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Writing Link Library
Cowboy Musings
Volume Five
Be my Valentine? A New Direction for
my Writing The
Christian – and Politics God Used Me! What's Up with Louis L'Amour? Taking on the Taxman
The Power of Christian Fiction Targeted
Submissions Can
You Interpret Dreams? The BIG Bookstore
Eternal Investment Panhandle Professional
Writers Why
Electronic Submissions? Correcting the Bible
A Line Editor I'm Not! I Read Your
Guidelines but . . . Rubbing the Wrong Way
Everybody Sells in 2008 Captain's Log – 2008 - Day
One Getting a
Fresh Start Looking Ahead to Resolutions Christmas Past Introducing Kevin and
Kristen Collier Should
I write? Introducing
Joe Ragont
Introducing Susan Miura Heat of the Moment Introducing Jim Dyet Hunker Down The Good Rejection
Musing and Music Introducing Trish Porter Adding Word Count The Best Blessing Has the Future Arrived? Introducing Donna Marie
Bond Cajun
Party Time! Introducing
Robyn Conley Introducing
James R. Callan Introducing Bonnie
Calhoun Introducing
Jack Loy Intoducing Alan Jackson Introducing Paul Sturm Introducing Tim Shoemaker Introducing Susan Lyttek Introducing Richard Brown Introducing Caron Guillo Introducing Jennifer Hudson Taylor Introducing Amy Alessio Introducing Dr. Bill Griffith Introducing Graham
Garrison Introducing
Carla Bruce Introducing
Rich Dixon Introducing
Celeste Matthews Introducing
Donn Taylor Introducing Jane Thornton Introducing the James
Gang Introducing
Trudy Chun Introducing
Pam Kumpe
Introducing Linda Apple Introducing Michelle
Buckman Introducing
Max Elliott Anderson Introducing Tammy Barlay Introducing Brenda Nixon
Introducing Annette M. Irby Jennifer did great! Enthusiasm
Transfusion The Giants in Dallas
What do they want? One Sheets and Good News Remembering 9/11 Two top hands – Dusty
and Drury National
Cowboy Symposium Sushi
for One Meet
You in Dallas
I remember the days when I'd come home from school with a sack full of little, inexpensive valentines. These were the days when girls were something a guy barely tolerated, and a suggestion that a guy had a girlfriend, or that a girl was sweet on him could be fighting words. Strangely enough, at the same time, a handful of valentines from pretty young ladies was a highly desirable thing. Go figure.
I'm not sure it's the same now. I listened to grandkids not even starting school talking about having a girlfriend. How times change.
Things changed in those days too. It went from cherishing a large number of valentines from cute girls to having one girl I was going steady with. Valentines from other girls were now gently, or not so gently, discouraged. Did I mention that times change?
But it gets to go back to more than one again. We have a valentine banquet at church Thursday and I'll have two of my favorite valentines with me, Saundra and mother. The remainder of the allowable valentine list includes daughters and granddaughters. I'm unclear as to whether it's really ok to have males as valentines. Didn't used to be, but times . . .
Can I have female valentines beyond the 'allowable' list? Maybe, but you remember the girl that gently discouraged it in high school? Maybe times haven't changed that much.
A New
Direction for my Writing?
Maybe. I had an editor that I got to spend some time with at
ICRS in
In addition to that I have a further desire to see some of these books be western, and have a couple of clients who write western who feel that way as well. If we don't spend some time trying to introduce some younger readers to westerns that market may disappear and it is entirely too big a part of our nation's history for that to happen. The only two I know that are really doing anything along this line for young people is Sigmond Brouwer and Paul Bagdon.
That editor is interested in looking at a couple of projects I already have done to see if it might be a possibility for them. I'm pleased, not only for the cause at hand, but because another project that had already made it past committee and that I spent a great deal of time writing another 30,000 words on didn't make the final cut. Agenting takes a majority of my time these days, but I needed a little encouragement to keep a little writing in the mix as well.
You see one thing a lot of people don't realize, particularly young people, is that teenagers simply didn't exist before WWII. Before that time kids went from what schooling they would have straight to work on the family farm or business or perhaps in a factory. Many of those out winning the west, serving in the cavalry, being a cowboy or making trail drives would today be considered teenagers, and it was not at all uncommon for girls to be married as young as fifteen. I think this is something young people will find very interesting, and interesting to think what their life might have been like if they lived in those days.
That's what this editor is looking at, and it's a subject that interests me considerably. I have several projects done that speak to it, and I'm happy to have somebody thinking about it.
The Christian
. . . and Politics!
Politics is not something I talk about very much. That comes from the days when I was a chamber of commerce executive and had to maintain a strict independent standing to be able to work with people from both parties. Today is Super-Tuesday, however, and it is on my mind.
There was an interesting discussion over on one of the blogs here yesterday as people talked about who they were going to support. There was also a very complete and impassioned plea that Christians should hold themselves above politics, not
participate, and just worry about what God wants them to do. I talked with the individual about it and was impressed by the fervent convictions that person had, but in the end do not agree.
The contention as I understand it is that God will put the person he wants into office and we should stay out of it and concentrate on the business of the Kingdom. It is true throughout the Bible that God put the people He wanted in positions of power, but in recent times it hasn't been working that way. Instead He has worked through his people to place those he wants in leadership roles, placing a burden on his children's hearts as to who He wants to serve.
This means electing imperfect people to office. It has to, there has only been one perfect person who walked the face of earth, and even David, Moses, Abraham, and other Biblical notables were far from perfect. I believe God DOES impact who are in leadership roles, but I believe He does it through his children. Everyone agrees that it was the Christian vote that put Bush into office, a fact that stunned all political pundits, but try as they might they could not get it to add up any other way.
They said it was the "Religious Right" which is the detractors way of putting a denigrating label on devout Christians. Were the Christians to stop standing up and being counted when it came time to elect our leaders it would give Satan free reign in putting those he wants in office. I simply cannot believe that is what God wants us to do. Sure, I understand what is going to happen at end times, but it will happen when the Christians are no longer here and their influence is removed, not because we give up and cease trying to make a difference.
I'll pray and hopefully will get Divine guidance in casting my vote, but it will be an imperfect person I vote for. It has to be, that's all there is to choose from, we're all imperfect. I do not fall for the "separation of church and state" ploy that attempts to take Christians out of saying anything at all about how they are governed. That isn't what our forefathers meant and everybody does, or should, know it.
I believe Christians have to make themselves available for the Lord to use in affecting the direction our country is going. When He is ready to stop doing that we'll know it because he will simply take us out of here.
Whew, that's the most I've said about politics in a long time.
God uses his children all the time, you know? Most of the time we aren't aware of it, we don't know when it happens and we don't know the results. Occasionally we do know it and it is at once an incredibly fulfilling yet humbling experience.
We have a lot of people out sick at church, and I had to substitute teach. I do that on occasion. Even at that they had to combine classes and I had a couple of classes together to teach. And there was a visitor. Roger had never been to our church, and he came in late so I had already begun when he did come in.
I hardly looked at the lesson this morning as I taught. I started taking the verses one at a time and talking about them. I had read over the lesson several times so I still covered a lot of it, but more of it was coming from somewhere else. I used a lot of personal experience, including some very painful personal experience that I don't talk about a lot. I prowled the front of the room with a lot of stuff coming out of me that I didn't know I was going to say.
After we let out Roger came over to me and said he had fallen away from his faith, but that just yesterday he had come under conviction that he needed to be in church today. He found his way to us. He said he was struggled with some things and I had spoken to them as if I were speaking to him alone. Then we went on in to the worship service.
Our pastor was sick along with so many of the others and an associate pastor took the podium with little time to prepare. He started out in one direction but was soon talking about the same things I had been talking about in Sunday school, only he hadn't been there to hear it. Roger was moved, I could tell from across the auditorium. When the time of invitation came, Roger was out of his seat and up at the front before the pastor could come down from the podium. They cried together and he rededicated his life.
I went up to Roger afterwards and said I didn't know him from Adam before today, for sure didn't know what he needed to hear, yet I talked about something entirely different from what I had prepared. The pastor did the same. I told him if he didn't know who it was that was really talking to him then he wasn't listening. He did know.
He did listen.
What's Up with
Louis L'Amour?
Creative writing classes study writers, discuss them, pick them apart to see what makes them tick. But I've never heard them give such attention to Louie. Dismissed as a paperback writer, not worthy of such discussion, I think they miss the point. The man died in 1988, and twenty years after his death continues to dominate the western fiction bookrack. Why?
A lot of the writers of the classics that continue to be discussed and dissected ad infinitum, wrote books that today would probably not be picked up by an editor. They were beautifully written, I'm not saying they weren't, but in today's fast paced world and short attention spans they open far too slowly and often have much more detail than modern readers want to wade through. But Louie remains popular. What's the deal?
I have a full set of his books, leather-bound, and I've read them all multiple times. I've heard a number of theories on why he is successful, but to me the answer is simple. Number one, he connects with the common man, and I mean that generically as I know a lot of women who love his books. He writes on our level. The other major secret is the fact that within a scant few pages into the book we have already identified with one or more characters and care about them.
The books open fast, get us invested in the characters, and
they never whirlpool into a section where the story ceases to advance for the
sake of explanation or description or setting or anything else that stops the
forward motion of the tale. I don't know how good of a writer he was, but he
was one of the best storytellers
I think the people who do critical analysis of literature sell old Louie short . . . but it looks like the readers aren't fooled at all.
It's that time again. As soon as Saundra gets her business records caught up I have to do the taxes again. I usually have them done by now, but not this year. I've always done my own taxes. I was an accounting major in college, took tax accounting, and because of that have always felt obligated to use that knowledge.
My accounting professor used to say that to cheat as much as a dollar on a return made someone as big a crook as one who stole thousands. Then he paused, gave us a sly grin and said that he would be even more ashamed of a student who allowed the government to have a single dime they weren't entitled to have.
He'd be ashamed of me. Over the last 40 years I have always prepared my return fairly conservatively. I've pretty much gotten what we're entitled to, but over those years I have been audited several times, and every time I've ended up getting additional money when they did it. I only take what I can easily defend.
It's usually enough. I keep good records and offset as much of that income as I can. It got easier when I no longer had to keep double entry ledgers but instead graduated to Quicken software and began to do my taxes with Turbo-Tax Pro. There is other software as good, but I've been with these guys almost from the time they came out. The pro version of Turbo Tax does a good job of handling not only my stuff but Saundra's massage therapy business as well. It walks me through the process much easier than when I was having to ferret out all the details for myself, and if I'm audited again I buy the option where they'll help with it.
It's all about records, keeping track of income and expenses, of mileage (which with all of the meetings and conventions I did this last year is huge), and of the various overhead connected with both my business and hers. It sounds very complicated, but with the software if we keep up with it, it really isn't. I think we'll do pretty well this year, even better if they do the tax stimulus thing they are talking about.
The only thing about that is I'm not sure how you "rebate" taxes to people who didn't "bate" in the first place.
The Power of
Christian Fiction
In Mark 4:9-12 it says, "And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked him of the parable. And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: That seeing they may see, and not perceive, and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins forgiven them."
Jesus taught in parables to reach those who were not versed in the word, those who might not be saved. He did it because the parables spoke to people in terms they could understand. Today this concept is why people write Christian fiction. To wrap Biblical principles in a good story that will maintain the attention of the reader and will put the principles in terms the reader will identify with.
It doesn't mean all Christian fiction will contain a strong message or even a salvation message. The degree of faith content can range along a scale of a very strong message to very little faith content at all. What is important is that it engages the reader, pulls him into the story and keeps him there so he wants to read more of the same.
It is the process of planting seeds, and a very small seed can grow to be a mighty plant. I've been involved in the planting of seeds for a long time. I seldom get to be in on the harvest, those in the ministry get much more of that, though I cherish the few times I have been privileged to be in on the harvest. Yet those who do harvest are dependent on those who plant the seeds and nurture them along the way until the harvest is nigh. This is the business of the Christian fiction writer, to plant and nourish . . .
. . . and above all else, tell a good story that will leave them wanting more.
Many years ago I was the host at the Panhandle Professional Writers conference for NY agent Donald Maass. Nice guy. That meant I was with him for the whole conference. I also had an appointment with him late in the conference. By the time of the appointment I knew I wasn't a good fit for him as a client. I also knew that pitching an agent or an editor without doing the research and knowing that they are at the very least a solid possibility is not only a waste of time, but it is burning a bridge that later with the right pitch might have been a good possibility. I also learned not to try and go after the houses that required an agented submission even if I got a chance to do so, because the odds again were so high of burning a bridge that might later be useful. I stayed with small and mid-list houses that were set up to work with authors.
Getting to spend that time with him reshaped my approach to submissions. I quit just going through the market guide submitting to anybody who remotely listed the genre, but started doing the legwork to try and prove the market was there. Then I found out the reasons I came up with that told me the market was there controlled the way the pitch was structured, were the things the editor or agent needed to hear. I started getting published, and helped some of my friends get published. I owe Donald big time even though he never offered to represent me.
Then I was recruited to be an agent myself. I work with a base of editorial contacts and when I look at submissions I try to find things I know they are looking for. Targeting. Most agents come from a publishing background, being editors or marketing, or some function in the industry. The fact that I came from the writing side gave me some ground to make up in some areas, but gave me some strong insight in other areas. I still think a lot like a writer and don't like to tie a project up if I can't see a good place to go with it.
If I like projects I keep a substantial database on them even if I didn't have a place for them, and if I run across a market will sometimes get back to them to see if a project is still available. If it is we take a fresh look at it. If not I congratulate them, getting published is after all what we're trying to accomplish.
Targeting is the whole ballgame. For me, just submitting to a house I think is appropriate isn't enough. I have to know what editor I'm submitting to and why I think they are the right person to pitch. I not only want an editor that will be favorable to a project, but I want one that will love it and go fight for it in committee. I want an editor that wants it out there as much as my client and I do. My clients help me find those connections that can give a submission that little something extra, a team effort. They meet editors out and about too.
