Simple Yet Effective Tips to Becoming A Great and Fierce Fiction Writer
by Anastasia Simonds
This book was designed and conceptualized to give the soon to be author, budding author, and even current author insightful tips on how to overcome the fear and intimidation that comes from writing. Without courage, awareness, and concept, we cannot achieve our goal of becoming fierce and great writers! Enclosed are some awesome tips regarding: *Unleashing creativity and imagination. *How to achieve an emotional connection with your reading audience. *Tips on how to make your characters more realistic. *The elements of writing and character definition. *Enhancing your descriptive skills. *How to heighten your imagination as well as some of my secrets as an author. You will also get some important life tips and writing practice exercises that will help prepare you for your writing, assisting you in achieving what most beginners lack-motivation, coherency, and creativity. This is an excellent starter book for the hesitant person who desires to write but lacks the confidence to begin their writing journey and a must-read for those who need the motivation to become a great and fierce writer!
A Dead Exec Found In A Bathroom. Can Ivy Clean Up This Mystery Before Another Body Turns UpAfter being left at the altar, Ivy Amanda McTeague Preston uproots herself and her cat, an Egyptian Mau named Memnet, from her boring and lonely life to start over at the urging of Mayor Conklin, a fellow pedigreed Mau owner.
Ready to move in a fresh direction, Adam Thompson, accepts the mayor’s invitation and uproots himself and his beloved Mau, Isis, to open a branch of his trendy bookstore and coffee shop in the small town.
When Ivy takes a mysterious message while the mayor is away on business, only her criminology professor mom and Adam believe there’s something rotten in Apple Grove. Then Ivy discovers the community grant money that Adam was allotted to start the store is mysteriously being siphoned off, a dead body surfaces, and the victim’s missing Mau becomes the primary suspect. . .just another day in Ivy’s far-from-boring new life.
In love with Apple Grove and with Adam, Ivy hopes to carry on their romance while saving the town from further mayhem.
The Genesis Experiment
(Peabody High Mysteries Book 2)
by Jeri Massi
Jack Derwood has just won a school-wide contest at Peabody Christian Academy by reading the Bible through in only twelve weeks. Now the high school kids want to beat him up for stealing the prize from the saintly Rachael Holstein. As he’s running away from the Varsity basketball team, Jack is hit by a car. He wakes up in a beautiful and terrifying world. And yet, in the present, his mother is waiting at his hospital bedside with growing fears about the unusual medical treatment he is receiving. Can somebody be in two places at once? Doc Thorson, Scruggs, and Jean try to solve the mystery on their end. But Jack has to tackle the dangers in one world and try to win through to his own time and place. Dangerous enemies and friends in unlikely places meet him along the way.
God was going to speak to the people from the mountain. They would hear His voice and see His presence and so cleansing was required of their bodies and clothing, and abstinence of husbands from wives. For three days they prepared, then strictly forbidden to come near the mountain, lest they touch it and die, the people stood afar off, and God showed up.
“And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled … And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice.” (Exodus 19:16, 18-19)
Needless to say, the people were terrified and begged Moses to be their go-between. In the future, he would speak to God and relay God’s message to them. They didn’t want to see or hear that again.
God had appeared to Moses in a burning bush, years before, which was not consumed by the flames, and had performed great miracles to deliver them from Egypt. The Nile had turned to blood, pestilence had consumed the crops and livestock of the Egyptians, and the sky had turned black so that no man could see. Except not where the Israelites lived in Goshen. They’d had light. The angel of death killed the firstborn of Egypt. Not of Israel. They’d been protected by the blood on the doorpost.
But no more of God speaking to them like this. They couldn’t risk it.
Hosanna. Hosanna. A large crowd thronged the Jerusalem streets. Waving palm branches, they worshipped the man on the donkey, children calling out His praises. “Who is this?” some asked. “Why, it’s Jesus of Nazareth!” came the excited response.
“Jesus rode in the center of the procession—crowds going before him and crowds coming behind him, and they all shouted, “Bring the victory, Lord, Son of David! He comes with the blessings of being sent from the Lord Yahweh! We celebrate with praises to God in the highest!” As Jesus entered Jerusalem, the people went wild with excitement—the entire city was thrown into an uproar!” (Matthew 21:9-10 TPT)
On a donkey. The God who’d frightened the people with smoke and lightning and the voice of a trumpet on Sinai now rode meek and lowly on a donkey down dusty streets through a crowd, half of which either didn’t know Him or couldn’t stand Him. The God whose presence had filled the temple, so that the priests couldn’t even stand upright, prepared to die, an innocent man for sins He did not commit.
