Don't Try This at Home by Author Yvonne Anderson

Do you dream of becoming an author? Searching for a professional writer to emulate? 

Don’t look at me; I’m a rotten role model.

Let’s walk through my typical day to see what I mean.

I set an alarm for six, but I’m usually up before then. I hobble into the kitchen and turn on the coffee. Then I shower to bring me fully awake—and to tame my hopeless bed-head, which, thanks to my three (3) cowlicks, cannot be brought under control without copious amounts of water. 

After that, I start writing? Nope. A cup of black coffee in hand, I spend the next hour to hour-and-a-half in prayer and Bible study.

And then I get down to work, right? Wrong. This is where I have breakfast and my second (and last) cup of coffee. I talk with my husband—who, being retired, has no particular schedule but is always up and about by breakfast time—and putter around on my laptop (check emails, blogs, etc.). Then I clean up the kitchen, fix my hair (which has been air-drying), and go to work.

I’m a church secretary. I began working there in January. I hadn’t been looking for a job, but, since my husband and I moved here in November, I had been looking for a church, and the Lord led me to a church and a job at the same time.

And because He is merciful, the job is only part-time, so I’m home in time for lunch.

Now I start my writing day, right? Umm… not usually. I mentioned that we moved recently, and that my husband’s retired. I should also tell you he’s a handyman, and quite a good one. Put all these together, and what do you get? A guy who always has projects going on, both in the house and in the yard. And who, bless his heart, only has two hands.

I wish I had a dollar for every “do you have a minute?” Or worse yet, “Are you busy? Because I could really use some help” (that one should be worth $2 at least). If I were paid for each of those requests, I could afford to hire an assistant for him. Or at least, I’d be making more money than I do selling books, which I can’t seem to ever get written because somebody is always interrupting me.

This has been the situation for quite some time, because before we moved, he was getting our previous home spruced up for sale. I haven’t had any time to myself since 2012, when I wrote my current new release, Ransom in the Rock. (Just got around to publishing it, but it’s been finished for quite a while.)

The interruptions used to drive. Me. Mad. Especially when reading advice from successful authors about how, if you’re going to take your writing profession seriously, you need to plant your posterior in the chair and write, write, write – don’t be distracted – tell your family to not interrupt you – blah blah blah.

It finally occurred to me: the profession I take most seriously is that of my faith in Christ. I write because He urged me in that direction. But did He ever suggest I make it my career? No; it’s people who tell me that, not God. 

Has He commanded I be submissive to my husband? Absolutely. Does “submission” mean grumbling and grinding my teeth? Not hardly. It means, when confronted with that apologetic Do you have a minute?, replying with complete sincerity, “I have many minutes, and they’re all yours.”

“But…” (you may sputter), “You’re a writer. You need to be writing. You need to… [fill in your choice of the experts’ wise advice].”

Yes, I’m a writer. But I’m a Christ-follower first, and then a wife, a mother, a grandma, etc. “Writer” comes pretty far down the list.

Let me put it this way: if I should one day find myself alone and able to write with no one to interrupt me, will I regret having given my husband my time when I could? 

And if I go first? When I stand before Christ, will I be ashamed of not having written more books?

I guess this means I’m a hobbyist, not a professional author—and that’s okay. I’m just warning you: if you want to do this author thing right, don’t do what I do.

A resident of Western Maryland, Yvonne Anderson writes fiction that takes you out of this world.  She also does freelance editing; contributes to the writing blog The Borrowed Book; oversees Novel Rocket’s Launch Pad Contest; and is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, International Thriller Writers, and the Independent Author Network. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, or Goodreads.

Fly through the Gateway to Gannah for some serious sci-fi adventure: The first three titles, The Story in the Stars and Words in the Wind and Ransom in the Rock, are all available in both print and ebook. Watch for the launch of The Last Toqeph, the fourth and final flight in the series, in the autumn of 2014. (It’s been finished for a long time too!)

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The Love Story that Finds Us All by Author Emily Wierenga

I was in Africa a couple of months ago on a bloggers’ trip, in a place called Widow’s Village in rural Rwanda. This village is government-funded, and provides housing for widows and children of the genocide. 

The women are older now, but their faces bear the scars of the horrendous losses they’ve suffered. Many of them have been raped, and have watched their husbands and children be killed. Some have lost nine of eleven children. Others are now taking care of their daughters’ children because their daughters have gone mad and run away.