It's a very personal process.
Where's Daniel when I need a dream interpreted?
I had a strange one last night. All of the past President's wives seemed to be alive for some reason and were having a tea party at the white house. I didn't recognize a lot of them, but there seemed to be enough women for them to all be present. I don't remember ever seeing pictures of the early first ladies so I suppose that's why their faces were indistinct. I couldn't call up a lot of the faces of their husbands either. I do know the attire certainly seemed to be authentic for the various time periods.
The point of the dream seemed to be that Hillary was trying to get this august group to support her bid for President but only Eleanor Roosevelt and Jackie Kennedy were willing to do so. Mamie Eisenhower and Bess Truman seemed rather discomfited by the fact that she would do such an unladylike thing as to run for office. Nancy Reagan, Pat Nixon and the Bush ladies had a predictable response, and LadyBird Johnson, Betty Ford and Rosalynn Carter were circumspect and I quite frankly couldn't make out where they stood on the issue.
What's strange about this is that I'm just not a very political person. For 27 years as a chamber of commerce manager who had to work well with both parties I carried an "Independent" voter registration card and gave up voting in the primaries to avoid having it stamped with a party stamp. I was a true independent in every sense of the word and I'm still pretty much that way.
That makes the dream all that much more unusual, and it was a very vivid. I could see all of these ladies that I recognized as clear as day, and I watched as they reacted in each case. Maybe it's true. Maybe the ghosts of the past and present First Ladies come out to offer each other feedback and encouragement. It'd make a good story anyway, wouldn't it?
I suppose being an independent or not, the interpretation is, that my subconscious has made its mind up. I did say it was a strange dream, didn't I?
I did a program for the Panhandle Professional Writers on Saturday. I did it as a Q & A, and since I had a two hour time slot and the content was entirely controlled by the nature of the questions, the subject matter ranged all over the board. The questions were very good and I'm sure I learned more than they did.
One area we discussed was book promotion. We talked about book signings, and how getting the chance to do programs and events is a far better format for selling books than a signing is. Case in point I sold quite a few at that very meeting.
We talked about how important platform is and getting as much visibility as possible. We talked about what a publisher is likely to do and what is left up to the author. Most important, we talked about the internet. Amazon is the number one bookseller in the world, and online book sales are through the roof. But having a book on Amazon means little unless you have means of pointing people to that book to purchase it. Simply having someone stumble across it and find it is a really long shot strategy. I do reviews and comments and other things over there to increase my presence, but mostly it is back to visibility and online presence.
One participant said he was doing well with his site and returned well up in the rankings when somebody searched on his name. That's a great start, but if they already know our name they probably don't need to search for us. Where we need to return well in a search is by genre, or by any number of tags that they might use for a search criteria. We need them to find us when they don't know who we are.
You can find me with Christian Fiction Writer, western writer, inspirational fiction, literary agent, and any number of other tags someone might use. I am in a huge number of online groups, directories, and I tell you right off I don't have the time for all that, but I need the visibility and I have to do it. I don't use screen names at these places, I use my real name. I don't want people guessing who I am. I still work hard to get my work into bookstores and libraries, but I can't afford to overlook a strong presence in the largest bookstore of all.
I think I mentioned that one of my goals for the year is to read through the Bible again. I'm following a plan that has some of both the old and testament each year plus a reading in both Psalms and Proverbs. It's a nice mix.
It seems at present that there is a great emphasis on the need to seek wisdom and understanding by spending time in the word. A theme that fits nicely with encouraging me to keep up with the proscribed reading schedule.
Today's reading for Sunday School fits in with the theme as well, over in Ephesians. The quarterly study material had a phrase in it that really hit home: "We can't take material good with us to Heaven, but the truth we know can go on to eternity with us."
What a wonderful thought! So much of what we have and what we know is fleeting. For example, how much do we remember from school or college? Unless we are using it on a daily basis, not much, but in studying the word we are building a base of knowledge that we can use from now on.
What an investment! Nothing else we invest our time in will produce such long term results. I'm astonished that the truth of this statement never really hit home with me before.
Panhandle
Professional Writers
I'll be giving a program to this group tomorrow. It's one of the oldest writing groups in the nation, founded as the Panhandle Pen Women in 1920 it later changed its name when it allowed men to join, but they wanted to keep the same initials.
I'll be glad to get back to a meeting again. I was a member for something in the vicinity of ten years. I guess I've let it expire as I noticed I quit receiving email from the online group. I'll probably take care of that tomorrow, although it doesn't make much sense as I haven't been able to make a meeting for over a year. They meet on the third Saturday of the month and I'm always off doing a program somewhere on the third Saturday.
I was quite active when I could be though, as I was a 2 term President, 2 term treasurer, 2 term program chair, newsletter editor, and I set up and for several years moderated the PPW online group. I was very active putting on the annual conference. I'm not bragging, the group gave me much more than I ever gave them. Or maybe I am bragging, but to make a point.
Having association with other writers is so important.
Networking. I do most of mine by online these days as a member of the American
Christian Fiction Writers (
Doesn't this level of activity take more time than I have to give? Yes . . . and no.
The stats below show this website has gone over 2 ½ million hits with nearly 400,000 unique visitors. The other sites I have scattered over the internet produce visibility as well. I can't demonstrate the relationship, but I know it helps drive book sales. This visibility has produced over 900 submissions of people wanting me to represent them as an agent. It has gotten me a steady flow of gigs as a speaker at various programs and conferences. It is the driving force behind what success I've had in the publishing community. I don't really have the time to do it, but I have to have time to do it if that dichotomy makes sense. And it started with PPW.
It'll be nice to go home again.
A lot of editors and agents don't want any attachments to an email. Some want electronic submissions but want it all in the body of the email, no attachments. Others, like Tamela and I, don't want hard copy submissions and do want them as an attachment, not in the body of the email.
These differences point up why it is so important to check the submission guidelines before we send to anybody. Those who don't want attachments probably are concerned about them containing viruses. I understand that. I have massive virus protection and several layers of backups, but understand at some point that I will have a problem. It's a cost of doing business.
A proposal in the body of an email is not a virus threat either, but I prefer them attached as a single word or .rtf file because I like to see if the writing is properly formatted, and if it's a project I like it is easier for me to use it as a base to build an agency proposal on.
Why not hard copy? For one reason I lose them. I toss them in the inbox in the study along with a bunch of junk mail, and they can get away from me. I seldom work there, mostly I work wherever my computer is, so I don't get in there to dig them out and deal with them often. I don't feel all that bad about it because our submission guidelines say I don't take hard copy submissions at all, which means I'm dealing with people who don't or won't follow instructions anyway.
But the big reason for no hard copy submissions is that I do most of what I do online. Most editors I'm working with prefer to work electronically, so I need clients that will work with me in that manner. A person that tells me they don't know how to do attachments or they seldom email might as well be telling me they deliver handwritten manuscripts. I need people who are keeping up with the changing technology of the industry. A contract for one of my clients calls for delivery of a hard copy manuscript. That client is ready to send the final manuscript but when I checked with the editor to be sure, she said even though the contract calls for hard copy, she'd rather have it electronically. Exactly what I'm talking about, I want to see how well a submitting client handles the technology.
So often at conferences I hear people say "I don't see why they ask me to submit like this, or any reason a proposal needs to contain that, or some other facet called for in guidelines." There's a reason, and it isn't important how we wish to submit, it's just important that we give them what they want, unless we are just going through the motions and don't really want our project accepted anyway.
I have a Bible with really big margins, perfect for making notes transferred from Bible to Bible over the years as I have studied it and listened to sermons and Sunday School teachers. Yes, at 65 I still go to Sunday school, teaching a little when I can. When I wear a Bible out it can take me weeks to move into the new one, transferring all these notes.
On a recent visit my grandson saw me studying and making notes and asked me if I was correcting it. The way he said it made me think he was expecting me to mark the errors that I saw and maybe mark a big grade in red letters at the top. I laughed, of course, then told him no, that it was the Word of God and was perfect. I said the notes were for me, that even though the Bible is without error, my understanding of it can be faulty. When someone told me something or I found something that helped me better understand, I wanted a note to help me remember it and I wanted that note right where it could be of the most use to me.
Oh, over the years I've had people complain when they saw me writing in it, people who consider it too sacred to desecrate in that manner. I understand where they are coming from, but I don't worship the Bible, I worship the one whose words it contains. Besides, which shows a higher regard for it, someone who has a pristine, unblemished Bible held in high regard, or someone who considers it the ultimate textbook and guide for life using it and working in it and taking any means or method of finding greater understanding?
I tried to explain this to my grandson, that making such notes didn't show a lack of respect for the Bible, but an intense desire to more and more make it a VERY PERSONAL book.
I hope he got it.
This big Bible is my main repository even if I am using other resources in my study. But it isn't my favorite. I have s small Bible given to me by my mother on the day I was baptized over 50 years ago. It is a full Bible, but is scarcely larger than most New Testaments. Needless to say the print is very small, very hard for these old eyes, but I have always carried it, and usually have it with me as I still carry it each day. It is an old friend and has seen me through a lot.
So if you see me over there writing in the margins (when I can find room) don't bother to chastise me about it. I'm not doing it out of a lack of respect, but out of a strong desire to get closer to the Word.
Nope. Not my strength. In fact, if I'd known I was going to be this serious about writing I would have worked much harder in English class. When I have done critique or first reads for people, I've concentrated on story flow and pacing and if it has a compelling opening or if it drives the reader through the story or has any dead spots.
A line editor I'm not.
A major discussion is going on over at ACFW (American
Christian Fiction Writers) on comma usage. Commas are a nemesis of mine. Rather
than being guided by rule usage I tend to put them where they make the sentence
read the way I want it to read. In fact, When I
finished one book my cousin did a proofing of it. That's her day job,
proofreading for a publication. She made a few small suggestions, and changed a
lot of commas. It went to a copy editor where he made a few suggestions and
changed a lot of commas. Before it went into galley form, a senior editor read
it and what a surprise, changed a lot of commas.
He asked me about it and I said I
didn't need to see it again before the galleys were struck, that I wasn't going
to fight battles over commas unless I found one as I read that I thought really
changed the meaning of the sentence. Out of curiosity I paid close attention to
commas as I went through the galleys and found it was very close to my original
version before the others had changed it.
The discussion has people lining
up on three sides. One side insists on following strict punctuation rules.
Others say that comma usage is declining and sentences are instead being broken
in two or commas not being used. A third group advocates comma usage driven by
how it makes the sentence read. There are other opinions which might be a
derivative of one or more position, and I won't go into where the predominance
of opinion is coming down. What is clear is the fact that, like the editors in
the story above, there can be a difference of opinion as to how they can be
used. What matters to me is how the editor that has the final say on the
project sees it.
Maybe it's easier for me since I
consider this area a weakness than for someone who prides themselves on their
grammar skills, but as I said unless I think it changes the meaning of a
sentence, it isn't a battle I fight. In one case after we had a discussion over
some comma usage I just sent her a page full of commas and said she could just
put them where they went.
You know, the thing about
half-kidding . . . is that the other half is serious.
I
Read Your Guidelines, but . . . .
I love it when I get a submission that starts off that
way. Translated it means "I know more about your business than you do so .
. ." That may be true, but if it is they don't need me to represent them,
right? If they know that much about it they can do a better
job than I can anyway. More specifically translated it
means "Please throw me in the trash."
One of the popular ways this phrase comes in is telling
me they don't need to go to the work of writing a proposal, if I'll just read
their manuscript it will speak for itself. This of course in spite of the fact
that the guidelines say we don't want a full manuscript unless we ask for it.
They figure I'm just being cranky of course.
Maybe I am.
Actually I don't skip the proposal step because there's
a strong chance I won't ever get one if I don't get it up front. Second, the
things I ask for in the proposal help me evaluate whether the project is even a
fit for us. I don't need to spend a lot of time reading things that I don't
have a market for, particularly when I'm having so much trouble keeping up with
submissions anyway. Besides, I want to know if it's something I can work with
before I read because I may really like it, and the last thing I want to do is
fall in love with some project that I can't do anything with. Because if I
loved it I'd have to try, and I'd spend an inordinate amount of time trying to
force something instead of working with the markets I'm presently familiar
with, where I have carefully forged contacts.
Third, I get the best proposal when they are trying to
catch my attention, not when they already know I like the writing and don't
feel like they have to work so hard. And I can do a much better job of writing
an agency proposal if I have a good client proposal to draw on, and I'll never
know as much about a project as the author themselves.
I'm sure others look at it differently and that's okay
too. One thing most people in the industry agree on is to check the submission
guidelines where we wish to submit and to comply with them. And if we feel
compelled to say "I read your submission guidelines, but . . ." then
I should just save the postage and find some submission guidelines that ask for
it the way I want to send it.
Rubbing the
It we're rubbing a cat and it's making his fur stand up
and making him uncomfortable, the cat needs to turn around because we're
rubbing him the wrong way. If we read in the Bible and it makes us
uncomfortable and rubs us the wrong way, then maybe
we need to turn around too.
I like that. When people come to the Lord its because
they come under conviction, start getting rubbed the wrong way, and can only
find peace by turning around their lives. But children of God can get turned
around too, and if reading the word starts making our fur stand up we had
better start paying attention.
I'm starting the New Year reading through the Bible again.
I hope as I go that I'm going to be sensitive to the places that pinch and bind
a bit, places where the fur starts getting ruffled. I surely don't want to be
lulled into trailing off following the ways of the world instead of
strengthening my walk with the Lord. When that still, small voice inside me
starts talking I want to be listening.
Who would think just rubbing a cat would have such a
profound message?