Hosanna! Hosanna!
Crucify! Crucify!
A man who’d ministered in His name, who’d seen Him walk on water, heal the blind, the lame, and the leper, Judas, who’d taken Passover with Him, sold Him out for 30 pieces of silver. Jesus had looked Him in the eye, knowing from the minute He’d accepted Him who he was and what he would do. He knew what the people who praised Him today would do tomorrow.
Hosanna, bring the victory, would become crucify just like that, and a donkey, an animal of burden, be forgotten in a walk toward Golgotha, the weight of a cross bearing down on the wounds on His back. The Pharisees God had placed in His temple to minister its sacrifices, men ordained to go into the Holy of Holies in the presence of the Most High, refused to enter Pilate’s judgment hall so they could stay clean to eat Passover. While killing the Lamb of God, they desired the Passover Lamb.
Hosanna. Crucify.
The words which had condemned Jesus when arrested and placed before the council had been a prophecy He spoke of Himself. Not that they weren’t looking for a way to kill Him, because they were. But when asked about His remark about rebuilding the temple in three days’ time (Crazy, who does this Guy think He is?) Jesus replied, “Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven (Matthew 26:64).” The priest tore his clothing and shouted blasphemy.
Blasphemy. Hosanna. Crucify.
Not blasphemy. Truth. This is the Lord Yahweh, you’d praised, just days before. This is the presence in the temple where you performed your worship. The fire that’d fallen from heaven to consume Elijah’s sacrifice. The Lord of hosts, Adonai, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Not on a white horse, or at least, not yet. Not in a blaze of power in the heavens, though He’d just told you about that. Not as King of kings over all nations and governments. Not until He rises from the dead to rebuild that temple He’d mentioned as resurrected in three days.
I remember when terrorists bombed the World Trade Center. One day, things were as normal. The next day, you couldn’t pry the American flag from anyone’s hands. Fast forward, and we have voices in government who would sell us out to the East for a quick buck. Maybe 30 pieces of silver will work. Except Judas regretted his choice and took his life as a result.
Crucify Him had to happen, so that Hosanna could reign. Hosanna was prophetic of the man on the lowly donkey being the King on the white charger one day. And today, as hatred swirls as always around the Jewish people, that the King of the Jews is God the Almighty cannot be said enough. For He was crucified by those who’d praised Him days before, so that those who abandoned Him in His hour of peril could become those who’d stand down those priests, just a short time later.
David, the King, had had a palace and a guard. Solomon, his son, wealth beyond anyone else. Jesus, their descendant, their God they’d worshiped, hadn’t had anywhere to lay His head, and yet had gone ahead to prepare a place for them. His body buried, He’d shown up in Paradise (Abraham’s bosom) with a thief in tow. And life abundant. And the keys to death and hell. And the door to heaven.
Crucify. Hosanna.
“I tell you the truth: Your hearts will be broken, and you will cry and grieve while the selfish world rejoices. You will grieve for a short time, but then your grief will be turned to overwhelming joy.” (John 16:20, Remedy)
About the Author:
Suzanne D. Williams, is a native Floridian, wife, mother, and photographer. She is the author of both nonfiction and fiction books.
Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. (James 4:8)
The nearer we come to God, the more graciously will He reveal Himself to us. When the prodigal comes to his father, his father runs to meet him. When the wandering dove returns to the ark, Noah puts out his hand to pull her in unto him, When the tender wife seeks her husband’s society, he comes to her on wings of love. Come then, dear friend, let us draw nigh to God who so graciously awaits us, yea, comes to meet us.
Did you ever notice that passage in Isaiah 58:9? There the Lord seems to put Himself at the disposal of His people, saying to them, “Here I am.” As much as to say”What have you to say to me? What can I do for you? I am waiting to bless you.” How can we hesitate to draw near? God is nigh to forgive, to bless, to comfort, to help, to quicken, to deliver. Let it be the main point with us to get near to God. This done, all is done. If we draw near to others, they may before long grow weary of us and leave us; but if we seek the Lord alone, no change will come over His mind, but He will continue to come nearer and yet nearer to us by fuller and more joyful fellowship.
It always amazes me how there is a story and then the stories that happen while I’m writing the stories. Oftentimes I learn as much from one as from the other. That was certainly true of “To Protect & Serve.”