I was there one day when my team leader asked if any of the women wanted to tell their story. And surprisingly, they did. They wanted to tell their story. 

Because no matter how hard it is, our story is one thing we’ll always have. God gives us our stories, not to define us, but to illuminate his presence on earth. 

Our stories do not define us. They explain us, yes, but they do not define us. God’s love for us defines us, and our stories pave the way to that love. 

At one point one of the widows, Margaret—whose breath smelled slightly of vodka—sat down heavily in the dirt as her sister shared about the genocide and the losses she’d encountered. I sat down with Margaret, there in Africa’s red dirt, and put my arm around her. A child in my lap and Rwanda all around me.

Life is hard. 

Sometimes I say to God, “Look at your people—look at how Earth has done them in.”

But then Margaret whispered, “God is so good.”

I leaned in and she said it again. “God, he’s so good. He gives me everything I need. Praise him.”

This is a woman who’s lost everything. Her children, her husband, her home. She’s witnessed evil face-on. Yet she still believes in goodness. 

Our stories do not define us. They are gifts to us, to show how God steps from heaven to earth on our behalf. To show how our Creator interacts with his creation. Our job is not to control the story, but to read it, and wait for the Savior. To wait for him to come and pull us out of the climax—to pull us out of the evil—and to set the lonely in families. 

And this setting the lonely in families is what takes place in my debut novel, A Promise in Pieces. Clara Wilson is a preacher’s daughter who finds it hard to reconcile the faith her daddy preaches Sunday morning with the war happening across the ocean. She slips out one night, through the window of her bedroom, and runs away with a friend to serve as a nurse in Normandy, France, where she comes face to face with evil, and meets a dying soldier who breathes life back into her fractured faith. 

And it’s a letter this soldier gives her, to take home to his soon-to-be-widowed wife, which leads Clara to the family she’s always longed for—while restoring the one she already has. 

We all are like children, longing to belong, and I relate to Clara. I too am a preacher’s daughter who traveled the globe searching for the faith my father preached. Trying to find God in the corners of the earth, and then my Mum got sick. And I found God where I least expected, at the bedside of my dying mom. 

And when Clara finally arrives back home, a baby quilt from the soldier’s wife in her hands, she too is broken by her mother’s illness and spends her days as a midwife and her nights caring for her parents. The quilt wrapped around the shoulders of young and old and the pieces of Clara’s life being woven together like patchwork cloth. 

In the end, love finds us all. It finds Clara through a kind carpenter, a war veteran who gardens and carves a cradle for Clara’s adopted child. It found me through a farm boy who gave me roots and at the same time, wings.

It finds all of us through our stories which lead us to a God who never leaves or forsakes us—who leans close to us as we sit on the red dirt, in the middle of our suffering, and says, “Come home, child. Come home.”

Emily T. Wierenga is an award-winning journalist, commissioned artist and columnist, as well as the author of four books including A Promise in Pieces, releasing April 15 with Abingdon Press. She lives in Alberta, Canada with her husband and two sons. For more info, please visit www.emilywierenga.com. Find her on Twitter or Facebook.

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WHO SAID THAT? Do You Really NEED an Attribution? by Author Caryl McAdoo

Writers are usually readers, and as end consumers may dive into the craft of their favorite authors with a list of their own pet peeves. I know it’s difficult for me to read without wanting to edit. One such peeve of mine is excessive attributions, such little nothing words saying something everyone should know, filling space, but adding no value to the story. You will not find many in VOW UNBROKEN, my new historical Christian romance from Howard Books, a division of Simon and Schuster.

What is an attribution? It ascribes a work to a particular author or artist. From our first grade Dick and Jane readers (I’m dating myself) to the thickest novels, the attribution is mostly used to denote WHO SAID THAT dialogue.

He said. She said. They’re used a lot in a scene with two characters, male and female. But let’s break it down. He and she are gender pronouns interchangeable with the character’s proper name. It always refers back to the last proper name of its gender mentioned and should be used often in preference to ninety-seven proper names per page. (an unrelated tip ☺)

And the second half of our short attribution is a verb telling the reader what the character’s doing. Said - to use your voice to express with words. But wait. Didn’t the reader already know that? Didn’t the double quotation marks at either end of the dialogue indicate the words were indeed voiced aloud? Yes! Double quotation marks are punctuation used to set off speech, a quotation, a phrase or a word.

