A Step in the Write Direction

· 100-Plus Motivational Moments for Writers and Speakers – half-price $5, $2.69 s&h (This is free if you purchase 5 other books.)

· A Step in the Write Direction—the Complete How-to Guide for Christian Writers—on sale--$10.00, $3.22 s&h (only 25 left)

· A Step in the Write Direction—Student Edition with assignments throughout—on sale—$8, $2.72 s&h)

· The Freedom of Letting Go (new one coming out will have discussion questions; can be used in S.S. class or small group); original copies without questions now on sale for half-price--$7.50, $2.69 s&h

· Healing in God’s Time (story of Dave Clark, composer of 26 songs that have gone to #1 on the charts); was $15; now $10, $2.69 s&h

· The Little Book of Big Laughs—105 purse/pocket-size book of clean jokes—$5; up to 4 for same s&h—$2.69

· Preparing Your Heart for Christmas (31 Advent Devotions) half-price—$5

· Michigan and Ohio Cookbooks; half-price $5 each, plus s&h (depending on number ordered)

· Grandmother, Mother, and Me—1 left, $10, $3.22 s&h

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2015

A Step in the Write Direction--September 21, 2015--Nonfiction hints

A Step in the Write Direction

September 21, 2015

Update: I can honestly say this is the best week I’ve had since March 7^th. I don’t know if six months is some kind of a miracle anniversary or not, but I’ve felt more peace and contentment these last few days. I know much of it is due to the support of my family and the prayers of my friends—those I’ve know personally and those I’ve come to know through this blog and Facebook. Thank you all!...I’m in a weird situation right now—no work to do—that is, for others! So I’m back to cleaning and sorting, reading books and giving them away, and the slides are all done. As soon as I clean out the two 4-drawer file cabinets, I’m going to tackle my photographs—bags and bags of them! I have them in albums up to 1974; the rest are divided by year and that’s all. Will be work, but fun. Any of you have that same dilemma? What’s your secret to getting them organized?

Thought for Today: “I find television very educational. Every time someone switches it on, I go into another room and read a good book” (Groucho Marx, Reader’s Digest, October 2015, p. 21).

Song for Today:

Let us labor for the Master from the dawn till setting sun;

Let us talk of all His wondrous love and care;

Then when all of life is over, and our work on earth is doe,

And the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there.

James M. Black, “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder”

Laugh for Today: Bob forgot his wedding anniversary and his wife was mad. She told him, “Tomorrow morning I expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from 0 to 200 in 6 seconds AND IT BETTER BE THERE!” The next morning when his wife woke up, she looked out the window to find a box…gift wrapped in the middle of the driveway. She opened it and found…a bathroom scale. Bob has been missing ever since.

Writer’s Tips: Writing Nonfiction

When I first considered writing nonfiction, it seemed that others had already covered every topic I wanted to write about. I had a lot of ideas, but wondered how they differed from those already written. Then, while sitting in a nonfiction workshop, I realized that what made each article unique is the slant that only a particular writer can give it.

God has given each of us a distinctive personality, and He has allowed you and me to go through circumstances in a way no one else has experienced. You are a unique individual—a mother or father, brother or sister, aunt or uncle. You're part of a married couple, a single parent, or never married. You’re a student, you’re employed, you’re retired.

If married, what have you experienced? First-year adjustment, in-law problems, financial struggles? As a parent: infertility, adoption, preschool children, challenges with teens, adult children still living at home? Whatever you’ve gone through, you’re the only one who can write an article or book in your own voice.

The emotion you share in your story will make your article stand out from the other manuscripts the editor receives. Those may have facts—the skeleton, so to speak—but yours can have "flesh." You may have added research and statistics, quotations from other books, and even a friend’s story, but you’re also showing how this experience has affected your life. Showing how God has brought you through this particular situation can help others going through the same trial and help them to find victory.

What can you write about from one of your personal experiences?

Have a good week spreading the

gospel through the printed page.