Now first of all, you have to know that writing about firefighting was WAY out of my comfort zone. Ovens scare me. Fire terrifies me. In fact, I didn’t light a match until I was married, and once I nearly burned my church down trying to get a small candle lit. So this is not a story I would ever have envisioned me being called to write.
Second of all, this story was not my idea. You see, I was writing a different story, and when I write, I find people who look like my characters (often celebrities) and I print off pictures of them. I also make a soundtrack of music for each book that I write. Well this particular book featured a guy from a 90’s boy band that I liked at the time. And I was happily writing that story when a friend who had taken a deep interest in my stories and how I write them happened to be talking with me about my new story.
I showed her the footage I had of the group and the pictures…. and she proceeded to “fall in love” with one of the other guys in the band. No matter what I did from that point on, she was like, “That’s nice. When are you going to write this other guy’s story?” UGH! She kept it up so long that one day as I was driving to get my kids from school, I said, “Well, God, if I was going to write this other guy’s story, what would it be?”
And God literally dumped the whole story on top of me.
Now that’s weird. Most of the time He gives me bits and pieces, and I have to do a lot of trusting along the way that He knows where we’re going with this because I have no clue. Not with this one. It came almost fully formed.
My first obstacle was the firefighting thing. So when I got home and started writing “To Protect & Serve,” I realized I was going to have to do some actual-actual research because I knew NOTHING about fighting fires. One day on the way home from somewhere, I drove by our local volunteer fire department station house, and on a complete whim, I turned in there. Not usually an out-going person, I went in, introduced myself, told them I was an author and I was writing a story about firemen and could they answer a few questions.
Within 20 minutes I had five firemen (I know… I have a rough job! 🙂 following me around, showing me the trucks and the ladders and all of the equipment, the suits, the boots, the gear. It was an interesting hour and a half!
Then I went home and the story just came tumbling out. However, there was another obstacle. The main character, Jeff, was like a turtle when it came to talking with his love interest, Lisa about his job. This frustrated her and me!
All of this occurred prior to 9-11. When that tragedy happened, it took me quite a while to start writing again, and one of the Bible verses that started showing up was John 15:4 “Abide in Me and I in you.” I was beginning to learn deeply just what that meant–that I was to trust God even when I couldn’t clearly see where any of this was going.
So I wrote the story that came to me whether I understood it or not–including Jeff’s frustrating habit of shutting down when asked about his work.
About four months later, the post office changed our address for no apparent reason and flatly refused to deliver things with the old address on them. So I stopped getting magazine subscriptions. I had tried to get the address changed on my subscription for Time, but it was not working.
Then, one day I went to the mailbox, and here was my magazine–with the old address on it, in the mailbox they had refused to deliver to. It was the Man of the Year issue featuring Rudy Giuliani. In that issue was a picture of a firefighter taken in the stairwell during 9-11 and accompanying that picture was an article about this fireman’s wife. In it, she talked about how the firemen don’t talk about work with the wives and how hard that can be.
Right then, I fully understood “Abide in Me and I in you” because I had written a fully-developed character just from what God had given me that perfectly fit what a character like him might be like–and I didn’t know it until after the fact!
God is so cool! And abiding in Him is more amazing than I could ever put in to words!
About the Author:
A stay-at-home mom with a husband, three kids and a writing addiction on the side, Staci Stallings has numerous titles for readers to choose from. Not content to stay in one genre and write it to death, Staci’s stories run the gamut from young adult to adult, from motivational and inspirational to full-out Christian and back again. Every title is a new adventure! That’s what keeps Staci writing and you reading. Although she lives in Amarillo, Texas and her main career right now is her family, Staci touches the lives of people across the globe with her various Internet and writing endeavors.
A newly inherited house. A 150-year-old secret. And some mysterious, hidden clues.
Join Caleb and David in this fast-paced, Hardy Boys meets The Goonies, edge-of-your-seat mystery/adventure, as they seek a rumored treasure and clear their great-great-grandfather’s good name. It’s a wild ride for middle-grade and teen readers!
After moving into a newly inherited house, the Noland kids discover clues to a supposed treasure hidden by their great-great-grandfather. But when town rumors and some spiteful neighbors suggest foul play was involved, Caleb and David set out on a quest to prove otherwise.
With unexpected dangers looming large and threatening their mission, can the Noland kids discover the mysterious treasure, or whatever lies at the end of their treacherous adventure, before time runs out and all is lost?
