Please welcome this weeks guest Shannon Vannatter for The Journey. She answers the question: How have you seen God work in your writing journey? God Sent Encouragement God called me to be a writer in 1996 when I went to the library looking for clean romance and couldn’t find any. At the same time, it hit me that the story I’d had in my head since my teens could be a book. But I didn’t have a computer and I wasn’t a great typist. I told myself that if I ever got a computer, I’d write that … [Read more...]
Day 109: Just Reading #acfw
For years I have read romances and they are my favorite to read. I can remember thinking as a teenager, and even as an adult sometimes, that I'd love to write one but had no clue how to or, for that matter, any desire to do so. Today, I not only read books but I also have been doing a lot of writing. I've been working on both my fiction book as well as Mari's story (which is basically done and almost ready for beta readers). I've learned so much in the last few years. I understand better what … [Read more...]
Day 108: Aunt Boo’s House #acfw
My grandpa passed away exactly one year and one month to the day after my daughter passed away on August 16, 2009. Since I can remember, Grandpa told me stories about his time in the Navy in World War II. When he went to basic and his job school (which is the equivalent of AIT in the Army), everyone put down their preference of where they wanted to be stationed. They could either choose the East Coast or The Pacific in Hawaii. Since he was from the west coast he choose The Pacific and since … [Read more...]
Day 106: Odd Notes #acfw
In life we all have our times where we will either jot down a quick note or store something away in the corners of our minds for later use. As writers I think it's even more important to write down those sudden thoughts that come to us. It's in those thoughts that the true magic of our writing comes out. Our hidden story ideas that get written on the page. I still remember the day about three months after Mari died where I had all these thoughts floating around in my head needing to be … [Read more...]
The Journey with Natalie Monk #acfw
Please welcome this weeks guest Natalie Monk for The Journey. She answers the question: How have you seen God work in your writing journey? “He hath made every thing beautiful in His time...” Ecclesiastes 3:11 Sometimes the writing journey is wonderful. Other times we writers shove our foot onto the brake pedal and ask ourselves if the endless hours we spend drafting, rewriting, editing, marketing and networking are really accomplishing anything. This is especially true for those of us … [Read more...]
Reflecting back over the A to Z Challenge #AtoZchallenge #acfw
This year is the first time I did the A to Z Challenge on this site. However, I did do it last year on my daughter's dedication site (mommysangelinheaven.com) and fell in love with doing it. So this year I decided to really up the ante, so to speak, and do the challenge on both this site as well as my daughter's site. It wasn't easy and I even was late a couple of times with posting, but I was able to write on every letter and get them posted on both sites. Yea!!!! The topic I chose to write … [Read more...]
Reflecting back over the A to Z Challenge #AtoZchallenge
I've now done the A to Z Challenge two years in a row. However, this year I took on an added challenge of my own by not only doing it on this site but also my author site (kristenatunstall.com). I may not have always got my post up on time, which only happened a couple of times, I did get every letter written in the month of April on both sites. Just like last year, for this year's challenge I chose to do each letter about Mari in some way. In a way I hope people could see through each letter … [Read more...]
Z is for ZZZs #AtoZchallenge #acfw
The dreaded ZZZs. It's exactly what we don't want to do to our readers. That is make them fall asleep as they are read our books. We want our novels to be so engaging that they have a hard time putting it down so much so they don't want to go to sleep. This has happened to me so many times where I'm so into the book that it's hard to put it down. I still remember waking up not to long ago and my Kindle was on my bed beside me. I was so close to the end of a book the night before that I wanted … [Read more...]
X is for eXpectation #AtoZchallenge
In life we have so many expectations that we'd like to see happen. From watching our children grow and hoping they become successful adults in whatever we do. To being successful in whatever job we do. To so many things in life. As a writer I have several expectations I want to do or have happen for myself. Like, continually being ready to learn how to improve my craft of writing. The more I focus on this the better my writing has become over time. I know I still have more to grow, but the … [Read more...]
X is for eXceptional #AtoZchallenge
When I think of exceptional I think of Mari, and I could talk about everything I think that is exceptional about Mari but I think I've done that already this month. However, as many of you know I've been writing a memoir about what happened with our daughter and how we lost her. In the story I'm including some very special pictures that were taken by a very special man who has a big heart. His name is Todd Hochberg. He is a professional photographer who gives of his time to those parents who … [Read more...]
