville a couple of weeks …
Writing: Still Alive and Well in the Next Generation
By Sarah Hamaker Have you heard the news about the death of words? Every few weeks or so, a story pops up in my Facebook feed about how people aren’t reading like they used to, how texting is obliterating writing, and how the Generation Z will kill off books. But I don’t believe them, and you shouldn’t either. Consider my …