Craft
Writing After a Medical Crisis Hits Your Loved One
Last month’s article, How Do You Write When a Medical Crisis Hits, discussed how to keep on writing in the midst of dealing with an elderly parent being hospitalized. Once your beloved senior has been released from the hospital though, your interrupted writing should be back on course, right? Not necessarily. Even though they are…
You Are Not Insignificant!
It happens every ACFW conference. The excitement and utter terror of stepping into the hotel, perusing the lobby while people huddle in groups exchanging hugs and greetings, and trying to figure out where they fit in. Others like me, feeling out of place. Thankfully, this year when I arrived at ACFW I had a scheduled…
Balancing School with Writing
Writing fiction is, for most of us, rarely a full-time job; it’s a labor of love. And for most of us, finding the time to devote to our craft is a struggle between family and other responsibilities both inside and outside the home. It’s hard to create a balance between the life we love and…
ACFW: My Conferene Journey in a Word or Two
I don’t know when I began the tradition of summing up my ACFW conference experience in a word, but looking back over the years God seemed to be speaking one or two words specifically for me concerning each conference. Maybe with all the excitement and conference overload one or two simple words was all I…
On Writng and Life: There is a Time for Everything.
The preacher was right when he said in Ecclesiastes, there is a time for everything. Take the very first novel I completed. First, a violent storm in my personal life and then a storm by the name of Hurricane Ivan left me, my family, and our city devastated. But all was not lost. The citizens…
Secrets of a Great Pitch by Agent Rachelle Gardner
Now that Writers’ Conference season has arrived, I wanted to go over some tips for pitching to agents and editors. We can probably all agree on the “don’ts” of pitching your project. Don’t pitch in the bathroom. Don’t pitch a novel that’s incomplete. Don’t pitch with your mouth full. What are some positive tips we…
Wendy and the Lost Boys by Julie Salamon
Julie Salamon undertakes a daunting task: writing a biography on Wendy Wasserstein, Pulitzer-Prize and Tony-award winning playwright. In fact, Wasserstein was the first woman to receive a Tony award, making her somewhat of a standard in theater studies. Through her plays, Wasserstein reflected the issues of the Baby Boomer woman: career, birth control, love, marriage,…
Making a Conference Notebook
There’s nothing worse than waiting in line for your editor or agent appoint wondering about the unknown…nothing worse EXCEPT walking into that meeting unprepared when the editor or agent asks to see your One Sheet OR your first chapter, and you fumble through your papers to find it OR don’t have anything to offer. That’s…
A Stand-Up Guy by Michael Snyder
Once again, I’ve fallen for the cast of characters created by Michael Snyder: a lovable, quirky, and most definitely messed-up cast. First, there’s Oliver Miles, a comedian who starts to get some notice when he decides to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in his acts. The thing is, this…