seeking direction

Maybe God doesn’t care

I recently taught at my church out of Cheri Cowell’s excellent book Direction: Discernment for the Decisions of Your Life. One of the most eye-opening key lessons from this book is its debunking of the idea that if the way is clear, that must be God’s will. To sum up Cowell’s point up in my […]

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Cliffhanger

My husband and I just watched the season finale of Castle. As is often the case any more, the season ended on a cliffhanger. Without giving away any spoilers, the last scene left us at a pivotal moment that will change the course of the show, but we the viewers must wait the entire summer […]

Where to Start?

The longer you’re in the writing world, the more advice you will receive about the writing craft and the more arguments you will hear disputing the advice given about the writing craft. One of those areas of dispute is where to start your story. Some say begin in the action to hook the reader, and […]

Know-Thy-Self-Tag

Know Thyself

I recently finished Heir of Novron, the final two books of the Ryria Revelations by Michael J. Sullivan. I can honestly say this is one of the best books I’ve read – particularly the final book. I won’t give any spoilers, but there’s only a few books that have tugged on my emotions at the […]

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Thankful for my Mother (and Glad I Don’t Have This One)

Mother’s come in all shapes and sizes–each one in different in their strengths and weaknesses. I am very grateful for the wonderful mother the Lord blessed me with. He knew that I would need a woman who was a good listener (after all, I am a born storyteller), patient, and a good example of a […]

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Putting a face to a character

Now that my manuscript is safely in the hands of my publisher, and the illustrator has finished the map (squee!), the next step in the publishing process is the cover design. Yoikes. After spending the better part of two days sifting through stock photos, I now despair of finding a girl who really looks like […]

weight-loss

Judge Not

I recently saw a link to an article someone posted on Facebook about a study that was done to see if people ate less when calories were posted next to the menu items. There were menus with just the food item, the food item with the calories listed, and menus with the food item, the […]

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Five Tips for Self-Publishing

Guest Blogger: Karina Fabian Greater Treasures is my first foray into self-publishing. I chose to do so with this novel for a variety of reasons that I write about in other blogs, but the thing I’d like you to know is that it was not because I could not find a publisher for the book […]

WIP Report for May 2013

  Will Ramirez: Author: Will Ramirez WIP: Sky Calling Target Word count: 100,000 Current Word count: 21,000 Goal date to finish: August 30, 2013 Draft/ editing version: 1st Draft Toughest challenge you’ve faced this month: Getting back into the swing of first draft writing after focusing so much on editing lately. Biggest Encouragements: Getting my […]

Author's Journey

The Epic

The Epic

Others may bring enjoyment and be lauded for their greatness, but The Epic story always rises to the top of greatness when it comes to writing. It can take place in any genre, but it seems to find its greatest home in speculative works – particularly fantasy. Every Tolkien geek, like myself, longs to write […]

Creative Nook

How to make a meme

How to make a meme

Most people use “meme” to describe those pictures you see on Facebook and elsewhere. Like this: Really, “meme” describes the idea, not the image. A “meme” can also be a behavior. But for purposes of this discussion, I’ll go ahead and use meme in its graphical sense. Memes seem to get passed around more than […]

Critical Views

Good Parenting=Public Displays of Affection?

Good Parenting=Public Displays of Affection?

I saw this picture yesterday and had to laugh, because my husband and I are totally like this. We are constantly holding hands, kissing, snuggling, and generally canoodling, at home, in front of the kids, and in public. My best friend has a complete opposite point of view. She’s an adamant non-PDA-er. On New Year’s, […]

Life and Such

The Small Stuff

The Small Stuff

“Oh, ….(insert appropriate curse word here)!” I nudge my husband as I stare in horror at the clock. “Honey, we slept through the alarm!” School started more than half an hour ago, and I’m still in bed. What’s worse, this week is testing, so they’ve already missed at least one segment of their standardized tests. […]

Our Faith

Love and the Fruit of the Spirit

Love and the Fruit of the Spirit

The first Fruit of the Spirit is love.  Love is a complex word–a characteristic, an emotion, a choice. So, what to write about? In my research on love, it made perfect sense to refer to one of my favorite chapters in the Bible: 1 Corinthians 13.  You can read familiar verses over and over again, […]

Random Things

New Perspective

New Perspective

I saw an article the other day that suggested rewriting your scenes as though your characters were deaf, and then again as though they were blind. This exercise will help you to use the other senses you don’t necessarily use in writing as often, such as touch, taste, and feel, to give your descriptions more […]