Keyboard Prayer

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Lord God, my Father, my King, my Sovereign, my All, I RETURN to you with all my heart, I ENTER your presence with gratitude and joy, I ESCAPE into your arms and nestle in the shadow of your wing….

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Finding a Literary Agent

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Greetings from Jackie M. Johnson!  In today’s market, finding a literary agent is no longer an option, it’s an essential. A good agent is your advocate, the person who represents your book ideas to potential publishers and aims to get you the best book deal possible. He or she negotiates the deal in terms of advance, rights and royalties. So, how do you find an agent? First, know what you are looking for in a potential agent. Some agents specialize while others are more generic in the types of manuscripts they are looking for. For instance, an agent may work…

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Why Do You Write?

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I’ll be taking about a year off of my CAN blog and other CAN activities (but will still "lurk" on the message boards and chime in from time to time – and will still keep writing my Beliefnet blog). The reasons for this are several: Because of a new autoimmune disease/condition diagnosis, I’ll be starting a rather potent immunosuppressive drug and don’t know what the side effects will be; I have a number of longer writing projects that I am eager to complete; and, well, sometimes I know I have to "do" rather than write about doing! Which leads me…

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Tips From the Pros: Winnie Griggs

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Davalynn Spencer here again, from Colorado’s Front Range, welcoming today’s featured author, Winnie Griggs. Winnie was last featured on the CAN blog in 2009, and she’s written quite a bit since and come up with some great tips for us all. Thanks for visiting with us today Winnie. How many books do you have published now, and what are a few of your latest titles? My 16th just came out. The last four have all been connected and the titles and release dates are: Handpicked Husband   September 2012 The Bride Next Door   June 2013 A Family For Christmas  October 2013…

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Hidden Faces by Golden Keyes Parsons

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In this collection of four novellas acclaimed author Golden Keyes Parsons delves into the lives of four nameless women from the Gospels–the woman caught in adultery, the woman at the well, the woman who anointed Jesus’s feet, and the woman who touched the hem of His garment. Discover through the eyes of faith and fiction how women—trapped, alone, broken—yet who ventured boldly into the path of Jesus…to leave forever changed. Golden Keyes Parsons writes historical fiction, and is also a popular speaker. Her highly acclaimed Darkness to Light Series chronicled the journey of French Huguenots. His Steadfast Love is a…

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How to craft happy endings

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Have you ever worked on a piece so much that you practically memorized it? That was me when, for the umpteenth time, I rewrote the first chapter of the novel I had completed. The story, engaging and the characters, sassy and insightful. The end product was, well, in my opinion, pretty wonderful. Then it happened. I got it back from the editor. I swallowed hard and my shoulders drooped with disbelief. The whole thing was riddled with corrections, questions, and endless suggestions for improvements. I cringed, but accepting the changes was imperative because the editor had in mind a great…

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How to find reassurance

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“Over a hundred years? Who in the world wants to live that long!” my friend said as she read the story of the man who has been documented as living the longest in modern times—a Bolivian man, reported to be 123 years old. His story perked my interest because this toothless man and I have two things in common: we’re both from Bolivia and we both eat Quinoa.

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What to Do with a First Draft

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Hi, Dave Fessenden here to talk to you writers out there for this Friday’s blog. If you have completed your first draft, let me be the first to say it: Congratulations! Go ahead and celebrate. Bask in the glow of accomplishment. Take the tribe out for a nice dinner. Are you done celebrating now? Good, because you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you!

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Tension and Conflict Part 2 – The Nature of Conflict

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Good morning from Gail Gaymer Martin. For the next few months, I’m talking about conflict and tension, the heart of fiction. It is what grabs the reader and makes the story memorable. Last week, I introduced the set up to tension  and talk about characters, their goals and the hooks that keep the reader turning pages.Today you read about the nature of conflict . While tension is the emotion of a novel, conflict is the power. It drives the story forward and causes the reader to hang on and go with the ride.Without conflict the scenes would be a slow walk through…

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