I’ve told others not to erase their writings. Save them under a title and come back to them later. Wrapped inside your ‘baby writing’  or ‘beginning writing’ you may have ‘toddler writing’ or ‘intermediate writing.’ Good writing comes with practice.

I know I’ve said this before, but I must say it again. Good writing requires re-writing. By saving your ‘beginning writing’ you can later pull out the stuff you like and use it as the ‘seed’ to develop a better plot, or better dialogue, or better storyline.

Keep writing. Allow your mind to meditate on your thoughts and ideas. Then, write about them. Explore and expand on your thoughts and ideas. Your mind will amaze you if you give it time to incubate on your ideas. Incubating encourages ideas to hatch and multiply into other areas of exploration.

Good stories come from centered-time, focused thought, prayerful meditation and writing.

 

My writing should rub off God’s presence on the reader. It’s not enough that I have a storyline or message per say, but in the act of reading my writing, others should get a sense that God is behind it all.

I believe God is personal and interested in each one of us. He is the ever-present One helping me write with Him in mind. I want my writing to welcome Him, to engage Him, to declare Him, to touch Him and be touched by Him. If my writing is touched by God, then God will touch readers through what I’ve written.

That’s one of my goals: that each reader be touched by God in some unique, helpful way. Like the rays of the sun so may God’s presence touch and warm each reader’s heart as they read and comprehend the message in the words, letters and numbers I share in my writing.

Writing books is not a dream for me. It used to be. Now, I’ve written two novels and plan to write one more to complete a trilogy. I didn’t start writing my first book in order to achieve recognition. I wrote my first book in order to share how it feels to have ‘bullies’ in my past and provide some answers for those who have ‘bullies’ in their lives.

Hopefully, I gave some clear ideas for my readers to consider whether their ‘bullies’ are in their past or someone they face daily at work, school or home. Many of us are challenged by others and we need ways to handle these circumstances. The three rules of The Realm have helped me overcome the anger and frustration I’ve experienced from past and present day ‘bullies.’

A good reason to write for me is to share a novel or book that readers love and learn from. If my books have helped my readers in some way, I accomplished my initial goal. Beyond that I hope my books are fun to read.

I’m presently writing my third novel in my series: Dragon Riders of The Realm. Good writing requires an author to write scenes, going back again and again to each scene to see how it reads, feels and connects with the storyline.

It’s like putting a puzzle together piece by piece. You can’t rush it. You have to see the picture in your mind and write out the words that describe each scene, character by character, conversation by conversation. It takes time and thoughtful consideration. Each piece has to fit perfectly in order for the whole picture to look and feel right for the reader.

Good writing requires time: days, weeks and months of reading and rereading, writing and rewriting, until the ‘story’ in the writing begins to replace the words you’ve written. When the ‘story’ flows naturally out of the words you’ve written, it’s the moment you capture your audience and they are no longer reading a book. At that moment, your reader begins to live in the main character or supporting characters and is living the ‘story.’

Write well by seeking to write scenes that are complete, that carry the storyline further along, using conflict often, character development,  and creative solutions to those conflicts no one else has used.

I said for years, “I’m going to write a book.” Then, during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) I wrote over 19,000 words in 2012. I continued writing in December, January, February and March, 2013. Finally I had written approximately 52,000 words. I read ‘The Fine Print of Self-Publishing’ by Mark Levine. I searched the web for an independent publisher. I chose a publisher and signed a contract. I asked around at church for a professional editor and got some names. I called, and one of them helped me edit my first  book. It was finally published in June, 2013. Now, it’s July, 2014. I’ve published a second book and am presently working on a third.

What about you? What are you doing with your writing? Are you afraid of the unknown? I was, too. But my reading and research helped me step into the unknown and learn as much as I could so I wasn’t going into it blind. My goal is to finish my trilogy before Christmas, 2014.