Donna Clark Goodrich

Sunday, September 27, 2015

A Step in the Write Direction--September 28, 2015--more nonfiction hints

A Step in the Write Direction

September 28, 2015

Update: This has been a good week. Had new tile installed in one bedroom, one more to go. Still doing a lot of sorting….My home church in Michigan has set up a home page and people are sending in photos of the “good ol’ days.” I went through and found about 40 photos and 66 slides. Two of the photos were my mother’s and go back to 1929 and 1938. My nephew (who’s smarter than I am!) is going to put them in some kind of an album for home page. Looking forward to seeing it…. After going through many resumes, our church board has selected one applicants who will be preaching at our church next Sunday. Praying he’ll be the one….Don’t forget to send in any prayer requests you have. Mine this week is for my daughter who is having many health problems: high white count (16,000), high liver count (179), high A1C (9.3), and stomach pains. Has an appointment Wednesday with an oncologist, and a neurosurgeon on the 16^th for the back injury she had when she fell and tore her rotator cuff (still recuperating from that surgery). Thanks!

Song for the Day:

Come to my soul, blessed Jesus.

Hear me, O Saviour divine!

Open the fountain and cleanse me;

Give me a heart like Thine.

Judson W. Van Deventer, “A Heart like Thine”

Writer’s Tips:

Last week we talked about how you have experienced things in a completely different way than other people, so you are the only one who can write about that experience in your own voice.

This is what will grab your reader. It’s more than statistics. It’s writing! And this is what will set your article apart from all the others.

What have you gone through that you can write from your own personal

[i] www.aacap.org/cs/root/fcts_forfamilies/teen_suicide. Accessed 5/23/09.

Have a good week spreading the

gospel through the printed page.

Donna Clark Goodrich

· 100-Plus Motivational Moments for Writers and Speakers – half-price $5, $2.69 s&h (This is free if you purchase 5 other books.)

· A Step in the Write Direction—the Complete How-to Guide for Christian Writers—on sale--$10.00, $3.22 s&h (only 25 left)

· A Step in the Write Direction—Student Edition with assignments throughout—on sale—$8, $2.72 s&h)

· Healing in God’s Time (story of Dave Clark, composer of 26 songs that have gone to #1 on the charts); was $15; now $10, $2.69 s&h

· The Little Book of Big Laughs—105 purse/pocket-size book of clean jokes—$5; up to 4 for same s&h—$2.69

· Preparing Your Heart for Christmas (31 Advent Devotions) half-price—$5

· Michigan and Ohio Cookbooks; half-price $5 each, plus s&h (depending on number ordered)

· Grandmother, Mother, and Me—1 left, $10, $3.22 s&h

Sunday, September 20, 2015

A Step in the Write Direction--September 21, 2015--Nonfiction hints

A Step in the Write Direction

September 21, 2015

Song for Today:

Let us labor for the Master from the dawn till setting sun;

Let us talk of all His wondrous love and care;

Then when all of life is over, and our work on earth is doe,

And the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there.

James M. Black, “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder”

Writer’s Tips: Writing Nonfiction

Have a good week spreading the

gospel through the printed page.

Donna Clark Goodrich

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

A Step in the Write Direction--September 14, 2015--Book Proposal for Novels

A Step in the Write Direction

September 14, 2015

Update: This has been a good week. I’ve had a lot of fun going through 17 trays of slides (down from 57 at one time!) and sorting even more. Threw away a lot from birthday parties of children I babysat (before 1969) and scenery. Even gave away two trays of Scotland slides. My best friend who went with me on that trip passed away in November and no one else seemed to want to see them so I just kept one tray with my friend and me in them. Have made an index for each tray and typed two copies—one to put in the box with the tray and one I put in a notebook. I was down to viewing the last two trays when my projector broke. Don’t know why. It was only 47 years old! (Like my friend said, they just don’t make things to last like they used to.) Called a local camera store and they said they couldn’t get parts for this model any more. However, when I went down there to get a rental, they had a used one for sale—and I bought it!...My weekly critique group is coming here today for our meeting. I spent all day yesterday cleaning house—that’s why this blog is a day late!

