Where to Submit Short Stories
Last week, we suggested three ways to celebrate Short Story Month. Maybe (we hope!) you’ve started writing your own short stories. Great! Now what? This week, we’d like to help you find places to submit short stories. Contests Whether you’re just starting to write short stories or have a cache of completed manuscripts, there’s a […]
3 Ways to Celebrate Short Story Month
“Short stories are tiny windows into other worlds and other minds and other dreams. They are journeys you can make to the far side of the universe and still be back in time for dinner.” ―Neil Gaiman May is here, and that means it’s National Short Story Month! Short stories may be—well—short, but if done […]
The Key to REAL Writing Success
We all want to be successful writers. But how do we define success? A recent search for the word “success” in the Amazon books category yielded 266,470 results. At the click of a button, more than a quarter of a million books available today on how to become successful! Let’s face it. No one wakes […]
Writing Resolutions for 2018
Have you made personal new year’s resolutions for this year? If you did, now that we’re two weeks into 2018, how many resolutions have you kept? Have you set any new year’s resolutions for your writing? It’s not too late. Here are a few resolutions for you to consider: Pray Of course you’d expect […]
Writing in a Wonder-Full World
“The world will never starve for want of wonders, but only for want of wonder.”—G. K. Chesterton When you see a mushroom in your yard, do you dismiss it? Or do you tap it with a stick to see it bounce? Do you think of fairies and smile? And when you see the little snail […]
Money’s Tight—Can I Afford the Conference?
Hi, friends! It’s Cathy Biggerstaff, financial director for the 2018 Write2Ignite Conference. Numbers and dollar signs dance in my head. In today’s economy, I’m always looking for ways to generate funds. This month, I’m concentrating on your side of the equation! Here are nine ways you can pay your way to the 2018 conference: Black […]
Thankful for Silver Linings
The writing life can be unpredictable. Times of joy interspersed with times of discouragement. Mountains and valleys. Successes and failures. Problem is, all too often, the discouragement and failures seem to outnumber the joys and mountaintop experiences. So what do we do when our visits to the valleys seem to morph into extended stays? When […]
Kick Out Christianese
Last month, we talked about the importance of identifying and removing clichés from our writing. This month, let’s tackle Christianese. What is Christianese? Christianese phrases are Christian clichés. They form an insider language that is often overused, misused, and abused. Have you ever asked readers if they are saved? Or perhaps encouraged them to “ask […]
Is Your Personality Showing?
It’s been said writers include a bit of themselves in everything they write. If that’s true, how much of your personality appears on the pages of what you write? Teaching on temperament or personality differences has been around for more than 2,000 years. Hippocrates categorized the 4 temperaments as choleric, melancholy, sanguine, and phlegmatic. In […]
The Weight of Words
Do you know the answer to this old riddle? Q: Which weighs more: a pound of bricks or a pound of feathers? A: Neither. They both weigh the same. Silly, I know. But I’ve been thinking a lot about weight lately. And no, this has nothing to do with the pants I no longer fit […]