And it’s the same with asked; the question mark indicates the character asked a question. Said and asked are so useless and unnecessary. Readers know without you telling them. SHOW don’t TELL! 

And fancy attributions are no better. He hollered. She insisted. The actual words spoken and the characters’ posture should SHOW readers how the words were spoken. Fancier still, add an ly adverb he hollered emphatically or she insisted arrogantly. For example: “Hey! You! Stop that!” he hollered. Don’t the words indicate hollering? Or “I assure you, sir, I am not the woman you’re looking for,” she insisted arrogantly. Her words transfer the idea of arrogant insistence? 

But a novel can’t have a full page of back and forth dialogue between two characters or readers get lost. Everyone has experienced having to go back line by line to figure out who said that. Speakers need to be identified! I propose that action is ten—no a hundred—times stronger than an attribution to handle that task.

Look how using action with the same dialogue strengthens the writing. The man took the stairs two at a time storming toward the intruder teetering on the windowsill. “Hey! You! Stop that!” Can’t you hear him hollering and sense the urgency? And what about mental pictures? The man, the intruder, the torn screen and open window’s edge. 

Or for the woman: Charlotte pulled her elbow from the dandy’s grasp in the brothel’s parlor. “I assure you, sir, I am not the woman you’re looking for.” Writers are supposed to paint word pictures. And verbs, not adjectives and adverbs, drive the story. Could anyone prefer the passive he hollered after hearing the active choice? 

There doesn’t always have to be long, compound actions. A simple he smiled SHOWS the reader a new mental picture rather than TELLING him something he already knew. Sometimes, in conjunction with action, use introspection—only from your POV character of course. Your action/introspection sentences that identifies speaker need to be as varied as all sentence structure—not always two word attributions or they stick out and interrupt dialogue’s flow. Vary sentence length!

Be aware. Count how many attributions you have on a page, in a chapter. I allow maybe two attributions per book – yes, PER BOOK. It is SO much stronger to use action to identify a speaker. #1 ‘active’ not ‘passive’ #2 ‘shows’ instead of ‘tells’  #3 gives reader new mental picture  #4 can enhance characterization – example: She stomped her foot and put both fists on her hips. Isn’t that SO much better than ‘she declared angrily’? And tells you more about the character.

Yes, abundant attributions may be found aplenty in published books, but in these days when editors want to find a reason to reject your work, it must be a step above. Get into the habit of using action instead of attributions, and your manuscript will stand out in a pile.

Please return Friday for a chance to win a copy of Caryl's book!

Though Caryl McAdoo has 9 titles from 4 publishers, she realized her dream this month when Simon & Schuster’s Howard Books debuted VOW UNBROKEN, her historical Christian romance set in 1832 Texas. The novelist enjoys painting and singing new songs the Lord gives her. She lives in the woods of Clarksville in Red River County with husband Ron and four grandsons. 

Website - http://www.CarylMcAdoo.com
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/CarylMcAdoo/author
Blog - http://www.CarylMcAdoo.blogspot.com
Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/181587.Caryl_McAdoo

Google+ - https://plus.google.com/u/0/116386927782468472563/posts

Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/CarylMcAdoo

LinkedIn - http://www.linkedIn.com/CarylMcAdoo

Pinterest - http://www.pinterest.com/gramilady 

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Waiting by Author Laura Jackson

Waiting is hard. And being a writer means waiting a lot.

Waiting for answers from agents.

If you get an agent, waiting for them to submit to publishers.

If you don’t get an agent, waiting to hear from small publishers.

Waiting for the publisher’s offer.

Waiting for edits. Second edits. Third edits. Fourth edits. 

Waiting for the cover reveal.

Waiting for reviews from beta readers.

Waiting for readers’ responses.

Even if you’re not a writer, you’ll spend a great deal of your life waiting.

On red lights.

On summer to get here.

On the customer ahead of you in the drive thru line to pull up.

On the phone to ring.

For a promotion.

For a husband.

For a child.

For a loved one’s salvation.

So, what do you do during your waiting?

Cry.

Scream.

Get angry.

Get depressed.

Give up.

Trust God and His plan.

It’s the hardest thing to do when you’re waiting, but it’s the only thing that gives complete peace. 

