Many of our Premium Team Members and Voices are packing their bags and putting the final touches on their manuscripts and checking their boarding passes to Indianapolis for the ACFW annual conference. Going to a conference is a necessary part of a writer’s career for sure but it can really take an emotional toll right in the middle of all your best laid plans. Here are a few things you can expect and how to combat them so you’ll be relaxed and successful when you get to Indy: Feelings of fear will come. They always do. Whether they manifest as butterflies in your stomach, sweaty palms or downright terror, the fear show up. Expect it. Embrace it. It’s only preparing you for the rigors of the conference. It will pass. […]
Read the RestTag Archives | Nurturing Creativity
I Can Only Imagine
As a writer, there are many times when things just don’t go right. The plot takes a wrong turn. The agent doesn’t think your story is publish-worthy. Your dog eats your only hard copy of your manuscript. The writing life is full of disappointments. But it is also filled with glorious wins and blessings. As a writer, your words will reach untold numbers of people and will impact their lives in ways you can only imagine. Haven’t you read a book and thought, “I can only imagine what that character felt like”, or “I wonder if the author experienced that? How else could they write about that so deeply?” You can only write what you can imagine. And you can only imagine if you’ve felt that or something similar. Those […]
Read the RestLessons on the Writer’s Road
As I pedal through middle-America, I think of you. When I learn new truths, I know they apply to you and what you face. The lessons I’ve learned on the bicycle road are the same lessons on the writer’s road so I want to share some of them with you: Things will NEVER go according to plan. Even your best plans are altered by reality of what is found on the writer’s road. You don’t have the knowledge of what’s down each road, around each curve and over every hill. There is ALWAYS a reason when things don’t go according to plan. You just need to make sure we are open to that reason or we’ll miss an incredible blessing. Plans should only be guidelines. If you marry a specific […]
Read the RestWhy You Must Write
On my Road to Freedom Bicycle Tour Across America, I’ve had the privilege of spending the last several days in and around the tiny town of Corinth, Mississippi. It is rich with history, particularly from the Civil War. I marveled as I read the journals and diaries of young men who witnessed the battle at Shiloh where over 23,000 men lost their lives fighting for the north or the south. As I walked through the railroad depot at Crossroads in Corinth, I wondered what story would have been told today if someone hadn’t written back then. We would be in the dark, or left to stories being handed down—and watered down—generation after generation. These young men who went into battle are the historians that we count on to give us […]
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