by Ane Mulligan I’m having dinner in a restaurant with the hubs and friends, when a snippet of a conversation at the table behind me catches my attention. Tuning out my friends’ chatter, I lean back in my seat to get closer. A female voice hints at panic. “I left my camera in the taxi.” It sparks a “what if” …
The Emotion Thesaurus
by Vickie McDonough As a writer, I’m always looking for resources to help make my writing better and my characters more realistic. To show and not tell and to find new ways to say the same thing. Well, I found a doozy of a resource. For a long while, the Bookshelf Muse has posted a Character Traits Thesaurus in the …
Research That Has Nothing To Do With Google or Libraries or Trips to Historic Sites
By Victoria Bylin I write historical romance, so I’m often asked about research. Do I like it? Do I prefer the internet or real libraries? Do I research and then write, or research on the fly? What mistakes should a new author avoid? All those questions are important, but today I want to look at a different kind of research. …
CAUTION: Beautiful Experiences Ahead
by Lacie Nezbeth My family and I recently returned from a week long camping trip up the Oregon coast. Four miles from where our lush campground sits, there is a great lookout point for viewing sea lions that gather to sunbathe on the many rocks jutting out from the surf. We knew immediately that we wanted to make the hike. …
5 Spiritual Disciplines for Writers
by Carrie Fancett Pagels Disciplines we shouldn’t skip: 1) Time in the Word. When your bible bookmark hasn’t moved in weeks-there is a problem. You must know the truth found in God’s word. Bottom line fundamental fact. 2) Prayer. What a joy and privilege it is to pray for the saints. And to pray for the unsaved that they might …
When They Say No
by Catherine West When my agent, Rachelle Gardner, offered me representation, I had just completed a manuscript called Yesterday’s Tomorrow. Rachelle liked it because it was ‘different’. I agreed. I certainly hadn’t seen any books about a female journalist who travels to Vietnam during wartime. Not in CBA anyway. I was ecstatic to finally have an agent who believed in …
Talk Your Way Out of a Jam!
by Bonnie S. Calhoun Have you heard novelists say their story was bogged down by inactivity, or that they felt lost in a long drawn out narrative? Well never fear! I have a totally sharp solution…conversation. That’s write (right). Dialogue is considered to be an action element. It can move any plodding exposé into the realm of frantic excitement, or …
Story Ideas You Are Certain Won’t Work. But They Do.
by Gail Gaymer Martin When I was proposing my next series, for Love Inspired, I ran amuck. Nothing excited me, and when it did, it didn’t strike my senior editor. When I asked what series ideas she would like to see, she said, “Something like Make A Wish Foundation.” Hmm? That slammed into my brain like an avalanche. My frozen …
More Right Than Wrong
by Arlene James Judging contests and critiquing manuscripts are activities that can swamp a writer if she isn’t careful, but they can also be rewarding, I believe, for both the unpublished and the published. I sold into publication before professional organizations such as ACFW existed. What training I received, I got in college. It wasn’t of much use, frankly. (Back …
Shining God’s Light Through Our Writing
by Kathi Macias One question I am often asked is, “Why do you write about such dark topics?” My answer? “I don’t write about dark topics; I write about the Light that shines in the darkness.” Now I’ll admit that most of my novels’ subject matter isn’t exactly easy reading; it isn’t easy writing either, as topics like the persecuted …