High school science teacher Doc Thorson and his students Jack and Penny are hurled from bucolic, peaceful Peabody, Wisconsin to a distant Earth, at the mercy of the warlike and highly competitive Theskulins, who have tracked Doc and determined that the science teacher and his companions are worthy to be hunted as trophies. When Jack and Penny are discovered by two thirteen year-olds friends, they find the unexpected help that could save them. Yet, they realize that by their very presence they are a deadly threat to the peaceful and neighborly people of the world where they have landed. At last the truth about Doc and the mysterious Arch begin to be revealed, as Jack and Penny tie together the facts about their science teacher, the cosmos, and some of the mysteries of the ancient Roman and Greek empires.
His Perfect Love
by Sharon K. Connell
No one crosses Jerry Windham and gets away with it. Not even a woman as shrewd as Patricia Campbell. After uncovering this man’s dreadful secrets about women reported missing, she ran. Even two years later, she can’t get rid of the thought that he’ll never stop looking for her. He’d do anything to see her dead, or worse. Unaware of the FBI’s search for her to learn what information she might hold, she continues to hide.
A new look, a new city and job, fearful thoughts suppressed, Patricia moves on. Three new men enter this beautiful woman’s life. A persistent computer technician, a charming philanthropist, and a handsome, wealthy businessman who wants to marry her. But her fears resurface, and she wonders if she can trust any of them.
Having rejected God in her college days, Patricia believes He would not listen to her now. All she wants is to change and have a normal life. Will she put her trust in God? Can she survive long enough to find peace…and perfect love?
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? (Matthew 6:30)
Clothes are expensive, and poor believers may be led into anxiety as to where their next suit will come from. The soles are thin; how shall we get new shoes? See how our thoughtful Lord has provided against this care. Our heavenly Father clothes the grass of the field with a splendor such as Solomon could not equal: will He not clothe His own children? We are sure He will. There may be many a patch and a darn, but raiment we shall have.
A poor minister found his clothes nearly threadbare, and so far gone that they would hardly hold together; but as a servant of the Lord he expected his Master to find him his livery. It so happened that the writer on a visit to a friend had the loan of the good man’s pulpit, and it came into his mind to make a collection for him, and there was his suit. Many other cases we have seen in which those who had served the Lord have found Him considerate of their wardrobe. He who made man so that when he had sinned he needed garments, also in mercy supplied him with them; and those which the Lord gave to our first parents were far better than those they made for themselves.
Ps. 107:8-9 Let them praise the LORD for his great love and for all his wonderful deeds to them. For he satisfies the thirst and fills the hungry with good things.
Praise the Lord for His great love. He is love. There is enough love in the heart of God to love everyone who has ever lived or shall yet live on earth. There is no depleting God’s love. God loves the lovely and unlovely. There is no bias in His love. There is nothing anyone can do to not be loved by God. Everything God does is blanketed by His love.
Praise the Lord for his wonderful deeds. God’s love is balanced by His holiness and goodness. It is a wondrous thing to observe what God does amongst men. We don’t always understand His workings at the time, but when we see what God does from the perspective of time, we stand in amazement at the goodness of God in all He does. God works amongst men for their good and for His glory. God knows what we need to have and experience in life in order for our hearts to be holy before Him. He knows how to treat us well.
Praise the Lord for He satisfies our thirst and fills our hunger with good things. The Lord is our provider. He takes care of all that we need. What we need more than anything else in life is pure hearts. We may want more, but we don’t need it. The Lord purifies those who hunger and thirst for Him. Those who desire to be made right before God will be given all that is needed to be holy.
Praise the Lord for He is love. Praise Him for His wonderful deeds. Praise Him for He satisfies all the longings of our souls when we seek Him.
About the Author:
Spending his formative years in Ft. Wayne, IN, Jim followed the love of his life to southeast Iowa where they married and have spent the majority of their lives. Jim has pastored several churches throughout his life and has worked many years in local factories to help support his family. The father of two married adult children and one son still at home, Jim is a first-time author.
C Through Marriage came into being through many years of pastoral and life experiences. The book first took on a life of its own over 20 years ago when I sought to address the much publicized moral failures of prominent leaders in the church. In the chapter on Chasity, I include the guideliness that I developed then to protect one’s self from such failures.
I am a firm believer in order to make sense out of life you have to use much common sense. We need to get back to the basics of what has worked for many, many generations. If is isn’t broke, why try to fix it? I strive to return to the basics of what really works in all my writings.
