by Kathy Maresca @KathyMaresca Stories, willing to escape the confines of our hearts, burn inside writers. Oftentimes a memory spurs our desire to share our poetry and prose with the world. Sometimes details are sketchy. Other times they seem more real than the present day. When I wrote Porch Music, I wanted to include a few of my mother’s memories. …
Self-Deception is Easy when Comparing Yourself to Others
If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. ~Galatians 6:3 NIV Well, that verse hit me between the eyes, literally. My phone slipped. I’ll let you use your imagination. That attempt at humor was necessary because the verse hit too close for comfort. Yes, that was a lame attempt at a pun. Being an independent …
God’s Nudges
By Patricia Collier I pray for each book I write: before, during, and after I finish it. The first book in my series, The Hornet’s Nest, seemed pretty much “follow the expected path for my characters.” Then I prayed about what I had written. I felt a nudge to make a change to the story path. I even consulted my …
Living the Story of Faith and Freedom
By Christine Sunderland Christian novelists are tasked with a great responsibility in today’s world. They must civilize the state with the church, freedom with faith, and the present with the past. They must tell the truth about man and God, as best they can, and do so in a manner layered with meaning, woven with texture. They have been given …
Bad Guys who Need Jesus
By Sara Davison As my pastor is fond of saying, the Bible is not a book about good guys and bad guys—it’s a book about bad guys who need Jesus. None of us is perfect. We are broken, sinful people living in a fallen world. Even for those of us who believe, the pull of our sinful, human nature is …
Worthy Words: Prophetic Plots
By Christine Sunderland We are in the season of prophecy, of Advent, in which Old Testament lessons foretell the coming of the Messiah in Bethlehem, and also envision the Second Coming, the Apocalypse, the End of Days when Christ returns “in a cloud with power and great glory.” (Luke 21:25+). A third “Advent” is the coming of Our Lord into …
God Whispers: From Inspiration to Story
By Patti Richards When someone asks me what inspires me as a children’s author, I think about what pushes me to spend the majority of each day writing. I’ve been a writer for so long now that it really is who I am rather than just what I do; and it is intrinsically woven into my faith. So much so …
The Agile Writer’s Mind
By MD House What is the difference between having a fertile mind and an agile mind? As writers, or rather, creators of linguistic art, we boast a great deal of creativity and ingenuity. We may rightly be said to have fertile minds. But what about agility, and how do we define that? In a physical sense, we think of agility …
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 …
Love Bomb
By Angela D. Shelton The past month has been disheartening. Multiple problems have snarled up my idyllic life. My first ever published books had anemic sales, even though I invested in advertisements. A drought is decimating the pastures on our ranch, forcing us to buy hay in the spring, a first for us. The trifecta is that my husband now …