Research Blahs

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by Darlene L. Turner Research—a chore or fun? Doesn’t matter the genre. Every writer has to do some sort of investigation in order to get facts straight and make their stories authentic. Some writers love research while others get the blahs when it comes to this aspect of the process. Why? The number one reason is probably because it takes …

Don’t Quit Your Day Job – Some Ideas to Write Around Real Life

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by Tammie Fickas Ah, the life of a writer! You get to sleep in, enjoy your morning coffee on the back deck, spend a few hours at your desk, and boom, you have success. It’s enough to make a girl quit her day job and call herself a writer. Okay, before you stop reading, we all know it doesn’t work …

Microsoft Word: Trusted Friend or Bucking Bronc?

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by Rhonda Dragomir Hunched over my keyboard, lights dimmed so as not to keep my husband awake, I type feverishly on my manuscript. It’s due tomorrow. Though it’s past midnight, I push ahead. If I finish, I’ll sleep better. There. Perfect. One more review and I’ll let it rest until morning. But wait . . . where on earth did …

Getting Unstuck after 2020

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by Kristi Holl I was sick twice during the pandemic, we lost two family members, plus I had a month-long severe reaction to my second Covid shot. When I resurfaced, practically comatose, I was behind on one book deadline and a book proposal (set in 1850s England.) None of my decades-old “get started” techniques worked, which induced a near panic. …

The Juggling Act: Working Full-time and Writing

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By Amy Clipston People often ask me, “How do you work a full-time job and write books?” I resist the urge to roll my eyes, and instead reply, “I just make it work.” Unlike some authors, I work full-time for a local government, in addition to writing four or more books per year for HarperCollins Christian Publishing. In fact, in …

How Do Book Launch Teams Help Authors?

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by Cynthia Herron Anticipating a book launch is a little like anticipating childbirth, both thrilling and terrifying. We’re excited about our book birthday, but there’s a lot of hard work leading up to that point. In addition to writing the book, launching it takes coordinated effort by the author, the publisher, the marketing team, and so on. Cheerleaders—those who will …

Put Your Feet on the Desk

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By Terri Gillespie “. . . and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.” 1 Kings 19:12, NKJV I have a friend who was a vice-president of a major financial institution in Manhattan. He’s an incredible idea person—a real visionary. While overseeing operations for a ministry, …

Haircuts & Hurricanes

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by Kathleen Denly This year has been full of surprises, and few of them pleasant. It can be difficult to understand what God is thinking during times like these. It can be tempting to believe what we are going through is so terrible it cannot possibly result in something good. Take my hair for example. It’s very thick and dense. …

How to Be a Real Writer in Four Easy Steps

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By Kimberley Woodhouse Step One: Write. The best way to become a real writer is… you guessed it: to write. You might have one thousand amazing ideas but you’ve flitted from one to another and never finished one of them. My suggestion is to keep a journal of all of those fabulous ideas and then sit down and focus on …