What are your goals? Write them down and pray and move forward. You can do anything you want to do if you check things out and ask others to pray for you and work with you. God cares about our ideas, our musings and writing and poetry and drama. He calls us to do more than write. He wants the world to hear about Him through our gifts and writing is one of those gifts. So, use your gift and get published!

When you’ve put off your writing because you don’t feel like writing, because you don’t have any ideas to move the story forward, because you’re too tired or too busy or too stressed out — think about ‘ A Writer’s Block.’ In other words, a neighborhood block with houses lining the street and you live in the first house. Next door is your favorite author!

Suddenly, you want to write because you’re living next to your favorite suspense author. And living next to him/her is your favorite historical fiction author. And next to her/him is your favorite bookstore where you like to browse and buy books. All along the block are favorites of yours: authors, people, bookstores, etcetera.

Well, in your minds eye, ‘a writer’s block’ is ‘real’ because you’ve been to all these places and possibly met these people either in person or through their writings. In your mind, there is ‘a writer’s block’ where you live next to all of them. And this can inspire you to keep writing, keeping in mind that you are part of ‘their’ family.

You are writing because you’re one of them! You can’t just stop writing. God has gifted you and you’re using your ‘writing gift’ to honor Him and bless your readers. ‘A writer’s Block’ can remind you how important your writing is now and will be after you’ve kicked the bucket.  Your writing will live on after you’re gone. So, for Heaven’s sake, keep on writing!

Dear Friends,

My family and I actually visited Yellowstone National Park and Jackson Hole, Wyoming a few weeks ago. I write about these two areas of our country in my second book, Dragon Riders of The Realm The Truth Will Triumph. I hope you’ll check out both of my books.

In writing a third book I’m finding that a writer must stick to his/her writing and not leave it sitting for long periods of time without adding more storyline to it. When ideas come to mind, write them down and set them aside in a folder. Then, when you come back to write, you can open your folder to trigger your thoughts and start writing again.

Hope your summer is going well. Plan some down time into your schedule. We all need breaks, but use the break time to read or pray or walk the dogs. Be sure to relax and get some exercise daily.

Have you read Book One or Book Two in the Dragon Riders of The Realm series? Then, please write a review, whether you liked or disliked the books. I need 50 people to write a review of each book. If you’ve read one or both, then tell others what you enjoyed about them. I would greatly appreciate your reviews. They will make me a better writer.

Today, two thoughts came to my attention about writing for God’s glory:
1. Just the act of writing, not necessarily writing something on the page, can be an act of worship. Making an effort, taking a first step toward, looking in the direction of the Lord in order to obey Him; all of these actions ‘tell’ God we’re ‘moving’ toward His will. I sense in my spirit that He interprets our ‘acts’ as obedience to Him.
2. Instead of writing a certain amount of time each day as a goal, we can also set our daily goal in terms of an amount of words we produce. A daily goal might be ‘one paragraph’ or one ‘sentence.’ Maybe even one ‘word’ would be enough of a daily goal, especially if you’re struggling to write. Some days, I just write a poem instead of a paragraph, sentence or word. My love for rhyming poetry is deep and wide.

It’s easy to stop doing things that help us. Writing helps an author keep his/her material fresh. Re-writing and editing our fresh material helps keep it even fresher, relevant and reader-friendly. So, keep writing if you’re an author. Keep dieting if you’re losing weight. Keep doing what helps and stop doing what hinders.
Easier said than done, but anything worth doing will require work: sometimes hard work; sometimes thoughtful work; sometimes unappreciated work; sometimes sweaty work; sometimes long, arduous, days-gone-by work! But keep at it. This past week, I had to change a front headlight that had gone out. It took nearly three hours because the light fixture was located in a hard-to-get-to area. Finally, I had to remove the battery, and even then it was hard to replace this lightbulb. But, after taking a middle-of-the-project break, I completed the task. Do you know how good it feels to have accomplished that task? REAL good!
Writing can be just as tough. But we must keep at it. I may not write something every day, but I try not to let a week pass without having written something on a present manuscript, or in my journal.