Introducing Kevin and Kristen, didn't I just do that? Oh
yeah. But Joyce Anthony did it much better over on her blog interviewing first
him and then her so
I'm going to suggest you go over and take a look – the URL for it is http://joyceanthony
Are you remembering to write 2008 when you are called
upon to write a date yet? That's always a hard one for me but so far so good.
So many submissions that I receive just aren't a good fit
for the markets I'm currently trying to work in. That's a shame, and I hate to
have to tell that to people who are offering their babies to me. But they
deserve to have somebody who is well placed with the contacts to take their
baby to market. Still, that isn't the worst part. For me the worst is the fact
that I know I won't be able to sell everybody I'm trying to represent. I don't
even want to admit that to myself. My goal is to make it happen for every
single one that I take on.
Do I suspect who might not make it? Nope, I believe in
all of them or I wouldn't have teamed up with them. Is it possible we'll beat
the odds and all of them will be published by this time next year? Yes, it is
surely possible and together we're going to try and make it happen.
Together? Surprisingly enough my clients have woven
themselves together with me in a little writing community. We share leads and
comments and triumphs as well as consolation for near misses. We pray for each
other and encourage each other and I'm blessed to just be associated with them.
We had some sales in 2007, but is it possible for everybody to sell in 2008?
Don't count us out.
Okay, so Day One was eating blackeyed
peas and sauerkraut, watching football and the Rose Bowl parade, and taking
down the Christmas tree. I was operating under a prohibition to do nothing
writing related other than checking email when Saundra and mama weren't
looking. It's Day Two when we start to get down to the business of the new
year.
I did work out and eat a light lunch with an eye toward
shedding that ten or so pounds that need to come off. How'd that work out for
me? Great, I feel terrific. Well, actually I feel sore already, how would you
expect an old fat man unused to a great deal of physical exercise to feel when
suddenly subjected to it? But I'm gonna give it a shot.
I did manage to work in the writing time I promised
myself I'd do and have added about 2500 words to my work in progress. Probably
get another shot at it tonight. Looked over a contract for one of my clients
and have been trying to reach their legal department to discuss it, then I got
a promised submission off on its way. Now I'm working up another submission to
go as soon as I finish this little blog break. Have to change these things each
day if we want to keep people interested enough to drop by.
Let's see, exercise, writing, submissions and blog, does
that cover what I resolved I was going to be working on? Yes, and reading
through the Bible again in a year. I'll get today's portion of that done when I
have a little quiet time here after a bit.
One day in a row. As with most resolutions the task is
continuing to put one foot in front on another and keeping the resolutions
going. How are you doing on yours?
Winding down 2007 and trying to start the New Year in
good shape. I've managed to work through submissions that have bent sent to me
to the point where I have nothing in my hands older than a month unless
something has fallen through the cracks. I only have sixteen sitting here to do
and would like to get them done to start the year fresh. Of course they
continue to come in daily, so there's a question as to how current it is really
possible to be.
I do have 41 that I am waiting for the writers to send
me something. Maybe I've asked for a proposal on a query I liked, or perhaps
liked a proposal and asked for a full manuscript. At any rate, that isn't my
problem, it's up to the folks on the other end.
These numbers don't sound like much until you know that
they are what is left of over 900 submissions. Others may get more than that,
but it was a lot for me. With a fresh start or very nearly so, we'll see what
2008 holds.
The other side of the coin is working on submissions for
my clients, and I'm working up new ones to go out right after the holidays. I'm
blessed to be working with some terrific writers and I know they are all
gearing up for a really strong year as well.
So, a fresh start, positioning to hit the ground running
on behalf of my people, new opportunities to interface with editors already on
the calendar; bring on 2008, I think I'm as ready as I'm going to be.
The only time
I was able to do a very good job of
making and keeping New Year's resolutions was the
year I resolved to not make any more fool resolutions
I couldn't keep. I've kept that one for many years.
But this year is different. Maybe I do need to make
one and keep it. Oh, I could make one about my
walk of faith or my service to the Lord, but to be
honest, that's something I work on all the time and
constantly try to improve on.
This one is writing related. I spent so much of my time
this year representing my clients, and going to and presenting programs at 24
conferences and a number of other events, that I virtually gave up on my own
writing. I really don't want to do that and plan in the coming year to build in
a little writing time myself.
What do I plan on writing? I write inspirational fiction
and have a lifelong fondness for the old west. But even though I like that time
period I don't really write westerns, more like historicals,
and I tend to have many more female readers than male. I suppose I'll continue
to tell the stories I find on my heart to tell, and I imagine they will
continue to be fast-paced, simple little tales. Ernest Hemmingway I'm not.
Some of my tales have made it into print and been fairly
well received. I have others that have made the rounds and have never found a home.
I don't believe in doing major renovation to a story on the basis of a turndown
or two. That is, after all, only one person's opinion of whether it fits their
market or not. But when one has been looked at by a number of people,
particularly if some of the turndowns share common threads, then there is
probably a problem with the work itself that needs to be addressed. I have a
few of these that probably need to be rethought. Not tossed away, as the story
idea is not bad, but maybe needs a fresh approach. Maybe needs to be written
from the ground up. I may revisit some of these in the coming year.
I've also tried my hand at something new, and while
those new efforts have not borne fruit yet, I suspect they will be revisited in
the year ahead. One thing about working as an agent is that I am sent a number
of things that encourage me in my writing. That cause me to think I'm better
than that. Oh, but my goodness I get so many others that make me think these
people write so much better than I do, what makes me think I can write? Apart
from the agent function, as a writer that's quite a range of emotions. I
suppose as I set aside time to do some writing I have to divorce myself from
that process entirely. It isn't about how I compare to other writers, good or
bad. It is only about what I have to say myself and what I have to offer. I
just have to tell my little tales and let the Lord decide whether he has a
place for them or not.
I just know I still have stories on my heart to tell,
and I represent a wonderful group of people who have such stories as well. I'm
going to do my best to help them get their words out in the coming year . . .
and maybe a little of my own as well.
Christmas at my Grandma’s house was there ever such a
time?
And I a button scarcely large enough that I could climb
Upon the wing of Grandpa’s rocker, feet upon the rail
And watch him smoke his pipe & smile as I told him many a tale.
Christmas at my Grandma’s house and the tree would reach the ceiling.
The smell of cooking filled the air & the world was bright with
feeling.
From the height we looked the presents stacked more than halfway up the
tree.
And came back down near half the wall, and many of them for me!
Christmas at my Grandma’s house, and music filled the air.
Uncle Ray’s piano shook the room as he played without a care.
Uncle Bills fiddle took it high, Daddy’s guitar filled it in;
We kids supplied the chorus, though maybe a little thin.
Christmas at my Grandma’s house, but we always had to wait
For Uncle Edgar to get back home from the shopping trip he’d take.
We kids would gather round his door and try to peek inside
As he wrapped those final presents while the smallest of us cried.
Christmas at my Grandma’s house, and how excitement grew!
For though the gifts cost not too great neither were they too few.
As parents, aunts, uncles & cousins all bought something small
For each kid, and our eyes bugged out as our stack grew oh so tall!
Christmas at my Grandma’s house, and little did I know
That I was filling my heart so full of love that through the years would
go.
I still recall and see it clear, the faces plain as day
And though I live a hundred years, I’ll always feel this way.
For Christmas at my Grandma’s house is a fairy tale in time!
When love and laughter filled the air and everyone felt just fine.
It cannot be repeated, nor would I if I might;
For our own have been as special, but still there was that night....
When Christmas at my Grandma’s house made all the world seem right.
But now I would remember, and have YOU see that sight.
And as you celebrate this year comes this vision from the past
And I hope this time is just as good and hope these joys do last.
Yet above all of the wonderful times with
family and friends
we must be ever mindful that the reason for
the season
is the celebration of the birth of our Lord
and Savior.
Merry Christmas to you one and all . . . . .
Introducing Kevin and Kristen Collier
Kevin and Kristen are a husband and wife youth
writing team. The couple has
over 40
books
published either as author, illustrator, or both.
Kevin Collier, an award-winning children’s
author who is young at heart, is truly gifted by the
Lord to write for children. His first book was praised
as a "masterpiece of communication" by critic Diane
was selected by World Magazine (Dec. 6, 2006) as
"one of the 50 fifty best picture books of all
time." Kevin also writes columns and illustrates entertainment pieces for
several print and online magazines. The two have a 9-year-old son. Kevin also
teaches art and cartooning classes at local schools and colleges, is a writing
instructor for Writing Avenue, Inc. of Grand Haven. He has also had original
comic strips published in various
Kristen Collier B.A. in English from
I've been having a discussion with a
good friend who asked me about writing a book. He's been writing a lot of short
stuff and felt he was ready to step up to a larger work. I think I surprised him by asking him
questions, looking to see how motivated he was to do it. I think in the process
I learned some things about how much he wanted to do it and I believe he
learned a little about his own motivation as well.
Why was I asking? It seems to me
that the quality of a book is directly related to how motivated or driven the
writer is about accomplishing the project and doing it well. Good writers I talk to, even when they are doing
something else, seem to never have their current work far from their mind. Even if they have little time to invest in
writing, they are investing all they can. The priority of the work seems to end
up reflected in the quality of the prose.
When I hear that someone has spent
five years writing a book, most of the time that means one of two things. It
can mean they have been learning their craft and constantly going back applying
what they learned, growing as they write the work, or it can mean it was a very
low priority for them and it just took them a long time to do. The time is not
the problem, the priority is. Of course, if I were to represent a book that
took that long to write I'll admit I'd be a bit nervous whether the author
could meet a deadline on corrections, but that's another subject.
Sinclair Lewis said, "It is
impossible to discourage the real writers – they don't care what you say,
they're going to write." So if somebody says, should I write a book, then
I want to know "do you have to?" If they don't have to do it then
they probably shouldn't. Just wanting to write a book is inadequate motivation.
Having a story or stories on your heart that you simply HAVE to get out, that's
where good books come from. After playing with my friend's head a little I
think he might have what it takes.
Introducing
Joe Ragont!
Joe Ragont has been
involved in the Christian
Community for over forty years. He owns and
manages Ragont Design, a
graphic design firm
serving primarily Christian publishers and
organizations. His company provides creative
design and copywriting for books, catalogs,
newsletters,
brochures, etc. He has written and illustrated dozens
of
Bible-based leaders' guides and overhead transparency
programs. For thirty years he has led a weekly Bible
study
for men, and he is constantly sought after for
teaching and
speaking opportunities.
Joe and his wife,
Pat, live in
I think writers are born writers,
and that it’s the
same for dancers and artists and
so on. If you are a writer,
you have stories in your head
that just won’t stay put. No
matter how crazy-busy your life
might be, with jobs and
kids and a host of responsibilities, you find
a way to
carve out time for writing. In
my case, it began with a pen
and notebook as I sat through
soccer practices and swimming
lessons, or during lunch when
I’d stay at my computer while my coworkers went to the staff lounge.
When ideas for a novel first
began infiltrating my brain, despite my efforts to push them away, a scene from
my childhood kept resurfacing and eventually became the prologue. It wasn’t
long before a whole platoon of personal experiences and people in my life
marched one-by-one into the 300 plus pages that eventually became “Healer.” I
had written manuscripts for children’s books prior to that, but never did I
consider cranking out a novel. Too busy. No time. My imagination and writing
skills could never stretch that far. Or so I thought.
For the past 26 years I’ve
been blessed with the ability to provide income for myself and my family as a
reporter, an editor and in public relations. A few years ago, I decided I
wanted to do something far greater with those writing skills – use them to
spread God’s Word. In attempting this endeavor, I was blessed with amazing
church leaders from whom I learned so much, the opportunity to meet and learn
from authors through my library public relations job, and a resulting series of
connections to agents and publishers. Along the way I met award-winning authors
Terry Trueman and Lisa Samson, who played very
different, but equally valuable roles in this process. I will always be
grateful to them. And speaking of grateful, thank you, Terry Burns, for
making me part of your “little writing community.”
As for the non-writer
segment of my life, I’m a mom who loves that role and all it implies, with a
shaggy-haired, guitar-playing teenage boy, a 10-year old princess (and future
author) and a singer/actress 20-year old stepdaughter. I share them, and my
life, with my husband Gary, my best friend and keeper of my heart. We live on a little lake in
Client Amy Alessio has a short story in a book
about to be
released by Echelon Press inspired
by the heroes
of the 2007
"In a world filled with disasters and catastrophes,
there always remains hope. In The Heat of the
Moment, twenty-one authors came together
with a showcase of short fiction.
Committed to aiding those who lost so much in the
blink of an eye, we proudly offer this tribute to the
true heroes of the
We invite you to wear your own red ribbon in honor of
their extraordinary "Courage and
Inspiration."
Proceeds from the sale of this book will offer aid to those
heroes through the support of the "Fire Safe Council of San Diego
County."
Stories include Treasures, By Amy Alessio, From the Ashes by Reagan Black, Firestorm,
by Carl Brookins, Smoke and Mirrors by
Austin S. Camacho, Angel of the Morning by Anne Carter, The 'Really Hot' Adventures of
Guy by Norm Cowie, Devil's Breath, by Janelle
Dakota, Scars, by JRG DeMarco, A
Blaze in the Night, by Robert Goldsborough, A World Left Behind, by
Kevin Helmhold,
Where There's Smoke … by C. Hyytinen,
Firedreams, by Heather S. Ingemar, A Gallery in Chicago by Margot Justes, 9:35 pm by Alyssa Montgomery, Moving
On, by Sam Morton, Tinder House by Kelle
Z. Riley, A Slight Detour by Jeff Sherratt, Cait Sidhe by
Jacquelyn Sylvan, Meltdown by Dana
Taylor, Fire and Magic by
Christine Verstraete, and Bite Deep by Marc Vun Kannon.