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Sometimes I can watch my life and totally know what God is doing. I can see Him setting things up and how and why He gets things to work. Other times, He takes me totally off-guard.
That would be exactly what He did with “More Than This”—my new release on Kindle.
For those who don’t know, I’m a seat-of-the-pants writer about 90% of the time. That means I may make notes along the way or get pieces of the story before I write them in the story, but I don’t plot the story out before I start writing it. Most of the time, I get an idea (usually in the form of a dream), and I start somewhere and go with it.
Now, thankfully, the Holy Spirit knows what we’re doing because most of the time, I have no clue! I write what He says to write, and we go where He wants to go. That’s not always as easy as it sounds because most of the time what it means for me (a recovering control-freak) is that I’m writing with no idea where this is going or how we’re ever going to get there. Talk about walking on water!
And so it was with “More Than This.” When I started, all I really remember is there was this guy who was sitting in the back corner of a coffee shop with his laptop, typing. He was in a black coat and all hunched over. Yes. That’s how much I had to go on when I started. I didn’t even know the guy’s name. (If you’re wondering how this works…. Yeah, so am I.)
Enter Liz, the cute but very shy waitress who is supposed to bring this guy coffee. And thus began the story of “More Than This.”
I began writing this book right around the time that there was a major upheaval in my life in the form of my son’s extreme difficulty in first grade. What ended up taking about 3 years to unravel showed up in my life about the same time I started “More Than This,” and although at the time I didn’t see it, I know the Holy Spirit was carefully putting in the pieces to make it all come together.
About 50 pages in to the story, I suddenly realized something strange. When Jake (Yay! He now had a name!) was writing, I was never looking through his eyes. I was literally “in his head.” Okay, by now you know I’m weird, so here we go…
When I write, in my head, I “become” the character. I see the world as the character sees it. I navigate the world the way they navigate it—except this time I wasn’t quite doing that. Oh, I was in his head enough to know what he was writing, but I wasn’t seeing his computer screen. That was quite odd. After this strange way of “being in the story” became clear to me, I began to ask, “Why?” Why wasn’t he letting me see that computer screen?
And that’s when God did something really cool. I started to ask, “What would make Jake not want me to see that screen? Why doesn’t he WANT me to see it?” (Because when I first tried, it was very clear he wasn’t about to let me see it.) The answer that came blew me away.
You see, my son Andrew had been struggling and struggling with reading, spelling, and writing in school. As a former English teacher, I thought I could teach anyone to read—it was just a matter of practice. Until I started trying to help Andrew, and “frustration” doesn’t even begin to cover it!
So, God, being the brilliant God He is, had my life on this parallel track I didn’t even realize I was on. In real life, I was trying to find the solutions for dyslexia that my son desperately needed, and in my fiction, I was writing about a guy who was every bit the creative genius my son was, but who had never gotten any help for his dyslexia. I could see in Jake the painful path we would travel if we didn’t work to find something to help Andrew. I could feel the knives of “I’m not good enough” and “I’ve given up on myself” every time I got into Jake’s head and heart. What a hopeless, helpless, horrible feeling. That gave me even more determination to help Andrew.
Around the time we found actual answers for Andrew’s dyslexia, I started writing another book, “Something’s Not Right” about our journey through this confusing maze of something not being right with Andrew and his reading ability. I had thought about putting that book out several times since it was finished, but for some reason (God’s), I never did. Then a month ago, “More Than This” burst back onto my life’s scene. I edited it and then realized that “Something’s Not Right” needed to go out at the same time.
In two weeks, they were both done—with covers.
Sometimes God is truly amazing, and other times, He literally blows my mind. How the Holy Spirit worked the dual journeys of “More Than This” and “Something’s Not Right” from wr
iting to publication and already into the hands of countless readers has definitely blown my mind!
I sincerely hope you are watching for how the Holy Spirit works in your life. It will ground you and inspire you in ways you never could have imagined.
About the Author:
A stay-at-home mom with a husband, three kids and a writing addiction on the side, Staci Stallings has numerous titles for readers to choose from. Not content to stay in one genre and write it to death, Staci’s stories run the gamut from young adult to adult, from motivational and inspirational to full-out Christian and back again. Every title is a new adventure! That’s what keeps Staci writing and you reading. Although she lives in Amarillo, Texas and her main career right now is her family, Staci touches the lives of people across the globe with her various Internet and writing endeavors