“Brilliance in a bottle”

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Hello! And a very Merry Christmas to you! Maureen Pratt here for my monthly blog which, this year, just happens to fall a couple of days after one of my favorite holidays – you guessed it – Christmas! What I especially love about Christmas is that we get to bring out many of our dearly-held traditions. Whether it’s in baking, decorating, music, or Scripture study “what was old is new again” as we celebrate the Season. How does this relate to writing? Well, it reminds me that sometimes I miss “old” traditions of the authorial kind. Writing long-hand, for example,…

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Backstory Is a Whole Other Story

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Hi, Dave Fessenden here with some thoughts on writing for this Friday blog. I am experienced in nonfiction—I wrote a book on the subject, in fact—but when it comes to fiction, I still have a lot to learn. My first novel is coming out this month (The Case of the Exploding Speakeasy), and though I’m getting a lot of good reviews, I am not sure I’m ready to teach about fiction. With that disclaimer, let me share an observation I had when reviewing a potential client’s fiction manuscript.

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The Power of Words

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Hi, Sherry Kyle here, encouraging you from my laptop in Central California. Have you ever said something you later regretted? Maybe you wrote something you wish would disappear from cyber space. Or maybe you were the recipient from someone’s harsh criticism. I relate to each one of these. I’m sure you do too. As authors we also put our characters through difficult relationships. The only way our characters will grow is if they go through conflict. After all, life is complicated and messy. Right?

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