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...]
The Journey with Sylvia Bambola #acfw
Please welcome this weeks guest Sylvia Bambola for The Journey. She answers the question: How have you seen God work in your writing journey? Years ago God spoke to me about writing a novel for the secular world. I believed it. I received it. There was no doubt in my mind that it was God even though He sounded nothing like Cecil B. DeMille. So, for two years I worked feverishly until finally the great American novel was ready. I had amassed a list of all the publishers I planned to favor with … [Read more...]
U is for Unsolicited Manuscript #atozchallenge
Have you ever gone to a literary agency's website or to a traditional publisher's website and looked up their guidelines to find out how you could send a query or proposal for your work only to find out it says something like this: We do not take unsolicited manuscripts. So exactly what is an unsolicited manuscript? It's one that is not represented currently by an agent or for a writer who has never been published before. In other words, agents and publishing houses don't want anyone to just … [Read more...]
S is for Slush Pile #atozchallenge
The dreaded slush pile. No one ever wants their manuscript to be tossed into this pile. All their hard work given up to chance that maybe someone just might pull your manuscript out and read it thinking it was the next Nicholas Sparks or Nora Roberts best-selling novel. Unfortunately, for most of us, we will either end up in this slush pile or, quite frankly, no pile at all. I'll be honest. As most of you know, I've never been published so I'm, as they say, relatively green behind the ears … [Read more...]
R is for Revisions #atozchallenge
When it comes to writing, no one should ever just take the first draft as the final draft because we need to be certain that it sounds okay, grammar and punctuation is correct, spelling errors, and things like that. We should know going in that whatever we write down (or type) that we will go back and read over what's been said to make sure it looks okay. Even if we are one of those lucky people who gets it right the first time through, most of us must do this. Editing can be a tedious thing … [Read more...]
The Journey with Bonnie Doran #acfw
Please welcome this weeks guest Bonnie Doran for The Journey. She answers the question: How have you seen God work in your writing journey? I’ve seen God bring about a lot of “chance” meetings that led me from writing devotions and magazine articles to fiction novels. Here are a few high points: After I moved to Colorado, I learned somehow (God’s providence) about the Colorado Christian Writers Conference (CCWC). Through this conference and others, God developed my writing skills. I sold a … [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...]
The Journey with Peggy Wirgau
Please welcome this weeks guest Peggy Wirgau for The Journey. She answers the question: How have you seen God work in your writing journey? Around the time I learned to read came my love for writing. If I had time to spare during a school day in first grade (and I usually did) I composed little rhymes and stories in my head, then wrote them on a large sheet of blue-lined paper from the stack near the window of my classroom. Writing was a joy; fun and freeing, and I couldn’t get enough of it. … [Read more...]
The Journey with Elizabeth Kitchens
Please welcome this weeks guest Elizabeth Kitchens for The Journey. She answers the question: How have you seen God work in your writing journey? As a writer of fairy tales, it’s fitting that I am under a curse. Not a curse to prick my finger on a spinning wheel’s spindle or to be a beast, but to write. But if writing is a curse, then I’ll happily live with it. Actually, what my father was referring to when he called writing “the family curse” was the frustration that happens when you’re a … [Read more...]
The Journey with Angela Meyer
Please welcome this weeks guest Angela Meyer for The Journey. She answers the question: How have you seen God work in your writing journey? God has always been a part of my writing. Since junior high with the first pen scratches, poems of angst and attempts at stories. My heart poured out to God in written prayers and lessons He taught me. He drew me closer to Him in those early years on my journey of faith. About 7 years ago I wrote my first full length novel and over the course of 5 … [Read more...]