by Ane Mulligan  @AneMulligan I've heard it said, "Psychologists are analysts; writers are psychological engineers. They use psychology to engineer story characters." Characterization is complex. Among other things, writers need to know how to engineer characters, design character arcs, weave sympathy and empathy, set up character conflict, show and reveal…

by Ane Mulligan  @AneMulligan Go back twenty years 2002. It was my first writers conference. On January 1, 2002, I had started writing a novel. New century—new career. I was a published playwright but got God’s call to write novels. I worked alone until I found an online Christian critique…

by Lynn H. Blackburn @LynnHBlackburn I recently wrote the acknowledgments section for my new release. It’s a process fraught with emotion for me because I’m terrified I’ll forget someone who provided crucial assistance and it will be a faux pax from which I can never recover. I typically take it very…

By Heather Kreke @HKreke In mid September of 2020, I started my second novel. Before I finished my first, which I had been working on for twelve years. A friend suggested a change would be good for me. She was right, for a short while. In September I wrote 6…

by Warren Johnson @haversackhisto1 Do you pay taxes to either your state or the federal government? Most of you probably went pfssst, or some such response. If you are in the business of writing (not the hobby of writing), your tax accountant has already told you to track business expenses.…

By Maureen Miller You love them too much.  That’s what was written in red at the top of my 11th grade advanced literature assignment, with a circle and an arrow indicating the object of Mr. Fisher’s remark. Commas—the punctuation used to separate words in a series, join independent clauses –were,…