What a Contest Can Do for You

ACFWACFW, Advice, Contests, tips, writing 2 Comments

by Lisa Kelley @LisaKelleyWrite It’s time for unpublished authors like myself to enter the Genesis contest. I encourage you to go for it, but to approach it as a learning experience rather than a ticket to publication. Even though I’m the 2023 Romance winner, I’d enter again this year if I had a finished manuscript. I’m competitive, so it’s hard …

Pitching With Grace and Perseverance

ACFWAdvice, Agents, appointments, Authors and writing, Editors, Encouragement, tips 5 Comments

By Barbara M. Britton @BarbaraMBritton My pitching days began in 2008. I have pitched to agents and editors in the General Market and to those in the Christian Fiction publishing world. I’ve pitched in person and over Zoom. My shortest time allotment was three minutes, and my longest pitch session was fifteen minutes. What were some of the craziest things …

Self-Deception is Easy when Comparing Yourself to Others

ACFWACFW, Advice, Authors and writing, Encouragement, Faith, Fear/Doubt, Independent Author, Publishing 2 Comments

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 …

Common Writing Obstacles:  Perfectionism

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By Henry McLaughlin Perfectionism is the bane of many a writer, even experienced ones. Each story must be perfect or it’s no good. There’s no middle ground. There’s no forgiveness for ourselves. We don’t allow for the fact we’re human, we’re frail, and, despite our pride, we don’t know it all. Perfectionism plagued my early years as a writer, and …

What Derails Your Writing Dream?

ACFWAuthors and writing, Encouragement, Friends of ACFW, tips, writing 3 Comments

By Tara Johnson “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” ~Thoreau Each year, I meet countless people who tell me they dream of writing, but only a fraction of them take the first step to begin. Why? Here are the most common excuses: Fear of failure Writers fail all …

Contemplation

ACFWAdvice, Authors and writing, Encouragement, Friends of ACFW 1 Comment

By Henry McLaughlin I’ve been doing a lot of contemplating and pondering lately. About my writing. About life. About God. About making changes. Not really at a crossroads, but definitely a time of reassessment. Why? What’s the point? For me, it’s about getting priorities straight and getting myself right with God. I’m learning that too often I get private and …

Real Places: Do Them Right or Don’t Do Them

ACFWAdvice, Authors and writing, Friends of ACFW, research, Setting, tips, writing 2 Comments

By Gordon Saunders I got kicked out of a novel the other day. Here’s how it happened. I was reading along okay, suspending disbelief and all, sort of getting into the head of the protagonist. She and her friends were ‘vansters,’ that is, they lived in vans and traveled all over the place, the place mostly being southeast England as …