Book is available at Amazon.com http://tiny.cc/tho6h
ordered through your local bookstore or bought direct from http://www.echelonpress.com/
Introducing
Jim Dyet
Born
in
Married
49 years to Gloria, a native of
Three
adult children
Avid
golfer
Education
Graduate
and Senior Class President, Moody Bible Institute (1957)
Graduate
studies at
Editorial
Positions
Editor,
Executive Editor: Accent Publications, 1971–1990
Youth
and Adult Editor: Regular Baptist Press, 1990–1995
Managing
Editor: Accent Publications and Scripture Press Publications, divisions of Cook
Communications Ministries
Church
Ministry Positions
Senior
Pastor, Interim Pastor, Part-time Pastor, Pulpit Supply 1958–present
Other
•
Theological Consultant
•
Manuscript Consultant
•
Conference Speaker and Writing Workshop Leader
•
Board Member and
•
Freelance editor.
Jim is working with
fellow author and illustrator Joe Ragont on a book
called Moments of Grace that I'll be representing them on. Joe will be
introduced later.
To squat or to crouch down in order to get through some difficult ordeal. When I was in the Army and it was about to get bad we'd "hunker down" and tough it out. We've supposedly got three very bad days of weather bearing down on us, so that's what we'll do, bring mama over here with us, make sure we have what we need, and just ride it out.
The good news is that gives me a couple of days to solidly work submissions and try to get them back under control, if I ever had them under control. I've received over 900 of them this year and still have some 60 on hand that I haven't been able to respond to yet. I should be able to cut into that total significantly. One good thing, with the writers on strike TV isn't much of a temptation away from doing it.
Typically the publishing industry is pretty dead in December. Or that's what I thought. I worked with one editor yesterday finalizing a contract, received five negative responses (rejections are personal, a negative response is not), had four requests for full manuscripts from some who liked proposals. Just yesterday.
That doesn't sound dead, that sounds like people trying to work off their desks. Maybe that's it, with a lot of scheduling things in the office because of Christmas schedules with people taking off for the holidays, perhaps they have just hunkered down to clear off their desks, just like I'm doing.
The big downside of this is I don't have a wood-burning fireplace. Being able to curl up in front of a big fire with the computer in my lap would be great. I think there should be a channel on TV that 24 hours a day just made the TV look like a fire in a fireplace and played soft music. Maybe there's a CD of that, I haven't looked. It wouldn't be as good, of course, but I could pretend.
But I'm stalling. Time to hunker down.
They are rare, but occasionally we get a rejection where the person really takes the time to say WHY the project wasn't a fit for them. This is terrific input, but even then I don't do major revision to a work based on one opinion unless I recognize the truth of it right off.
This is on my mind because I just got such a response on submissions of two of my clients. I really appreciated the feedback as it will help me better select future submissions for that editor, it told me some things about my own writing, and it allowed me to give valuable feedback to the two clients who can then decide what that feedback might or might not mean for them.
I can't predict how
the clients will react, I've passed such input before, and the decision is
theirs, so let me talk about my own writing. I've had some modest publishing
success of my own, but I also have a half dozen projects lying around that have
never sold. I know the difference between responses that indicate the project
just doesn't fit a house, and one that suggests a problem with the work itself.
After a project has gone out a number of times and there are no nibbles, I
start thinking it needs work. I still like the concept and the story, but
something isn't working.
As I have time
I'm revisiting them and rewriting them. One of the perks of being an agent,
besides the pleasure of reading 900 proposals, is to see negative responses
come back not only on my own work, but on those of 24 clients. I learn more
from the negative responses, believe it or not, than from positive. If one
sells, it isn't uncommon to not know what there was about it that made it a
winner, it just connected. God bless the editor that takes the time and effort
to make a comment that will help a writer develop their craft, I know how dear
that time is that they are spending to do it. And I know how often that effort
falls on deaf ears as the recipient of it does not agree with the feedback offered.
It's that way
with me too, but I really try to get past it to see the value of what I'm being
offered and to utilize it. But I have this problem, sometimes I put my blinders
on wrong and instead of blocking the side view to keep me focused on where I'm
going, I wear them where they block the front but I'm getting the side input
fine.
Saturday Saundra and I went to
for a Gaither concert (Photo of Gaither Vocal
Band) . It was great, 4 hours of terrific gospel
music. It was at the Texas Tech Spirit arena
where they play their basketball games and it
was filled, including the floor seats. We were
also impressed with a young quartet called
"Signature Sound," who just blew us away.
The musing part?
That came to me at church this morning. Most of my time these days is concerned
with trying to have an impact on the written word. Writing, trying to encourage
others who write, trying to select and represent works that I feel led to help
the author get out. All are aspects of working with the written word.
In all of this
connection to writing, a book, article or story if done well tells the message
the writer intends to convey. Oh, there may be an occasional double meaning or
deeper message involved, but for the most part
every time we read it it will still be the
same book.
The Bible is
different. Each time we open the cover there is something different for us to
find depending on our present needs and the way the Holy Spirit is leading us right at that particular time. The Bible
is the only written work that is a LIVING DOCUMENT, ever changing, and always
meeting the day to day needs of the believer.
As writers, more
than anyone else, we should be awed and amazed that the Lord through those he inspired
to write this book, was able to accomplish this. It is a feat that will not be
repeated.
Trish was on the 1988
jump and it’s where she met her husband, Pat Porter,
two times U.S. Olympian in the 10,000 meters. She
retired from competing because of a neck injury. Two
children Connor, 10, and Shannon, 6, and eleven years
later she rekindled her dream and is competing on the
masters National and International level. She is the current world record
holder, 5’ 9 ¼”, for the high jump age 40-44 years. She has broken her own world record four
times. She is the reigning World Masters Champion for indoors and two times
outdoors and has won the U.S. National Masters Championships six times in a
row. One of her strengths is working
with the media and generating publicity via television, newspaper and/or radio.
She has a B.S. from
She has had an article published on CBN.Com and in MomSense Magazine which was then selected to represent MomSense in the Woman Inspirational category for CTI’s 50th Anniversary Celebration. She was a contributor to The Olympian E-Newsletter Magazine, and the book But Lord I was Happy Shallow by Marita Littauer. She also endorsed Standing Up for Your Child without Stepping on Toes by Focus on the Family author, Vicki Caruana.
Current project proposal: The non-fiction book titled Rekindle Your Dream, Practical Ideas For Women To Take Their Passion And Make It Happen. There are many women who are not living their passion because they don’t know how or think it’s impossible. She encourages them to revive their dream by giving them the tools and practical steps to help overcome the excuses encountered along the way. She also includes other women who are successfully living their passion.
It's easier for
me to cut than add. I suppose it's different for different people. I was
recently asked to look at a short story one of my clients was submitting. No, agents
don't handle short stories, I was doing it as a friend. I made a couple of
suggestions to the flow of the story that she liked, then when she said she had
to get the word count down to the target I went through and replaced some
passive verbs with active verbs, then cut out some unnecessary modifiers, and
got it to where she needed it and she couldn't find what I cut out.
Adding is
different. If a small amount is needed, going through and enhancing
descriptions, more character action, a few words per page will generally get
it. If more is needed an additional scene or two will work. But what if we have
to take a 50k word work up over 85k. All of the above plus some.
I'm faced with
doing that now, and have spent the last three trips in the back seat working on
the computer while Saundra drove. Between the three trips that's 60 hours of
writing time with no distractions. She and mother sit up there and talk and I
can't even hear them.
The big word
count comes from the introduction of some new characters, then working them in
a new subtheme through the whole book, plus integrating them into the main
storyline. The changes have steadily strengthened the story as the 50k version
was a little sparce even for someone who tells simple
stories as I tend to do. The broad brush strokes are done, the word count is
above 85k, so now all I need to do is edit and polish, and to insure that the
flow is seamless.
It's been good
doing some writing again. I love working for my clients, but I don't really
want to completely give up my own writing to do it.
When it's time
for me to sit down and give thanks,
one blessing above all else ranks.
Jesus died for
my sins, but that's not the best;
one blessing is greater, let me tell
you the rest.
The greatest
blessing is when I stand 'fore the throne
to know that I won't be there alone,
That all of my
loved ones will be by my side
hand-in-hand at the evening's tide.
I give thanks
for parents that showed me the way
and children that stepped out when
it was their day;
Who raised their
children in the ways of The King,
and took time to see that they know
everything.
So thank you
Lord for saving more than me;
for saving and keeping my whole
family.
For on that
great day when we meet in the sky,
the greatest
blessing is my family nearby.
©
Cowboys Don't Read Poetry – Terry Burns – Txjack
Publishing 2001
My cell phone had such a great time in Branson
that it decided to stay for a few more days. I think
it's going to take in a couple more shows (Saundra
is still talking about Mannheim Steamroller) and
I'm hoping the phone will fly back here in a day
or two. That's the pitts when your electronic
devices have more fun than you do, isn't it?
Thought I'd toss in a picture of client Linda Apple,
who condescended to being seen with me just before
she upstaged me on the faculty and who ganged up with
Saundra and Mother against me. What's fair about that?
They talked about it on Good Morning America this morning, Newsweek had an article on it, and Michael Hyatt, Thomas Nelson publisher wrote his column on it. What is it? The announcement from Amazon about a new eBook reader that may well usher in the anticipated ebook revolution. We've had readers for some time, but the big difference here is internet connectivity. Downloading books to a device about the size of a paperback book and has the capability of holding 200 of those little suckers. Wonder how you go about autographing one of those honkers?
I've thought for years that the big advance would come when
colleges began to put textbooks on them to cut costs. I still think that's
coming, with a whole generation learning to look upon an e-book as their usual
method of reading. But the time may already be here. Will this device replace
books? People thought hardbacks would be replaced when paperbacks hit the
There will always be people who want to curl up with a paper book, one they can see sitting on the shelf of their library. But there's room for the new alternatives as well. I think things are about to get very interesting. It would sure be handy if I could download manuscripts and proposals on it.
One more picture from Branson,
Western Spur Award winners Jory
Sherman and Dusty Richards, with
me hoping some of it would rub off:
I have no
idea how he did it, but I’ve just reviewed the
accomplishments and comments of all of you in “Terry’s talented gang”
(TTG) and I’m in a state of WOW!—followed by—You’re in tall cotton
now, girl. How are you gonna keep up with this crowd?
But then, I’ve been overwhelmed all my life. I’m still
flabbergasted that the good lookin’ blonde, blue-eyed kid I met in
Sunday school (I was fourteen; he was fourteen and three-fourths) married
me eight years later, in that same church. He was a Top Gun guy by then
and I was a retired stewardess. I said “retired” but that isn’t exactly true.
When we “stews” married the airlines took our white gloves, our hats and
put us out to pasture—permanently. I felt bad about the hat. It was really cute.
Fifteen years passed. I became a
mother again, and again, and again while my husband ran around the world
playing war games with the Russians, the North Koreans and the North
Vietnamese. When
I knew God had saved me when
American Airlines hired and assigned him to fly out of
Our sons thrived and soon I was forty and about to lose my job as their mother. I knew I had to find something else to do, because my Aunt Faye said, “Working is part of our family tradition, dear, and being unemployed is unseemly.” I looked here and there, but nothing I inquired about paid the wages I thought would give me the dignity and respect that were commensurate with my age.
Then, she walked into my life—a friend of a friend who had written and published five romantic mysteries. I was dumbstruck. A writer. I had never seen one before.
In the ensuing months close observation of her lifestyle, writing schedule, and wardrobe produced some mind-blowing conclusions: A writer can wear anything she wants to work—or nothing at all; A writer can stay home on snowy days, cozy by the fire, and write while everybody else is slippin’, slidin’ and stallin’ on their way to work; A writer works when she pleases, early or late—it’s her choice; A writer’s free to show up at her desk barefaced and totally devoid of makeup—the computer could care less. But the last observation and the best was: A writer never, never, never has to wear pantyhose. It was a defining moment for me. My vision was suddenly clear, suddenly free of confusion. I knew this writing thing was for me.
I bought a tablet the next day,
sharpened my pencil and sat down in front of a roaring fire, ready to write.
What a kick to be a part of TTG. If anybody has a mother-in-law/daughter-in-law story to tell, I’d love to see it. E-add: Donna.mari@comcast.net for the guidelines.
I just returned from
They took me out to eat some great Cajun food on Friday
night. I loved it. I developed a taste for it when I was right across the river
managing the Chamber of Commerce in
I expected to see more hurrican
damage than I did, especially in
Now comes the Ozark Writers in Branson
Greetings fellow Christian scribes! My greatest dream has
already come true because an agent believed in my Christian
writing. And not just any agent, but I was blessed with
Mr. Gung-Ho himself.
Thank you, Terry, for offering credibility to my heartfelt
passion to lead people to a more spiritual look at their
world—specifically their job world, which should always
include the Lord if we hope for daily joy.
My background is writing non-fiction for youth and adults and an assortment of Christian devotionals and curriculum. I’m also known as the book doctor, helping writers so their work can shine. As a book doctor for the past 16 years, I’ve savored every one of my clients’ successes. Now with this new venture into book length Christian non-fiction, I’m feeling the renewed excitement for my own writing career and it’s exhilarating.
My family is in the “maintenance” stage with older kids/adult children and one amazing Irishman spouse. He’s the solid cornerstone, King David-ish rock of faith and praise in this house and it’s such a pleasure to fill my hours with him. The weekends we spend on motorcycle trips is big time bonus pleasure!
Thank you for allowing me to join the “gang” and please know my prayers go up each time Terry mentions someone on the email. What a super support group.
Comments: Welcome
to Terry's brood, Robyn. Here's wishing you best of luck with your book.
Regards,
Donn Taylor
Comments: Hi, Robyn! Nice to meet you. Blessings on your newest endeavors. :) Caron Guillo
Introducing James R. Callan!
