Please welcome this weeks guest Patty Smith Hall for The Journey. She answers the question: How have you seen God work in your writing journey? My writing journey has been one long and winding road(a nod to the Beatles there) full of twists and turns, stopping and starting on a moment’s whims depending on what daughter needed me at the time. But 2004 was a pivotal year for me, the year I was awarded a scholarship to the ACFW National Conference in Denver. At that time, I had been writing … [Read more...]
Day 42: Darling, What If You Tried…
Constructive criticism. With anything we do in our life we need someone who is willing to take the time and help us to get better. However, there are two very different ways to go about doing it. Let's say in your writing you head hop with your POV's (point of view). One critiquer says, "This is terrible. When you write you have to keep the same POV. How do you expect someone to follow the right character if you're constantly head hopping." Here is the other critiquer. "You have a strong … [Read more...]
Day 41: Overnight Success Story
I think we'd all like to be an overnight success story. It's a dream of ours as a writer. The process would be simple. We write out our novel. We work ferociously to get it just right. Then we query the agent of our dreams. You receive a phone call almost immediately from said agent where he says, "You're the writer I've been waiting for." You sign the contact he has for you the next day because he's flown to your house. Next he calls and tells you that Thomas Nelson, Bethany House, and … [Read more...]
The Journey with Lillian Duncan
Please welcome this weeks guest Lillian Duncan for The Journey. She answers the question: How have you seen God work in your writing journey? How has God figured into my writing journey? In more ways than I have space to tell. I started writing when I was 40. As much as I hate to admit it now, I wasn’t living a Christian lifestyle at the time, even though I’d become a Christian as a young teenager many years before. My writing reflected the fact that I wasn’t living a Christian … [Read more...]
Day 36: The Peculiar Art
As writers, it takes a certain type of person who doesn't mind sitting by themselves diving deep into the recesses of their minds as they write or type out onto the page lines for their story. You can't be in an office work space surrounded by people who constantly interrupt you. Scenes can flow out of you fluidly which requires sitting down and getting it all out on paper. Writing is a peculiar art in that as writers we do like to be alone. Quite frankly I think many of us thrive on it. I … [Read more...]
Day 35: Eight Ways to Sabotage Yourself
Distraction. We can be so easily be distracted over some of the silliest things. Here is a list below from the book: "1. I have nothing original to write because everything interesting has already been written. "2. I don’t have enough time right now. I’ll start writing later. I’ll write someday. "3. What if someone reads what I’ve written? "4. What if nobody reads what I’ve written? "5. I have to mow the lawn, clean the closets, wash the car, run a load of laundry right … [Read more...]
The Journey with Jo Walker
Please welcome this weeks guest Jo Walker for The Journey. She answers the question: How have you seen God work in your writing journey? In Psalm 139, King David begins by telling us there is simply no place we can go that God isn’t already there. In verses 13-16, he points out the reality that God is even with us when we are being formed in our mother’s womb. He speaks to how wonderfully we are made, and goes on to tell us that every day of our life was recorded before one ever … [Read more...]
Day 29: First Things First
There's an old saying that goes like this: In order to start your journey we must first know where we're going. For example, in order for Keith and I to know the exact route we would take to get to Alaska when we started our journey, we first had to know exactly where we were going. So in this case, first things first, we knew we were going to Anchorage. From there we could plot our long course, making our stops along the way … [Read more...]
The Journey with Janet Chester Bly
Please welcome this weeks guest Janet Chester Bly for The Journey. She answers the question: How have you seen God work in your writing journey? CALLED TOGETHER, FORCED APART When my husband found God's ministry for him, after seminary and pastoring his first church, I wanted to find mine. What were my spiritual gifts to help the church fellowship and other believers? After a prayer journey and searching for several years, I attended my first writing conference. And got excited. So, in … [Read more...]
Day 28: In the Company of Animals
Our pets are more than just animals. They're our family. We treat them as one of our kids. We worry for them if they become sick. We grieve for them if they die. For someone who might live by them self, a dog or a cat or even both for that matter, can give them the peace of mind and comfort they seek. Looking back to the time right after Mari died, I knew I couldn't go and live back in the same house we'd been living in. Keith didn't understand it. We'd only lived there for six months since … [Read more...]
