Who Me? A Perfectionist?

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Hello from Kathy Collard Miller in the desert of Southern California If I were to ask you whether you’re a perfectionist, you’d most likely say “no.” The explanation for saying that? “Well, I don’t get anything perfect! After all, perfectionists reach perfection.” Would you be shocked if I told you that’s not accurate? Not only is it not accurate but I would almost predict that some perfectionist tendencies are blocking your efficiency and joy in your writing.  Because one definition of a perfectionist is: “A person who takes great pains and passes them on to others.” Want to know if you have…

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The Struggle to Say No

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Georgia Shaffer from Pennsylvania In my last blog article I mentioned a quote from John Maxwell where he discussed making time in his schedule to write. He said, “I need to be inaccessible to be effective.” This comment really resonated with the women in my writers critique group as they talked about their struggle to say no to all the demands of those around them. One said, “I feel like I always need to be accessible whether that be for family, phone calls, or emails.” Being inaccessible means carving out set periods of time when the people in your life…

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Surprise! God Is Sovereign!

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Hello from Kathy Collard Miller in the desert of Southern California! Have you ever been surprised by God’s sovereignty? Early in my writing and speaking ministry in the 1980’s, I felt the need to make things happen. It felt like I needed to force things to happen. I even seemed to hear from the publishing world that it was up to me to make things happen. And within a decade or two, I began to learn that I needed a platform and it was all up to me. I felt tense.

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What was I thinking???!!!

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  Hola from Janet Perez Eckles…Igniting Your Passion to Overcome In my career as a writer and speaker, there have been way too many “What was I thinking!” moments Through the years, I’ve written about the pitfalls of looking into the past. I have realized the drawbacks of dwelling on yesterday’s mistakes, or last year’s failures.

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Avoid the Most Common Writing Mistakes

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Georgia Shaffer from Pennsylvania Several of my coaching clients are writers and speakers who surprisingly make similar mistakes in their writing.  Here are six suggestions I find myself repeating, which you may find helpful. 1. Write and let it sit for awhile. Your writing should be allowed to age, like great relationships.  While you may not always have the luxury of time, plan ahead when possible. Work on other projects and come back to what you’ve written a couple of weeks later.  You’ll be stunned at what you find that you did not notice earlier. 2.  Hire a professional editor….

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“The Emperor Has No Clothes!”

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Hi, Dave Fessenden here, with some advice to Christian writers from one of my favorite children’s stories. In “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” a great ruler is hoodwinked by two charlatans who claim to have made him a set of clothes from material that is invisible to fools. The emperor cannot see the nonexistent clothes, of course, but he does not want to be considered a fool — and neither do all his subjects — so they join in the pretense that the outfit is the most beautiful they have ever seen. Their self-deception is shattered at the royal parade, when…

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Never Give Up!

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HELLO from Kathy Collard Miller in the sunny California desert near Palm Springs. My 50th book, Never Ever Be the Same: A New You Starts Today (Leafwood) will be released tomorrow, January 13th. I never could have seen that coming so many years ago when I started writing. Even as a child I’d always wanted to be a writer and so when the Lord put it on my heart to write an article about how He had delivered me from being a child abuser, it felt perfect. I sold that first article to Moody Monthly in 1978 and then decided…

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Empowerment to persevere.

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  Hola from Janet Perez Eckles…Igniting Your Passion to Overcome During one of the first writer’s conferences I attended a decade or so ago, I met another writer. She was in the bathroom blowing her nose and sniffling. We chatted a bit and she related her devastation about the comments that had been scribbled throughout her manuscript.

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Captivating Content

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Georgia Shaffer from Pennsylvania Recently, someone gave me a list with “21 Sure-Fire Content Ideas.” Captivating content, the list suggested, reminds readers of important things like “life is short,” “our dreams can come true,” and “we matter.” The list also recommended content that causes us to laugh, a topic that educates and entertains us or shares something with unexpected twists and turns. [i] When I look for a writing topic for a new article or book, I often ask myself questions like these: Do I know something that will help people feel better or look better? How can I encourage…

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Three steps to overcome rejection

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Hola from Janet Perez Eckles…Igniting Your Passion to Overcome A friend I knew from high school came to visit recently. As we sipped tea, we laughed about our days as teens. But then she got a bit serious and said, “You know, when you broke up with my brother, he was devastated.” Guilt came over me. I remembered the details of dating him. And for reasons only a 16-year-old immature girl knows, I ended the relationship in an insensitive and abrupt way.

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