Jim has a degree in English with an emphasis on writing,
but when that did not support a growing family, he returned
to graduate school in the field of mathematics. Upon
graduation, he worked as a research mathematician,
segueing into computer science. This eventually led to the
formation his own company, with his wife. Then one day,
he realized his children were grown, self-supporting, and
he could return to his original love—writing. Along the way,
he received grants from the National Science Foundation,
NASA, and the Data Processing Management Association. He has been listed in Who’s Who in Computer Science, and Two Thousand Notable Americans. Callan has published two books: one non-fiction book on computers, and a mystery/suspense novel, which appeared in print and audio. The audio version (by Books in Motion) rose as high as number seven on the publisher’s list. Two of his unpublished novels have won contests for novels.
Current Project Proposal: Cleansed by Fire is his first Christian novel. Take four burned churches, one murder, add in a priest, troubled because he has learned information about the fires – but in the confessional, so he cannot use it, a widow whose mission is to help others achieve success while she remains in the background, and a detective who has abandoned his religion because he is convinced people are basically bad and the church hasn’t changed that. Then, there’s the dangerous newcomer involved in the local drug scene, and the burly man who tells the priest the churches deserved to be burned. Add in the drop-out teen who attacks the priest with a knife, and a troubled young man, angry at the world. Countering those are the teen choir that works to help those churches that have suffered at the hands of the arsonist, and the young widow who works to change the detective’s cynical attitude and bring him back to God. Mix them together and you have Cleansed by Fire, a book that illustrates Christian principles in everyday situations, yet has enough suspense to stand as a mystery novel.
.
Comments:
Hello, Jim--
Wow! That's
quite a list of credentials you have there! Impressive! I enjoyed meeting you
at ACFW and look forward to reading your mystery in print.
Donn Taylor
The
Lazarus File
Introducing new client Bonnie Calhoun!
Bonnie is a Bible Study teacher, Teen Sunday
school teacher, and the Choir Director at her church.
As a Google certified Blog*Star, she is designated
as an expert user on Blogger. She dispenses advice
for problem resolution on the Google/Blogger Help
Boards for those using the Blogger platform. As the
Director of the Christian Fiction Blog
she has 170+ member blogs that weekly do blog
tours to market the latest in Christian fiction. She is
the Assistant Director of Fiction In Rather Short Takes
(FIRST) where first chapters of new Christian fiction are showcased each month by the approximately 50+ members. Bonnie is also the designated Northeast Zone Director for the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW). In 2007, she participated in the Greater Philadelphia Christian Writers Conference teaching workshops on blogging and Marketing, Publicity, and Promotion. She has plans to develop a brand "feel the beat…" where her readers know that she will deliver heart pounding action and adventure.
Current Project Proposal: What if a real government project had the
ability to control the weather? In Touched By Fire, Montana Sinclair
poured her heart into creating a project for measuring the magnetism circling
the Earth. Now she discovers that someone is using her project to physically
destroy the
Author websites: http://bonniescalhoun.blogspot.com
http://bonnieswritingtips.blogspot.com
When
our kids were young, bedtime stories were
part of the daily
routine. After prayers, they got a
story.
Most of the story books left
us unsatisfied (ever skipped
a line, a paragraph, or a whole
page)? I quickly evolved
from story reader to story
teller. This gave me the leeway
to turn the kids into the
stars of the stories. The main
character was a big, friendly bear named George who
always showed up in the nick
of time to save the kids
from some perilous
danger. The kids loved the action,
the scary parts, and the
“giggly” parts, but mostly they
loved being in the
story. If they had a choice between a
George Bear story and a book
story, George Bear won every time.
When
the kids married and established their own families, they told their children
about Grandpa’s stories. Now when the
grandkids come to visit one of the first things I hear is “Can we have a George
Bear story?” Even those who consider
themselves too old or too “cool” for stories always hang around within ear shot
to find out what role they play.
For
the past several years my kids have badgered me to write their childhood
stories. Finally, I put pen to paper and
produced George Bear Bible Stories –
a collection of thirty two tales taken from scripture, but featuring the
listeners in starring roles .They are Noah’s grandchildren, brick makers for
the
So,
who am I?
I
attended the
Most significantly, I led a Young Life
Club. Bringing biblical characters to life in weekly
messages to teenagers developed my story telling skills-- valuable skills
regardless of the age of the audience.
During the time of my involvement with high school kids, I was privileged
to see many hundreds commit their lives to Christ and walk a new path. One of the kids in my club was Melody Hickman
– now Melody Carlson. She has over 200
books in print, about half of which are for kids. She liked the manuscript and suggested some
modifications. Terry graciously agreed
to represent me, and now we’re hoping to find a publisher.
I’m
an avid
My
wife, also my high school sweetheart, and I live in
Comments:
Jack,
Hope to see your book in print soon. I would buy it
to read to my grandkids.
Congrats on the softball championship!
We live in
Carla
Agent note: Since I've said I do not represent books for
young children (under middle reader) I think I should note I see this book as a
grandparent's book rather than a children's book – a book for grandparents to
read to their grandkids.
Alan is a creator of worlds,
a fiction writer.
For children mostly, because
they have
imaginations unconstrained by
reality. Can
pigs fly? No, but in one of
his books, Growing
Bob, a pig talks, plots, and
saves mankind
from becoming the bottom link
of the food
chain.
You can't have that much fun
writing for
adults, but he does those as
well and has one
co-written cozy mystery on
the shelves in hard
cover-- Pretty Maids, Avalon
2006.
Alan is a long time member of
Novelpro, premier online writers group, and has
critiqued many published titles.
Alan lives in
The journey begins with a single word. Years ago, I was
convinced I was a writer and wrote six books—no takers.
Submission after submission, I plodded on happily submitting
groups of words I considered masterpieces but as the pile of
rejections slowly grew higher I began to realize something was
missing. Something was truly wrong—writing in isolation.
About a year ago after hundreds of rejections, a
called me, loved my book but did not publish religious
mystery/thrillers. She suggested two things: read her favorite
book and join a professional writers’ group. That suggestion was my first step into the world of writing. I read the book, joined the Writers’ League of Texas and suddenly realized I was not the only shell on the shore. I was part of a rich contingency of writers, all with a common goal, all with similar dreams, struggling to help one another.
I joined the Panhandle Professional Writers, Terry graciously accepted me as a client and I entered the Frontiers in Writing contest. Resurrection placed second, Epistle (a lost letter written by Jesus the night before He was crucified) won first and then went on to win best of show. Suddenly I felt validated as a writer, had a knowledgeable agent and realized I have just begun my adventure in writing.
I am pleased to be part of Terry’s clientele and have enjoyed reading the introductions of his other clients. I have just finished my fourth book Saint Michael’s by the Sea (where dire secrets threaten to destroy an ancient Irish monastery) and will soon submit that one to Terry.
Having a medical background, I bring a different aspect of viewing prayer and Christianity to the agency but strongly promote these values even though heads may roll in my mysteries. For Hartline, I hope to be a transition from strictly Christian to more mainstream while still preserving all the values of Christianity.
I am a Eucharistic minister, past Senior Warden for Saint
Philip’s Episcopal Church, served on the vestry and have been the rector for
several Cursillos. I have a lovely wife Brenda of 37
years, two children and two grandchildren. I love to explore archeological
sites such as the uncharted caves in
Comments: Hello, Paul. Your writing sounds interesting, and I wait expectantly to read one of your books. – Donn Taylor
Introducing
My name is
of Terry and me at the Greater Philadelphia Christian
Writer’s Conference where we both served on faculty in
August. I enjoyed our talks together at the conference,
usually about the limited opportunities for boys’ fiction
in our Christian publishing
that will change—and hopefully soon.
Terry and I shared a ride to the airport after the conference
ended. The trip started out normal enough, until the person
giving us the ride realized he’d made a wrong turn—about thirty minutes earlier. We ended up taking two more wrong turns before finally getting to the airport. I barely made my flight—Terry missed his. I learned how calm Terry was in a pressure situation, and I was that much convinced that I made the right decision when I’d signed on with him just a month or so earlier.
As for a little background, I’ve been happily married to my
high school sweetheart for 27 years.
We’re thankful to God for that, and for our three boys, 23, 20, and
17. We live in
I have six books published—three of them on family devotions. This naturally paved the way for me to teach workshops at churches around the country. The workshops are designed to help parents of 8-16-year-olds lead effective family devotions. Parents leave equipped and confident, and I totally love it. Let me just say this right now. I give all credit to God for everything worthwhile I’ve done. I can’t imagine where I’d be without Him—and don’t want to try.
I’m just finishing a book with Group Publishing targeted
towards small group leaders for guys in high school. They’ve named it Dangerous Devotions for Guys and it will be out late in 2008. Terry is shopping around Midnight Shadows, the first in a fiction adventure series for
8-12-year-olds. We’re hoping to find the
right editor at the right time. Soon
I’ll be working on the second book in the series, Code of Silence.
It’s been great to read about each of you and the projects
you’re passionate about. Some of you
I’ve met at conferences—so that’s great.
Wouldn’t it be nice for all of us to meet at Terry’s sometime for a
barbeque? Maybe I’m writing this too
close to dinnertime, but a
Comments: That
must have been when Terry blogged about missing his flight a few months ago.
Terry must have been a whole more calmer than I would have been. Great to learn
more about about you, Tim. We have a great agent that
shares so much with us.
Jennifer Hudson
Introducing Susan Lyttek!
I’ve had fun reading all the introductions. They have acted as
momentary respites in the chaos that I call Fall.
You see, I am the homeschool mother of two active boys,
ages 13 and 9. I love spending my days with Erik and Karl and
I wouldn’t trade them for anything. In fact, I traded in a
go-getter government career to be with them. But it does make
the hours between 8 AM and 9 PM evaporate. In my spare
time, I act as a writing coach for Write at Home (writeathome.com),
an online writing class for homeschoolers.
Most days, I write after my husband,
I am thrilled to be part of Terry’s team. Even more, I am thrilled that God gave him the same vision for boys. Years before I had boys of my own, I was asked to teach writing classes for homeschoolers. Each class I taught had at least one boy who hated reading. And in every case, these boys had developed the reluctance to read from a combination of two factors: difficulty reading at grade level and unwillingness to read the “baby” books that they could comprehend. When I saw one boy carrying a thick book with him to pretend he’d read it because he had watched the movie, my heart broke. He needed a book he could read that even active readers would enjoy. He needed books written to him and other boys like him to let them know how important they are in God’s sight and that they are not failures.
Now, as a mother, the passion has increased since my younger son is also a reluctant reader. It is my fervent prayer that the Dinosaur Window series and other books written by my fellow boy-motivated authors encourage and bless these young struggling readers!
Richard has a terrific book on Christian Living,
a book we are working hard to get to market.
Why do too many Christians not follow through in their faith? Why are
there so many spiritual “flashes-in-the-pan?” One reason for too many
short-term believers may be that we do not understand what it means to
trust God with the rest of our life. We emphasize accepting Christ at the
start, but fail to realize that the Christian life is a marathon. There are
plenty of converts who make decisions but fewer disciples who make it
to the finish line. A relationship with Christ is more than a moment of decision. It is, as Eugene Peterson reminds us “a long obedience in the same direction.” It is about trusting God with the rest of your life. It is a spiritual marathon.
The author, Richard Brown has been a Youth Pastor/Christian
Education Director (5 years), a Senior Pastor (19 years), college professor and Dean of the Simpson
Graduate School of Ministry (12 years), then moved to Vice President of
Spiritual Formation (1 year) which was ultimately joined to his present
position as Vice President for Student Development at Simpson University,
Redding, California. During those years of pastoring
and teaching, he had an up-close look at the faith development (or lack of
development) in many lives. This experience gave him plenty of illustrations to
use of people who did or did not learn to trust God with the rest of their
life. He has a terrific platform for promoting the book. post-college career
began as a Youth Pastor/Christian Education Director (5 years), continued as a
Senior Pastor (19 years), college professor and Dean of the Simpson Graduate
School of Ministry (12 years), then moved to Vice President of Spiritual
Formation (1 year) which was ultimately joined to my present position as Vice
President for Student Development at
I am the third of six children, raised in a home where both Dad and Mom successfully raised their children to follow the Lord. After watching my folks follow the Lord for a life time, I and my wife, Kathy, (married in 1970) are now the father of four grown children (all married and following the Lord so far) with two grandsons. My prayer has been that they would see in my life (I am approaching my sixtieth birthday) what it looks like to trust God with the rest of your life.
I have a Master’s Degree in Christian Education, a Master of
Divinity Degree, and a Doctor of Ministry Degree from Bethel Seminary. I have
taught both undergraduate and graduate courses in
Introducing Caron Guillo!
I’ve just popped my head above the ocean of transition
that’s defined
my life for the last six months. The past two have been insane. But
then again, that’s not entirely accurate: It’s Jesus who defines my life,
and the changes he’s orchestrated—while intense—have brought a sweet
peace, deep satisfaction, clear vision, and a much-appreciated four-pound
weight loss. Ten would have been nice, but who’s counting?
My precious husband and I have recently heeded the Lord’s call to leave
his staff position with a vibrant congregation and immerse ourselves in
culture for the purpose of reaching those who will never walk through the doors of a church building. Bob’s gone back to school, I’ve gone back to teaching fulltime, we’ve downsized to support this shift —selling a home and cars—and we’re trying to figure out how to incarnate Jesus into the cracks and crevices of our community. Add to all that taking a freshman daughter to college two states away, marrying a son off this coming December, parenting a middle-schooler, and a heart-wrenching return trip to Zimbabwe during the first two weeks of this month. If I say more I’ll be whining.
It should come as no surprise that I’m thrilled the writer in me is clamoring to get out. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve had the energy to be creative, but my heart and mind are eager to get back to it.
I loved catching up on the client introductions this morning. Terry has done a surprising and wonderful thing: networking us into a community of writers that offer encouragement, ideas, and connections galore. What a blessing to be part of this gifted family!
