I sit here this morning thinking back on the last couple of months, and the time seems to have flown by. Only eight months ago I sat up in my room with my husband discussing with him why I felt I needed to go to the ACFW writers conference in September. Besides that awesome friends I'll finally get to meet in person (Joy Avery Melville, Julie Lessman, Dineen Miller, just to name a few :) ) and the fantastic workshops I'll get to go to, I'll have that rare opportunity to pitch both my fiction … [Read more...]
Day 120: Writing the Event #acfw
There an old adage in writing about ‘show don’t tell.’ I’d never heard of this personally before I started to write my first fiction book. Even when I was writing the original book about my daughter I was being told to add fiction elements to her story. I’d never understood exactly what that meant until I made my first attempt. When I submitted it for comments, I was told that it was much better but I knew I needed to go deep to really convey what I was trying to say. One day I had an idea … [Read more...]
L is for Literary Agents
How many of us dream of being a published author someday? I have a feeling many of us do, especially if we know we're writers and have been working on a book of any kind. Writing is relatively new for me. I only found writing after the loss of my daughter. I actually started writing while she was in the hospital those sixteen days fighting for her life from what the E. coli did to her little body. But in the end it had wreaked too much havoc on her little body and she went home to be with … [Read more...]
Day 102: Five Things Writers Can Learn from Cats
1. Stay focused. As writers it's important to stay focused on our writing to make it the best we can. When we don't we end up with a mess and more likely than not have to go back and either do some major edits or to rewrite it all. No fun at all. So staying focused is paramount to making the writing successful. 2. Retain mystery. It's important to keep the story a mystery so the reader will continue to keep the reader engrossed in the story otherwise they would lose interest. 3. Hunt … [Read more...]
Day 90: The Wrestling Match
Here's a question for you: Are you ever fully satisfied with yourself? If you say yes, I don't think you're being truthful with yourself. No matter who we are or what we do there's always room to grow. As a writer, I'm still a long way off from being able to write a book with as few of edits as possible. I'm so in the throes of learning this craft to make it the best I can. Just over two years ago I joined ACFW and I have learned so much on how to improve my writing. I'm still amazed … [Read more...]
Day 64: Writing Is Not Pretty
Are you a little confused by today's title? To be honest, so was I. So I got to thinking. When we're writing a book, or a play, or a blog post, or whatever type of writing that needs to be done, our first drafts are anything but pretty. There are grammar mistakes galore (even though in our head it was perfect :( ). We have all the spelling errors that either our auto-correct didn't change our word automatically or we really messed up the spelling (gotta love spell check, a writer's best friend). … [Read more...]
Day 23: What Writer’s Do
Man, it is really interesting, yet not surprising, how different we all are when it comes to how we wrote. I just read about a guy who literally sets his alarm for 4am, wakes up in the dark and doesn't turn on a light, puts his computer on his lap making sure his monitor is a black screen, writes for a few hours, goes back to bed, and then wakes back up at 8:30am to edit what he wrote. I couldn't imagine doing all that. As it is, I'm not a morning person. The night hours are when I shine. But it … [Read more...]
I’m beginning something new
I've decided to try something new here. I want to be able to write a little something each day. Whether it's about the book I'm currently writing or just to say how my day was. I want to keep my readers up to date with everything. Today, I've mostly been writing posts for my daughter's dedication website (Mommy's Angel In Heaven). I love writing on there as that website has not only become apart of me but my soul. I get to openly share with people my thoughts and how I'm feeling at the time … [Read more...]
I’m Back (Man It’s Been A Long Time)
Well, who knew that my break would have taken me this long. Since my last message we have moved to Anchorage, Alaska. Our nephew has gone back home to live with his biological mom. And now I'm back into my writing. It's been so exciting as I completely rewrote out a new outline for my book as I figured out how I needed to proceed forward. I've just started writing out the new scene's and rewriting several of the ones I already had as the book takes on a new turn. I'd like to start a writing … [Read more...]
A slight bump in the road
First I want to thank everyone for being loyal readers of my site. I appreciate the time you take to come and read about those who have a book they are sharing or sharing their writing journey with all of us and how God has been their with them through it. At the very end of August my husband and I had to make a sudden, unexpected decision in regards to whether or not I would try to keep my job or officially quit due to pain issues that start back in March and have kept me out of work since … [Read more...]
