Last month, I shared what I learned from the book  Grit—The Power of Passion and Perseverance  by Dr. Angela Duckworth and how it applies to the writing life. If you haven’t read that one, you might want to pop over there first and read the post,  A Book to Help Writers Persevere . I’ll wait. Done? Good. Glad you’re back. 🙂 That post was already way too… [ read more ]

If you’ve hung around the writing world for long, you’ve heard it before . . . Being a published author does not magically fix all your problems. Being a published author does not mean you’ll spend your days fending off random fans when you’re buying groceries. Being a published author does not mean you’ll spend… [ read more ]

When I started writing for The Write Conversation in 2010, I had just attended my very first conference—the  Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference.  In the years since, I’ve gone from conference newbie to conference regular to published author to . . . conference faculty. This year I’ll be serving on the faculty of three different conferences ranging from small and intimate to huge.… [ read more ]

The Write Conversation has been recognized by Writer’s Digest as one of the top 101 Best Writing Websites!!!  It is an absolute privilege to a be a monthly contributor to The Write Conversation. I’ve been posting on the first Thursday of the month since 2010 and the posts I share there are some of my favorite things I write each… [ read more ]

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about my early years as a writer. I had no idea what I was doing and I was so eager to learn. I took courses and went to critique groups and attended conferences, all in an effort to figure out how to do this writing thing… [ read more ]

Not my son, but an accurate representation of his gloominess! I felt so sorry for him. My youngest son was surveying the scene on his first morning of day camp—and he was not impressed. Kids were running around playing with hula hoops, bouncy balls, Legos, Crayons, and board games. It was a kids’ paradise in… [ read more ]

For the past several years, I’ve been writing a monthly post for my dear friend Edie Melson’s amazing blog, The Write Conversation. I send it to her a few days in advance (ok, sometimes one day in advance) and I always include these words in my email … Edit At Will. I don’t want to publish junk. I… [ read more ]

There’s a very cool section in the book of Numbers that I think has a unique application to writers.  If you haven’t perused this section of the Old Testament recently, you may not know that God gifted certain individuals with creative talents for the building of his Tabernacle and then called out entire families for… [ read more ]

A few weeks ago, I watched a  live Adele concert . The lucky people who filled the venue were an enthusiastic audience. There were cheers, applause, and the occasional sing-a-long when she sang a favorite. I’m a fan so I enjoyed it immensely, but I couldn’t help but be struck by her vulnerability. She stood on the stage and… [ read more ]

I’m doing  NaNoWriMo  this year. There are a million reasons not to, but I’m doing it anyway. Are you familiar with NaNoWriMo? NaNo, as it’s often abbreviated, stands for  National Novel Writing Month . The goal is to write a new, 50,000 word novel in thirty days.  That’s 1,667 words every day for thirty days. I’ve done it before. I’ve… [ read more ]