Terry has his hands on my historical novel. As a former world history teacher, I have long been intrigued by the shocking account of the commoner’s crusade of 1212. In this context, Children of Light was written to explore every man and woman’s struggle to find deliverance from his or her own brokenness—and how God is faithful to the task, even in the midst of our darkest moments.
I’m currently working on a women’s mainstream novel, a humorous take on the life of a grieving widow and her troubled teenage son. Go figure. My first novel, a Christian romance, received so many rejections for “excellent writing but lacks originality” that I nearly ditched the whole dream until it occurred to me that it wasn’t my dream I was pursuing. I write for God’s glory. Turns out he prefers I volunteer most of my services. Nevertheless, I’ve determined that if he wants my novels published then I better keep writing them. That, and figure out a unique way to weave The Story into mine.
I’d love for you to visit On This Journey blog at caronguillo.blogspot.com for my take on transforming discipleship. Looking forward to getting to know you all better. God bless, and many, many congratulations to those of you who are finding success on the path to publishing!
Introducing Jennifer Hudson
Are you a descendant
of the famous James Hudson
Taylor, the missionary
to
I get this question from so many people. Often, they are
surfing the Net for information on Hudson Taylor and
they find me.J The answer is no, I’m just blessed to
share his name and faith. I’m a Hudson who married a
Taylor, but I do have some ties to famous people in history.
When I was twelve, I decided to write the next Gone with the Wind, but I knew I had to create a fresh spin on it, so I tried to combine the history of my Cherokee ancestors with the Civil War. In my research I discovered the true existence of Cherokee troops that fought in the war from the North Carolina Cherokee Reservation. This was when Timeless War was born.
I wanted to write the true story of my gg-grandfather, George Washington Hudson, the son of a wealthy Southern plantation owner in the Confederacy who met and fell in love with my gg-grandmother, Emma Levinia Hicks, a full-blooded Cherokee. I don’t have a photo of Emma, but I have one of George. He looks just like my father. (View it here, http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~jentaylor/Genhome.htm, click on Our Hudson Family and scroll down.)
As you’ve probably realized by now, I love researching my
family history. My
When I started shopping Timeless War around, I discovered that publishers were shying away from the Civil War era. It was suggested that I consider targeting it for the youth market. Of course, this was my first novel and then discovered all the things I did wrong in writing it. It still sits on my hard drive. Perhaps I’ll rework it one day.
Needless to say, I kept writing and produced an Irish historical, a Scottish Medieval, a Regency, an American historical, started their sequels, and now I’m working on my first contemporary. Maybe I have to prove to myself that I can write in any genre. I’m not sure. Ideas come to me and I just go with them. I might have to start working on my “author branding”. Regardless of what I write, I pray that the Holy Spirit guides me and I’ll produce fruit for God’s glory. While I’ve been a Christian since childhood, I’m sorry to say that it took God many years to convince me to write for Him.I’m thrilled to have Terry as my agent and I enjoy working with him.
You can check out my website where I have both a bio and a
spiritual testimony that includes our experience with my daughter’s seizure
disorder, God’s healing grace, and more of my life at:
www.authorjenniferhudsontaylor.com
http://jenniferswriting.blogspot.com
CLICK HERE FOR COMMENTS
Introducing
Amy Alessio!
For the past ten years as a young adult librarian, I've
discovered that I love literature for that age group more
than most adult titles, though I am a huge mystery fan.
Its been a privilege running various clubs through the
Schaumburg Township District Library in
working with teens, and it has taught me a lot about the
reality of today's young adults. Meeting authors through
the Young Adult Library Services Association and SCBWI
began to spark my interest in writing my own book. I was
also doing lots of training and speaking around the country on young adult literature and adult mysteries and learned that there are very few good mysteries written for teens.
My husband and I have been active with the 10th Illinois Civil War Living History Unit for more years than the Civil War lasted and it occurred to me that there is a lot of material to write about with that hobby!
When a community college offered a class by one of my favorite adult mystery writers, J.A. Konrath, all these threads came together, and I finished my young adult novel The High Ground, with his help and advice from young adult author and friend Patrick Jones. In my mystery, sixteen year old Joelle searches for a killer and tries to clear her brother's name when he is accused of the crime. Her quest takes her from high school hallways to cemeteries to Civil War Living History programs.
I met Terry when I was speaking at a local mystery conference, and the final missing piece of this project appeared. I am blessed that he is helping me find a publisher, and inspiring me to work on other new projects.
I'm also grateful that my four year old has his own computer to 'work' on while Mommy does a little writing here and there...
I blog for the Love is Murder Mystery conference (linked to www.loveismurder.net) and have my own about my insanely large old cookbook collection at www.vintagecookbooks.blogspot.com when I should be spending more time writing, but I enjoy it too much to stop.
Introducing Dr. Bill Griffith!
When I was born, a physician named Dr. Bill saved my
mother’s life
and mine. I was named William, but called Bill. When I was
studying for my doctor of ministry degree, my mother could hardly
wait to call me “Dr. Bill.” But she died before I finished the work.
I call myself Dr. Bill both as a memorial to my parents and in
appreciation of the original Dr. Bill.
After graduation from
While still in seminary, I married Tanya and began my forty-five
years of ministry. I served as a student pastor, earned
my degree of
master of divinity and moved to
In the early 1970s, I wrote an opera featuring the holy
family and other characters who now appear in Darkness Before the Dawn, my biblical historical novel, now under
contract with Hartline
The minor characters of the Bible, such as Cornelius, Fortunatus, and Rhoda, always intrigued me. What events had shaped them and brought them to the places they inhabit in Scripture? What about all the other people who played either minor or major roles in preparing the way for the Messiah?
For over two thousand years, people have turned to Jesus to gain understanding of God. But before Jesus entered the world as God incarnate, many people—both Jews and Gentiles—experienced the stirring of hope in their hearts that the promised messiah would soon come. Our story is of their struggles to understand God’s use of them to prepare for and support Jesus.
When I retired, I began researching the times, lands, and people that had so captivated my imagination. I traveled extensively in the lands of the Bible, and had many opportunities to speak with archeologists, biblical scholars, and Israeli guides and to view the geography. I studied the Scriptures, ancient writings, reports of archeologists, and other searchers into the history of the time. When I considered writing a book about my studies, I became convinced that a scholarly study would only add to the disagreements between scholars and would not assist the witnesses of the preparers of the way for Christian believers and searchers. Fiction might catch the imagination of many people already among the witnesses for God or those who might be influenced to seek to become witnesses. I determined to help those witnesses as I was able.
My road to self-confidence to attempt the huge project led through the work of the poet, John Milton, who accurately reported that which was recorded in Scripture. If legend did not contradict Scripture, he chose between legend and Scripture. When Scripture was silent, imagination reigned supreme.
My choice was to research, decide, and write. My tradition calls believers to think, let think, but for the sake of God to think.
I am so pleased to be working with Terry Burns, a real
Christian gentleman, and with Hartline
Comments: Dr.
Bill,
I'm anxious to see Darkness Before Dawn published.
Sounds like a great book!
Carla Bruce
How-D folks! I’ve really enjoyed getting to know
more about
you through Terry’s blog series. So
here goes my introduction.
On the personal side, I've been married to my
beautiful wife Katie for more than 3+ years now,
have a four-month old son Nicholas, a 1-year old
beagle named Baxter and a house that recently
survived a direct lightning strike. I was born on a
military base (
My writing experience includes published articles in
six newspapers and now about a dozen magazines, including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, America’s Civil War, Georgia Physician and Boating World magazine. I’ve written
countless personality profiles and features on topics ranging from college
football to the medical industry. I’ve self-published a book prior to this
project, “Groomed: Wedding Planning and an Engagement from a Groom’s
Perspective.”
The
gist of my book is this: What if a total stranger asked you to give his eulogy?
Michael
Gavin, football legend, war hero and local philanthropist, has died of cancer.
His hometown of Talking Creek is preparing to pull out all of the stops to
honor him with parades, a football field dedication and the town’s biggest
memorial service ever. However, Gavin left one request for his funeral – that
local newspaper reporter Wes Watkins, a man he has never met, give his eulogy.
What happens next will change the town, and that reporter, forever.
Military personnel and their stories are close to my
heart. My father was a company commander in the 82nd Airborne, and
much of my interest and knowledge of the military comes from him. A close
friend, Matthew Blackwell, served in
This book combines two topics
woven into the fabric of
Comments: What a lovely baby! Good luck with your new
book; it sounds wonderful.
Amy
Comments: Hello, Graham. You have quite a resume for
someone under 30! Thanks for your writing on those particular military topics:
they need much more attention than they're getting. I look forward to reading
your novel. Also, regards to your airborne father.
Blessings,
Donn Taylor
Introducing new client Carla Bruce!
A fond memory from my childhood
was taking a book
and
a pillow and climbing up to this wonderful big limb on the
huge
maple tree in our yard in
been
a part of my life for as long as I can remember. However,
I
never had a desire to write until I committed my life to Christ
in
my early thirties. Suddenly, I had thoughts, ideas and
insights
worth putting on paper.
In 1977 I volunteered to
write and edit for the magazine,
Miracle
Living. This led to an eventual
career of working as an
editor
and freelance ghostwriter. I also copyedit and typeset for a
college
textbook company. After thirty years of
writing experience,
I
have ghostwritten fifteen non-fiction books and had numerous articles,
devotions,
and poems published. I led a writer’s group for several years and taught
writer’s workshops in
The President’s Angel is the story of a man’s rediscovery of faith. Bizarre
circumstances plop
Some time after that, I
had the opportunity to put my new fiction editing skills to work on a marvelous
manuscript about the people who prepared the way for the Messiah. The author,
Dr. Bill, submitted a proposal to Terry, who gave him favorable feedback and
eventually a contract. That is when I came across the website of the Colorado
Christian Writer’s Conference at
I am excited at what I
see on Terry’s website and enjoy reading the clients' pages.
God has blessed me in so
many ways. My husband, Tom, and I have three wonderful children and several
super grandchildren. Tom and I, and our dog Susie, love to fish in the streams
and lakes of our beautiful
Comments: The book sounds great, Carla. I look forward
to reading it. Best of luck...uh,
Donn Taylor
Comments: Thank you for featuring my mom on your
website. She is a wonderful writer and
trusts God with her life. I am proud to
be her daughter and would love to see her dream of having her own book
published come true. Amy Parks
Thinking of myself as “a writer” still seems a bit strange.
By profession I’ve been a public school mathematics teacher for
thirty-four years, but I’ve decided that God is calling me in a
different direction.
In 1987 I fell while installing Christmas lights on my house.
An unfortunate landing resulted in a spinal cord injury and
permanent paralysis below my chest. I’ve traveled a twenty-year road
of making sense of this senseless accident, and now I believe God
wants me to share what I’ve learned, that HOPE is God’s permanent
solution to every temporary problem.
People kept telling me, “You should write a book.” While I was flattered by the notion that my friends thought I could actually write a story worth reading, I dismissed the idea for a long time. About two years ago, I suddenly decided to make a serious attempt. Terry has generously agreed to help me tell my story by representing my first manuscript, RELENTLESS GRACE: God’s Invitation To Give Hope A Second Chance.
Changing careers isn’t easy, and I’ve discovered that I have a lot to learn about writing and about the publishing business. But I’ve always enjoyed learning new stuff, and knowing that this is the direction God wants me to take eases the uncertainty. Besides, what can be harder than motivating thirty adolescents to engage in a math lesson?
I’ve sold a couple of articles to THE BANNER and NEW MOBILITY, so I guess I’m officially an author. I’ve created a web site (www.relentlessgrace.com), so I’m officially in business. I’m anxious to see where this exciting road leads next.
Comments: Good
introduction, Rich. Best wishes for your success as you answer God's call. Regards,
Donn Taylor
Comments:
Richard, I will certainly want to read your book when it's published.
All of us need to give hope a second chance. Great thought!
Love the dog!
Introducing
The screaming woman woke me up from my exhausted sleep.
A truck door slammed. There was a loud rapping on my door, and
that horrible screaming. For a split second, I thought that I was
having a nightmare, but the screams persisted causing me to
assume that the house was on fire or perhaps under siege from
terrorists. We had only moved into the old house a few days
before, and I felt panicked at waking up so violently in a new place
As a new veterinary graduate, I never imagined that my
wonderful husband would move me into the rural most parts of middle
I am now semi-retired, working on only a few pets of my
closest friends. Those late nights and
the physical demands of large animal practice became too hard for me as I got a
bit older. I now teach anatomy,
physiology, and microbiology at
My book, Some Of My Friends Are People, is the story of those early years as a veterinarian. It was difficult to juggle work, husband, children, and church, and have a little time left over for me. But so many of the things that took place in those special years were hilarious. What fun we had!
Harline Literary Agent, Terry Burns, is working on helping me get my book published. Several of the stories from the book have been published. One was in Trailrider Magazine which has a readership of 35,0000 people, and two were in Veterinary Forum with a readership of 50,000. The stories were very well received and resulted in many positive comments to the editors. With Terry’s help, I hope to find a publisher for this book and perhaps to write a sequel.
James Herriot, move over.
Comments: Sounds like an interesting life, Celeste. I
look forward to reading your book.
Donn Taylor
Introducing Donn Taylor!
On
biographical material, I'll rest with the
summary on my Web site: "Donn Taylor led an Infantry
rifle platoon in
liberal arts colleges. He and his wife live
near
where he writes fiction, poetry, and articles on current topics."
Mildred and I have been blessed with a long, happy marriage, four adult children and eight grandchildren. We like reading, watching classic movies, and walking the woodland trails. Beyond that, we just enjoy being together. (That's why we married.)
I
have one published suspense novel, The
Lazarus File, a story of spies and airplanes in the
I've also completed one light-hearted mystery that's now being shopped around, and I'm working on a sequel.