In Worth the Wait, Ellie Lansing has a picture-perfect life with a close-knit family and the perfect boyfriend. But her world is suddenly knocked off center when her drool-worthy boyfriend cheats, and her always-has-it-together mother is diagnosed with cancer. Ellie doesn't get it. She always does the right thing - doesn't God owe her a happy life? Through her heartache, Ellie learns that sometimes what seems like the end is really just the beginning and that what God has for us is always worth the wait.

And isn’t that true for all of us? When we submit to Him and His plan, our life is a little less about waiting for SOMETHING to happen and a little more about enjoying the SOMEONE who created our life.

Wait on Him. He’s always worth the wait. 

Laura Jackson loves books---reading and writing them. A life-longe reader, Laura studied English in college and taught 7th grade language arts before earning her Master's degree and becoming a school librarian. Now, she spends her days sharing great books with kids and her evenings writing books about teenage girls discovering God and His plan for their lives.

Return Friday for a chance to win a copy of Laura's book!

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Writing: More than Skin Deep by Author Sarah Sundin

My favorite part of writing is getting to know my characters. Although I was a chemistry major in college, I took quite a few psychology classes for fun. As a student, I loved contemplating the interplay of nature and nurture and life experiences, and as an author, I love it even more.

In my latest novel, On Distant Shores, I had great fun writing from the point-of-view of Lt. Georgie Taylor, a flight nurse in World War II. It was also a challenge, because Georgie is my opposite. I’m an introvert; Georgie’s an extrovert. I obsess over details; Georgie is bothered by details.

In the previous book, With Every Letter, Georgie’s friend Mellie says she needs time alone to think. Georgie pipes up, “I’ll go with you.” As you can imagine, she’s a true extrovert who adores people, loves to plan parties, and has met very few people she can’t befriend. She’s also a kind soul who is drawn to the underdog.

Getting to know a character like Georgie means looking at nature, nurture, and life experiences.

When authors start character development, we usually start with nature. What does she look like? Eyes? Hair? Face? Build? What’s her personality like? What natural talents and gifts does she have? In Georgie’s case, she’s cute, perky, and social. These are the types of qualities we notice when we first meet a person. While fun, they only give us a surface knowledge of the character.

Going deeper, we look at the character’s upbringing—the nurture. What was her family like? Rich or poor? Loving or distant or abusive? Harsh or lenient? Was she the oldest, middle, or baby? What was her childhood like?

Georgie was raised in a happy and loving and affluent family, the youngest of three daughters, sheltered and doted on. She was raised with strong moral values. This contributes to her strengths—her social confidence and her care for the outcast. But it also contributes to her weaknesses. She’s never had to make decisions for herself and doesn’t feel she can handle difficulties. Her greatest fear is that she’ll fail in a crisis and people will get hurt.

Going even deeper, we can explore the character’s life experiences. What choices has she made—good or bad—that have made her who she is today? What trauma has she endured? What joy has she relished? What difficulty has she faced? Has she overcome adversity and grown stronger—or has life beaten her down?

What made Georgie interesting to me is that—unlike most of the characters I write—she has seen almost no trauma. She’s been protected and loved, and nothing truly horrible has happened to her. While that seems idyllic, it causes problems. As a flight nurse serving in Italy in a combat zone, Georgie wonders if she’s in over her head. She fears she won’t have what it takes when it matters. Of course, as a cruel author, I put trauma in her life.

The interplay of nature and nurture and life experience brings out fears and flaws, strengths and weaknesses, quirks and habits, goals and dreams unique to the character. This is what makes her “human” and relatable.

Just as we get to know our friends slowly over time, from the outside in, as stories and traits are revealed, the author gets to know her characters. Then she figures out the best way to torture them.

In love. Because I care for my characters and want them to grow, to overcome their sins and fears and flaws, and to become the best people they can be.

How about you? If you’re a writer, what do you enjoy about character development? If you’re not a writer, what do you enjoy about getting to know a new friend?

Return to TBB on Friday for a chance to win Sarah's new release!

Sarah Sundin is the author of five historical novels, including On Distant Shores (Revell, August 2013). In 2011, Sarah received the Writer of the Year Award at the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference. Sarah lives in northern California with her husband and three children. When she isn’t ferrying kids to tennis and karate, she works on-call as a hospital pharmacist and teaches Sunday school. You can find her at http://www.sarahsundin.com.

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