Excellence in Writing

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Hello from sunny Florida! Ava Pennington, CAN Secretary here, desperately hoping the calendar is wrong and summer is not almost over!  🙂 In my previous career as a human resources executive, one of my areas of responsibility was the management of our quality control programs. Phrases such as “Quality First,” “Do it right the first time,” and  “Quality means doing it right when no one is looking” (Henry Ford), pervaded our corporate culture. But corporate America did not invent the concept of working with excellence. God has always required excellence from His people. First Corinthians 10:31 tells us, “Whatever you…

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ICRS is Over…Now What?

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Hello from sunny Florida! Ava Pennington, CAN Secretary here, trying to get organized after a hectic week. The 2012 International Christian Retail Show (ICRS) is over. Three jam-packed days of everything related to Christian publishing. Hundreds of booths filled with books, gift items, cards, church supplies, home decor, toys—even a “Jesus Toast Toaster,” (the less said about that one, the better!) But why did I go? I didn’t carve three days out of my schedule—four, if you count the AWSA Banquet—to window-shop  in a mega-Christian version of Walmart.

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Is It Raining At Your House?

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Hi, all! Ava Pennington here from not-so-sunny Florida. As I write this, it’s raining. At least my lawn and flowerbeds are happy. Is it raining where you are? I don’t mean the weather. Is it raining on your writing?  

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Friends and Experts

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Hi, all! Ava Pennington checking in from sunny Florida. They say the life of a writer is lonely. That’s true in some ways, but the advent of the Internet has connected us in ways we never imagined. It has also made research easier than ever. However, easier is not always better. We’ve all heard the warnings about verifying the accuracy of our sources. Certain websites have more credibility than others. Just because something is on the Internet doesn’t make it true.

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7 Twitter Rules of the Road

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Hi, Ava Pennington, CAN Secretary, here. Our CAN members have been learning how to better use social media, thanks to several recent member webinars. As I apply what I’ve been learning, I’ve noticed some parallels with driving…

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The Marketing Seesaw

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Hi from Ava Pennington, CAN Secretary… When was the last time you played on a seesaw? Maybe you called it a teeter-totter. The fun lasted only as long as the person on the other end weighed about the same as you. Enough of an imbalance and you either spent most of the time camped on the ground or hanging in the air. A seesaw is not the only place balance is important. It would be nice to think being an author meant spending all our time weaving words to enthrall readers. It would be nice…but not realistic. The reality of…

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Hopes and Fears

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Good morning from Ava Pennington, CAN Secretary, in sunny Florida… The week between Christmas and New Year is a time between times. The build up to Christmas is over. The new year has yet to begin. Anticipation gives way to fatigue. The Christmas decorations seem to have outlasted their welcome, but I’m not ready to take them down yet. And as much as I love Christmas hymns and carols, they seem anticlimactic. But one Christmas hymn in particular speaks to the writer in me this week.

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Seasons

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Hi, all! Ava Pennington here from Florida…where the temperature has cooled to a mere 85 degrees. That’s about as much change in seasons as we’ll get until our version of winter finally arrives. Seasons. They’re not limited to the calendar and the weather. We move through seasons of life as we parent babies and teenagers, experience empty nests and become caregivers for our own parents. Writing adds another layer to already full lives. So let’s talk about seasons in a writer’s life…and in the lives of CAN members.

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By the Numbers

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Hi, all! Ava Pennington here from sunny Florida…well, mostly sunny Florida. The afternoon rainstorms have finally started, to the residents’ joy and the tourists’ chagrin! Lately, I’ve been thinking about the relationship between words and numbers in the publishing industry. I’m a writer, not a mathematician. I love words – their structure and style, their rhythm and rhyme. I enjoy alliteration and onomatopoeia. I’m drawn to the images that words evoke. Numbers…not so much. Still, serious writers know that publishing—even Christian publishing—is a business. And business is often about the numbers.

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We’ve Always Done It This Way…or Not

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Hi, all – Ava Pennington here, with a note about shaking things up. The publishing industry is moving faster than Doc Brown’s DeLorean, but not always in a good way. Stagnant sales, corporate restructurings, e-publishing, people reading less…the news can be discouraging. So what’s an author to do? One thing we should not do is approach our writing careers with an “I’ve always done it this way” attitude.

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