I've
been privileged to teach poetry writing at the Glorieta
and Blue Ridge Christian writers’ conferences and will be on faculty at
Notation
I am a single note, sounding but once
And not sustained, a transient passing tone
Too briefly audible for resonance,
One moment's quick vibration, quickly flown---
Not a suspension, bold to stand alone,
Alien and strange to the prevailing chord,
Subsiding into consonance, yet known
Distinct in selfhood. I have not explored
Some fresh key's flavor, nor can I afford
The thrusting dominant's drive to rest again
Upon the keynote, certainty restored---
I'm one slight scratch from the composer's pen,
Yet by that scratch preserved forevermore,
One part of His divine eternal score.
© 1996, Donn Taylor
CLICK HERE FOR
COMMENTS
All my life, I have buried my nose in a
book any time I had a few moments. Frequently,
I stole those moments from other obligations.
I have been kidnapped by pirates and fallen
in love with one. I’ve converted inner city gang
kids by sharing the Good News with them. I have
masterminded Earth’s defense against invading aliens.
I have been mauled by lions in the Roman coliseum.
All the while, wrapped in a cozy blanket and eating chocolate.
Not only have I reveled in my vicarious exploits, I have also learned some life lessons. My faith has been deepened. My courage has been strengthened. I have been inspired to approach difficulties with stoicism—okay, that one is a work in process; I’m still inclined to indulge in the occasional whine. But heroes and heroines have provided models to aspire to.
These painless adventures have inspired many prayers of gratitude over the years, and I’ve always wanted to share my pleasure with others. Enthusiastically, I campaign to get friends to read all my favorites. If they enjoy the books too, my delight is complete. Basking in my satisfaction, I have lightly tossed about the dream of writing a novel myself—hoping to be even more involved in providing one of my favorite diversions and inspirations.
My author friend, Lynne Gentry, finally nagged me enough to persuade me to attend a writers’ group. We set goals and had to justify not meeting them. Thus, encouragement and guilt prodded me into writing my first novel, Menace. A devoted teacher ignores her husband’s fears—until a gang makes them real. Did I mention that I’m an English teacher?
Terry is graciously working with me to find a publisher, who will then put it in the hands of readers, who, in reading it, I hope will take at least a fraction of the pleasure that I do in being stalked while curling up in an armchair.
CLICK HERE
FOR COMMENTS
The James Gang is still rejoicing
over
the day they rode into such a
wonderful
family of writers headed by
such
an extraordinary agent. It’s like
reading
an engrossing book and knowing
for
certain there will be exciting
developments
at every turn of the page.
We’re honored to be part of Terry’s newest
volume of literary endeavor. Without a doubt he is one of the few agents
organized and resourceful enough to handle so many characters and so many
subplots. And just think! We can all help him create this colorful volume—our
tale of this generation’s literary worth.
We’ve just downloaded our new website: http://www.jamestomes.com/
We rushed mightily in the building of it and
have forgotten many things we should have added—like the names of the authors
of our books! Oh well, at least it’s out there. Now we can work on repairs.
Hope
to meet each one of you,
Jean,
Mary, & Frank
Thanks so
much for doing these introductions. I often
feel very
removed from the writers community way
out here
in eastern
meet
people who speak even broken English.
These
introductions have helped me to feel connected
and
motivated me to get serious about writing more.
I am
quite honored to be included among your
accomplished
flock of clients.
Last week
a 14 year old kid in our village OD-ed on
tranquilizers. In a small, rural village in eastern
In an
orphanage two hours away, a 15 year old struts down the hall. A couple years
ago, his dad tried to kill him with a knife.
He ran away. Last month his mother and brother died in the same week.
Now he is alone.
I mention
these kids because they are very much a part of who I am and they shape what I
am writing now in the same way the
I have
been a professional writer for more than 15 years, although most of my
experience lies in
But now
home is Hungary where my daughter is known for being able to rock roosters to
sleep in her arms, my husband is introducing American baseball and I sometimes
hitch a ride on the neighbor's horse and wagon to get across the village. It is all great fodder for novel writing, but
the most precious part is being involved in the lives of the hurting kids.
Introducing Pam Kumpe!
The animals in the forest have gathered to watch the race
between the
tortoise and the hare, but this time, they're watching a middle age
woman. She is plugging along while the "hares" of life keep racing by.
Not really, it’s all about perspective. I should know -- I am that woman.
I have a nickname -- it is "Pokey," but the phrase has nothing to do with
how I approach life. I am compelled to share a peace of my heart whether
I’m teaching kids in
"
speaking to women or hosting my "Daybreak Devotionals" podcast.
At times, I've heard the boasting, "How do you expect to win, you are walking along at such a slow, slow pace?" Sure, at times I have felt like a tortoise, much like the one in the infamous fable, but we know how that story ends when a rabbit takes a nap and loses the race.
I have spent years writing articles, producing newsletters, and journaling. For more than eight years I have worked as a correspondent writer for a daily newspaper, covered news stories, worked as a weekly religious columnist, and written more than a 1000 features.
I desire to write devotional books and/or Christian living books while following a path that leads to the finish line. Someday when I see the Lord, I want him to say, "Well done. Well done." In the meantime, I do not want to be caught sitting on the side of the road, resting like our hip hoppity friend the rabbit, so I must keep on writing.
I must talk of my Savior. I must be about his business, not my own. Time is short. One day I was twirling baton in high school, then headed to college, getting married and raising kids. I realized my world centered around words – words I wanted to share with others. So in the eyes of some people, my life might appear a lot that of a tortoise, moving along at a slow speed, but I have great news.
Remember, it is the tortoise who wins the race – so this old tortoise is forging ahead. I've made it this far, there's no turning back, there's no turning back. I’m staying low to the ground, head first and taking one step at a time.
My “Faith Now” series book proposal centers around the women of the Bible, a chance to get to know women who failed and those who triumphed. My podcast is based on the journey of those women. Check out www.pamkumpe.blogspot.com.
And my latest proposal, a Christian living book “If Only – Living a Life without Regret,” it is filled with reminders of how God can use us, in spite of ourselves.
So my goal is to pass on a piece of my heart from the piney
woods of
What a privilege it is to be under the care of Terry Burns and
in such great company with all of you wonderful writers.
I believe we are of the same mind and spirit as described in
Philippians 2 and that together, in our own genre’, we are
holding out Christ’s word of life.
I write Creative Non-Fiction and have stories published in nine
of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books: Nurses Soul, Working
Woman’s Soul, Father and Daughter Soul, Grandma’s Soul,
Mother’s of Preschooler’s Soul, Mother and Son Soul, Recipes for Busy Mom’s,
Celebrating Brothers and Sisters and one of my greatest honors was having my
story appear in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Living Your Dreams, their 10 year
anniversary edition of the Chicken Soup series.
My story was one of eighty of
As wife of a food safety scientist who believes everything is better with bleach, the mother of five children, four children-in-law, and three grandchildren, I have a plethora of material for humor writing. I’ve really enjoyed this genre’. It’s great therapy, believe me. I also like travel writing.
I completed my first Christian novel; In the Elephant’s Shadow, a historical about the 1850 Gold Rush and am currently researching for the second in the series, working title; Shifting Shadows. Also, I’m working on a nonfiction book, working title; Now What Do I Do? It is an encouragement for Christian parents whose teens are making bad choices.
In addition to writing, I’m also an inspirational, motivational, speaker. I speak at women’s retreats, banquets, and writer’s workshops and conferences. I am a Toastmaster, CLASS certified, and am on the speaking circuit for Stonecroft Ministries.
Psalm102:18 is why I write and Psalm 145 is why I speak. I
have the reputation of being everybody’s cheerleader because I love people and
my passion is to encourage, validate, and equip o
Please visit my web and blog sites: www.lindacapple.com (under construction)
www.lindacapple.blogspot.com; and www.southerngalsview.blogspot.com
I probably won’t have the chance to meet many
celebrities in my life, but I did meet one in
on September 11th—Jordin Sparks, American Idol 2007.
I was lucky enough to first chat with Jordin just days
before she officially won the American Idol title. Needless
to say, she was as exuberant as you would expect a teen in her
shoes to be, on the verge of capturing a highly sought-after
music title—about the same way a writer is the day that first call
comes through from an editor saying, “I want to buy your book.”
Jordin and I had a nice talk about singing and writing, and then she had to get off the phone to finish her math homework before working on that day’s performance. As promised during our conversation, I sent her a copy of Maggie Come Lately, the first book in my new teen series, The Pathway Collection. She emailed me to say she loved it, so my publisher, NavPress, sent her the galleys for book two, My Beautiful Disaster, which she read as she set off on the “Top Ten” Idol summer tour. She sent me this endorsement:
“Despite everything that’s going on, I had time to read
another amazing book by Michelle Buckman. With Maggie Come Lately, I was completely drawn in by her characters and
real life issues that she tackled in the story. In her second book, My Beautiful Disaster, she drew me in
even more with her compelling story about Maggie’s best friend-turned-sister,
So I made it a point of attending one of her concerts—only the third concert I’ve ever attended in my life. I was totally impressed. All of the top ten Idols sounded better in person than they did on television. I could tell a summer’s worth of performing had taken the edge off their nerves, and they had learned to relax into their performance. Even better, Melinda Doolittle joined Jordin on stage to talk to the audience for a few minutes during which they both confirmed the importance of the Lord in their life—a trait that bound them as friends while rooming together, and will probably keep them friends far into the future.
After the concert, my daughters and I were ushered back to the Meet and Greet room where I finally got to meet Jordin; she greeted me with a hug, and treated me like I was as much a celebrity as she. Ah, to have such a fan! She was absolutely delightful to talk to in person as she was on the phone. I wish her every success…and remain a devoted fan.
For more info on Michelle’s books, visit her web site: www.MichelleBuckman.com
Introducing Max Elliott Anderson!
People
are often shocked when they find out that I grew
up
hating to read, and that my father had been the author of
over
seventy books.
My
visual interests led me to a life of production in films,
video
programs, and television commercials. Then 9/11
changed
everything. My clients stopped spending their
promotional
dollars on video, and I had to go another direction.
Unmistakably
I was prompted to begin writing action-adventures and mysteries especially for
boys 8 – 13. I found that years of audiovisual productions gave me the perfect
springboard for writing stories that captivated young minds. Some of the films
I had been a part of were dramatic films for kids.
I wasn’t
just interested in writing. I set out to write the kinds of books I would have
liked as a child. In addition to this, I wanted to reach out to other boys who
didn’t like to read.
After I
was obedient in writing that first manuscript, new stories appeared, in my
mind, faster than I could get them down on paper. Over a period of three years,
I completed thirty-five manuscripts. Seven of these are published. NEWSPAPER CAPER, TERROR AT WOLF LAKE, NORTH WOODS POACHERS,
MOUNTAIN CABIN MYSTERY, BIG RIG RUSTLERS, SECRET OF ABBOTT'S CAVE & LEGEND
OF THE WHITE WOLF, are compared by readers and reviewers to Tom Sawyer, The
Hardy Boys, Huck Finn, Nancy Drew, Tom Swift, Scooby-Doo, Lemony Snicket, and adventure author Jack London.
A few months ago I started a blog, Books for Boys. It’s ranked in
the top 5 on Yahoo and the top 20 on Google. http://www.maxbookreviews.blogspot.com
There is a tremendous need for books for boys. I encounter this every time I
speak in schools.
Probably my greatest encouraging comes when I hear from a parent.
Here’s part of an email, received earlier this week, from the mother of a very
reluctant reader.
“…He didn't want to stop at the end
of each chapter. I love the way you write and make us want to read on! By the
third book, he didn't wait on me any more! He was off in his room reading away
all by himself! I feel like I owe his success of reading to you. YOU gave him
the love of reading!”
I don’t
know what the future holds. Right now, I have a dozen more stories, all mapped
out, that I could begin writing. But I chose to stop, several months ago, so I
could concentrate on promoting the critical need of books for boys.
A big thanks to Terry for featuring his clients’ intros on his
blog! I look forward to meeting many of you in person.
I am the great-great-granddaughter of a Cherokee woman
ousted from her tribe and the western scout who found her
and kept her alive. I share the family lines of James Butler
“Wild Bill” Hickok, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau,
and Emily Dickenson. Any wonder why I write Western Romance?
Writing and the nineteenth-century West literally run in my veins.
Of course you can’t have a Western without horses, and I
have history with those spirited beauties as well. I’ve ridden horseback over
western mountains, and rode trails across
I took every writing class my college offered, including prose, novel writing, nonverbal communication, and acting to learn to get into and develop character. I was constantly on the dean’s list (yep, the good list). After college, I continued to absorb top-selling books on the craft and technique of writing.
I initially began writing historical romance
for the
I
continue to write devotions, book reviews—primarily Western Romances—and conduct
author interviews. At the urging of members of my ACFW critique group, I’ve
established myself as a freelance manuscript editor, and now assist other
writers to make their publishing dreams come true.
Feel
free to visit me at http://www.shoutlife.com/TammyBarley
or http://www.thechristianpen.com/Members.html
where I am a contributing editor.
As a child behavior
expert, I express my call
to serve families
through speaking and writing.
As a speaker, CLASServices and Christian
Speaker Services
represent me and I coordinate
several of my
own engagements. It's a blessing
to speak at parenting and childcare
conferences,
schools, churches,
libraries, and teacher trainings.
A menu of my topics
is at http://www.brendanixon.com
.
You may have heard
me on Focus on the Family's "Weekend Magazine" radio ministry or on
regional radio stations around the country. Mardie
Caldwell, talk show host, wrote, "I wanted to thank you for being such a
delightful and informative guest on my radio program, Let's Talk Adoption. You
were charming and funny, offering helpful advice to our listeners. I appreciate
how organized you were, this is a huge help in a busy studio. I look forward to
having back again as a guest.
As a writer, I'm
the author of Parenting Power in the
Early Years (raising kids from birth to age five), a contributing
author to 23 books including several of the best-selling Chicken Soup for the Soul series, my articles are
featured in Christian and mainstream publications around the world, and I'm a
former columnist with Children's Ministry
magazine and inspiredparenting.net. Terry, my agent, is currently shopping two
manuscripts, one on child discipline and a revision of Parenting Power in the Early Years to crossover
Recently, I've
accepted invitations to serve as faculty at various writers' conferences, and
love the opportunity to 'give back' to the industry by encouraging aspiring and
new writers. This past June, as faculty for Write To Publish near
The picture is Annette and I
at the ACFW Conference.
I gave her the opportunity to
comment as an introduction
and she graciously complied:
This year’s annual conference
was fantastic. I especially
enjoyed participated in the
worship time. To gather with
nearly 500 other Christians
in the writing realm and
fellowship, sharing ideas and
meals together was refreshing.
One of the highlights was
meeting Terry face to face.
Last year, at the ACFW
conference in
I met Jennifer Hudson Taylor
at the Hartline gathering at conference this year. She has multiple projects going
currently, which is very exciting. Makes me rethink if I should dust off the
ones I’ve written but haven’t brought forward until now. I don’t wanna get in over my head. There are novellas under
consideration, a trilogy and a stand-alone with a possible sequel all out
there, making the rounds. If I bring forth the other trilogy and get two bites
(or more) on different projects, how will I meet deadlines? But then I remember
two things: 1) chances are rather low that two which need the most work will go
at one time. Pitching books is about W A I T I N G. And 2) God keeps reminding
me that “To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under
heaven.” He has called me. He knows what I can do in the hours I have (with my
three children and husband to care for and my church obligations). He is
faithful. He will make the timing work out. And I can trust His lead as we see
those dreams come true.
Come visit my blog (www.annetteirby.blogspot.com)
for pictures of the event and more of the stories of conference. For more
information about my first book (“Love Letters”), visit my website: www.annetteirby.com
Heading home from
the ACFW conference
in
the time I felt
like a weed in a flower garden.
It was a good
conference, I heard a lot of
good pitches and
reinforced a lot of contacts.
There were six of
my clients there, about 30
combined Hartline
clients. Annette Irby,
Mary James, Donn Taylor, Jennifer Hudson Taylor, and Jim Callan and his wife Earlene drove over for the Hartline
reception on Friday as did Jane Thornton.
For my part of the
group the star of the conference was Jennifer as she took a second and a third
in the Genesis competition. Given the strength, and the number of the entires, this is a
terrific achievement. We're very proud of her. Also got word that Donn has a manuscript going to committee, and AFTER the editor
said he was taking it to committee he said he wanted to get the full manuscript
and read it. We're proud of Donn too, and he had a
couple of other strong contacts on it at the conference if it doesn't make it
at committee.
We had a little
strategy session early at the event and I told them that they were going to
have more access to the editors than I would have. They could sit with them at
meals while I had to host my own table. They could schedule appointments while
I had to do appointments of my own. They would have other opportunities, and
they should get out there and pitch and try to open a door that I could follow
up on for them. I also said we were an information gathering team and any intel they could pick up, whether it seemed to impact them
or not might be significant for one of our little band.
They did a great
job of doing that and I'm looking forward to the emails that will be coming in
passing on what they accomplished. I did receive some strong pitches that I'm
sure will add to our number, including a couple of other genesis winners. I got
off to a little bit of a slow start for this one, but as I expected it was a
great conference.
About time to climb
in the car and head to
mercies for all of
those migrating to the point
that will be the
center of the universe for
Christian fiction
writers . . . for a few days
anyway.
I said something at
church last night about going to be
with several
hundred pretty ladies and only a handful
of hairy-legged
guys while my wife left me there to go
across town to stay
with the kids. Someone said they were
impressed that she
trusted me so much. I said I didn't know
whether that was it
or she figured at my age I was a pretty safe
bet anyway.
Actually I guess both are true.
This is the 16th
conference for me this year, this one with a 3 day turnaround. The picture is
Dusty Richards and I at the National Cowboy Symposium weekend before last. I
envy the enthusiasm level of all those online talking about going . I'll admit
doing so many in a year makes it harder each time to to
reach the level I need to be on, but once I get there it usually doesn't take
long to get into the swing of things. Right now another long drive is rather
daunting. Looking forward to seeing everybody though.
Have four editors
right now that have read a proposal and are now reading the full manuscript and
one that is at committee level. The clients involved will be there, I'd love to
get some good news for them while we are at the conference. Hopefully so. Well,
approaching time to get in the car and get on the way, get down there and soak
up that infectous enthusiasm.
The giants
in
Went to church with
a daughter in
twelve spies that
were sent into the
Two of the spies
found grapes, ten found gripes, not to mention giants. Ten only saw an enemy
that was too strong for them, two brought back a cluster of grapes so large it
had to be suspended on a pole between two men. They saw a wonderful land of milk
and honey that God had promised to them and knew with God's help that it would
be delivered into their hands.
Most of the people
believed the naysayers, and wanted to elect a Captain to take them back to
slavery in
When
we get ready to take the babies that we have slaved over to market, do we see
the huge cluster of grapes? Or the giants? There will be giants in
It's
time to trust God and look past the giants to help ourselves to the grapes . .
. or chocolate as the case may be.
I'm sitting here
reading an article from the Philadelphia Inquirer that talks about the recent
upsurge in Christian Fantasy. It hasn't been that long since nobody wanted to
talk about the genre. Now it's hot.
It's
hard to get a handle on. Parents keep calling for "books for boys." I
keep seeing articles from editors saying we need to be putting out products for
our young male readers, but what do I see them buying? Books aimed at girls. I
see a lot of discussion on this. Max Anderson prowls the internet like a
ravenous lion looking for anything relating to the subject and he forwards it
to me. He finds a lot. Occassionally I find something
to forward to him, but not often as he gets to spend more time specifically in
that genre than I do.
Not
only can't you get a clear picture of the subject matter they are looking for,
but you get disagreement on what the book should or should not be. I send
something in and I hear "plot is too simplistic and book is too small,
boys are looking for big books with complex plots." Then I hear "Boys
have short attention spans, it takes short, fast-moving books that hits on
topics they relate to." Another
says "It takes a big book with an older looking cover, they don't want to
carry around a book that looks like an early reader." Content . . .
appearance of the book . . . size, it seems we have parents and boys clamoring
for books, writers yelling that they are writing them and they aren't being
picked up, publishers wanting books to put into this market. That looks like a
deal anybody could put together, so why isn't it happening more?
Part
of it is they want a big name. That's no news flash all publishers would always
love to have somebody who can bring a big reader base to them. The bigger part is trying to match up these
diverse viewpoints, but I think most of it is trying to guess what this fickle
market will read and what will make it big. I may be wrong but I don't think
it's that hard. I think they want a good story that will grab them on the first
page and not let go of them until it's finished. Wait a minute. Isn't that what
we want for all books and all genres?
Two of my clients
just released their
first book as a
married couple. Kevin
and Kristen Collier
put out ""Dreamchaser"
as an e-book and on
CD from Guardian
Angel Publishing
and the online link for it is
http://www.guardianangelpublishing.com/dreamchaser.htm
Next month Joy the Jellyfish comes out in
hardcover and paper.
The link for that one is http://www.dragonflypubs.com/dfp/joythejellyfish.html
–
Congrats, guys, doing a great job. Kevin is also a professional
illustrator and has done covers and illustrations for a number of children's
books for various publishing houses.
Another, Max Elliott Anderson, is a human dynamo when it comes
to generating publicity and promotion and almost daily he sends me a link to
another place where he has an interview, a review, notice of a program he is
giving, or in some other manner is raising his visibility. I keep a list of all
my clients on my website with a thumbnail of writing credits as well as a blurb
on a current offering.
I'm
in the process of doing one sheets, or sell sheets, to have in my bag of tricks
at upcoming events. I'm standardizing them on agency letterhead so any editor
looking at them knows what is going to be where on all of them. With over
thirty clients, many of them with a significant number of available projects,
this is taking quite a bit of time and effort, but it will be worth it. The
finished sell sheet also goes into the standardized agency proposal.
A
different type of event to attend this weekend as we go to
What should I put
on my blog on 9/11?
I immediately
remembered the grief and the sacrifice that has become embedded in our national
consciousness, of course. But then I
found my thoughts went two
entirely different directions.
First, Saundra and
I realized this morning how very blessed we are to have grown up in what was
probably the best time in the entire history of our nation to do so. Earlier
generations had the depression, the task of building a nation, didn't have the
material advantages that we had. But even more,
The second thing
that occurs to me, regardless of how people feel about why we are in
I'm ex-army, and
nobody hates war more than a soldier. But it concerns me that we keep sending a
message to terrorists and those who would like to cause us grief that if
they'll just wait us out, as soon as it becomes inconvienent
for us that we'll bail out. That we don't have the national resolve any more to
stand up and be counted. I don't know whether we should have gone over there or
not, but we did, and I sure hate the idea of us just walking away like a
spoiled brat. Those police and fireman didn't walk away, they did their duty.
Two top hands - Dusty and
Drury
The National Cowboy
Symposium started slow but finished strong. Dusty Richards and I shared a table
as we usually do and had a ball. He outsold me by better than ten to one of
course but you'd expect that teaming up with a guy that the Western Writers of
America just said had the best western paperback in
Came up with a new
line to use when a guy asked me the difference between a Christian western and
a traditional western. I said in my
books some of my bad guys straighten up . . . and some just get worse.
Had a bit of a
surprise last night when I got a
myspace friend request from James Drury, The
Virginian. Sat next
to him on a flight from
remember what sort
of event he was doing
here, but we had an
enjoyable visit. Someone else
handles the site
for him, but he's invited some
interesting folks
to hook up to it. I don't spend
much time on myspace, and pretty much only
invite or accept
Christian writers, western folks
or a few family
members as friends over there, but that
was one I surely
was pleased to do. I've always enjoyed Drury's work. http://www.myspace.com/james_drury
Just got word that
I head out in the
morning to attend this fine event. More
cowboys, cowgirls and those who love the West than a National Finals Rodeo. I
go each year to share a table with Western Writer and Spur award winner Dusty
Richards. We swap a few tall tales, sell a few books, smooze
all the passing people about how cold the winter is going to be and how badly
they need some good books put aside to read when the snow piles up around the
windows and doors because they won't want to go get one.
Sure they gotta
break ice on the trough and feed the stock, but after that they'll need
something to read as they thaw out by the fire. Dusty likes to partner up with
me because he knows when he goes off working the room like he was running for
county commissioner I'll see his books still get sold. He also knows if they
come up looking at his that I won't try to switch them to mine. I'll even point 'em
to the part of the building I think he's in to get it signed.
Will also be with
him in November at the OWL (Ozark Writers League) meeting up in Branson.
That'll be fun. They're looking for mama and Saundra to come even more than me.
They'll go play and I'll work the meeting. Probably will spend more than I
make, but that's life. Saundra is getting us tickets to go see Manaheim Steamroller. We absolutely love their music and
have for a really long time. You wouldn't think that'd be the case for an old
cowboy, would you? Then again you probably wouldn't think I was in band and
orchestra through elementary, jr high, high school
and college as well as playing with the Amarillo Symphony, would you? Some old
boys are a little hard to pigeonhole.
Last year I had a leatherworker
at the booth next to us make me a great hatband. May get me a Bible-cover this
year. Once again will spend more than I make, that seems to happen an awful
lot. If you're gonna be anywhere around
Featuring
a book by my friend Camy Tang. By her own definition Camy is is a loud Asian chick who writes loud Asian chick-lit. She
grew up in
Sushi
for One? (Sushi Series, Book One is her first novel. Her second, Only Uni (Sushi Series, Book Two) comes out in February
2008! To celebrate the launch of her debut novel,
she's got a huge contest going on. Camy is giving
away baskets of Christian novels and an iPod Nano!
Only her newsletter YahooGroup subscribers are
eligible to enter, so join
today. For more information about the contest, visit her website. Contest ends October
31, 2007!
Lex
Lex has not dated
for years, and doesn't want to date ... not since that terrible incident a few
years back ... but, Grandma doesn't give her that choice.
The one man she keeps running into (and is completely attracted
to) doesn’t seem to have a single quality on her list. It’s only when the
always-in-control Lex loses control and lets God take
over that all the pieces of this hilarious romance finally fall into place.
The book link is: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0310273986
The time is
counting down to the ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers) conference in
There's
a stellar lineup of faculty and programs and the attendance will be very
strong, it always is. That offers a huge opportunity to interface with other
Christian writers. Hartline will be having a reception there for our clients on
Friday and I'll have a chance to meet a few that I have only met via the
internet. Will have the chance to put
faces with a lot of others I have only talked to online as well. There's still
time to register if it interests you.
Most
of the Christian publishers will be represented and we'll have a chance to
improve our interface with them as well. Our clients can take advantage of
opportunities to help us do that as well through their own appointments.
Labor
Day was just that for me. It gave me four days to look at proposals and
queries, and to prepare and send submissions. It was some badly needed catch-up
time. Saundra was down doing some work redecorating her office, so there were
no interruptions other than the few hours I took to do the yardwork.
I
also had occasion over the weekend to take a look at the breakdown of those
visiting my website. There are only three states I haven't had visitors from,
and my primary international visitors were from (ranked by # of visitors)
Canada, UK, Australia, India, Mexico, Philipines, Israel, Brunei, Sweden, Ireland, Malasia, Singapore, Italy, Columbia, Hong Kong, and a
number that have few hits. I find it interesting, and frankly very humbling
that people from these countries come by my simple site.
Hope
all of you had a terrific holiday weekend.