Thought for Today: Either we Christian writers mean business about winning souls for God, or we should go out of business.… If you have been ordained to write, woe to you if you put
everything else first. Woe to you if you do not give to God the best part of the day when
you are most alert, when…the juices are flowing and the mind is creative.…We have the greatest subject in all history, the Man from Nazareth…the greatest commodity, the gospel; the greatest book, the Bible; the greatest gift to offer, eternal salvation. If that doesn’t motivate us…we’re in trouble (Sherwood Wirt, You Can Tell the World, 1975).

Prayer Request from Reader:

Small girl with glioblastoma multiforma with recurring tumors. She underwent surgery in February (Valentine's Day), then went through radiation and has had four sessions of chemotherapy. Last week they doctors found a new tumor at the top of her brain. It is butterfly shaped and it is in a place where it won't respond to radiation or chemo and is inoperable. Her name is Jillian.

Laugh for Today: A farmer was driving down the road with a load of fertilizer. A girl playing in her backyard saw him and asked, "Whatcha got in your trailer?" "Manure," the farmer replied. "Whacha gonna do with it?" she asked him."Put it on my strawberries," he said. The girl looked at him and said, "You should come and eat with us! We put ice cream on ours." (The Gospel Greats Weekly Newsletter, 9/8/15).

Writer’s Tips: Book Proposal for Novel[i]

A good fiction proposal should include:

1. The novel’s title: Research the kinds of titles that attract readers.

2. Synopsis: This is a short (1-2 pages) summary of the novel. If you cannot describe your major plot points in this amount of space, then you do not yet have a clear enough vision of your story. … If you cannot describe it in order to sell it, then you will not be able to describe it in order to promote it.

3. Details: length, delivery date.

4. Chapter-by-chapter outline—two or three sentences telling what happens in that chapter. Keep them interesting—think of this as telling your story in fast-forward….

5. Marketing: Who is the audience? How will you reach them? How do you plan to publicize it? Can you get radio or TV spots? Obtain speaking engagements? Publicize it on your and other websites? Considering today’s economy, publishers expect more from editors in helping to sell books. The more assistance you can give, the better chance you have of selling your book.

6. Endorsements: Who can you ask to read and review your book? Contact other authors who have written similar books and ask them for endorsements. It is more and more essential that you obtain endorsements early on in the process.

7. Competition: What similar novels are currently in print? List them, and note how they are doing. Is there room for another?

8. Author information: This is no time for modesty. What else have you published? What awards have you won?

9. Sample chapters: Include the first three chapters

[i] www.customline.com/wordware/individual/getting/proposalsF.html. Used by permission.

Have a good week spreading the

gospel through the printed page.

Donna Clark Goodrich

Monday, September 7, 2015

A Step in the Write Direction--September 7, 2015--Differences between Short Stories and Novels

A Step in the Write Direction

September 7, 2015

Update: Thank you so much for all your responses to my question on the blog—the length and frequency. About 95% thought it was okay as is and the others gave very good suggestions. I’ll incorporate a couple of these next week. This has been a good week: a good church service yesterday, enjoying the new flooring in our mobile home, and thankful for several proofreading and editing jobs that have come in. It’s been six months today that I joined the “living alone” category. Over the past few years I often wondered what it would be like when my husband was gone (every illness I thought would be his last). I knew it would be hard, but had no idea how hard. But I can say that God has been with me every minute. As the Bible verse says, “As your day, so shall your strength be.” If you have a prayer request you would like me to post next week, send me an email and I’ll share it—unspoken, if you like. (Pray for my 80-year-old brother who had a heart attack last week, had a stent put in, went home, and then went back by ambulance yesterday with 3 blood clots in the lung.)

Thought for Today: I used to think that God's gifts were on shelves one above the other and that the taller we grew in Christian character, the more easily we should reach them. I find now that God's gifts are on shelves one beneath the other and that is not a question of growing taller, but of stooping lower and that we have to go down, always down to get His best ones (F.B. Meyer).

Song for Today:

Were the whole realm of nature mine,

That were a present far too small.

Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all.

“When I Survey,” Isaac Watts

Laugh for Today:

· Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other, “Does this taste funny to you?”

· An invisible man marries an invisible woman. The kids were nothing to look at either.

· Mahatma Gandhi walked barefoot most of the time which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him…a super-calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

Writers’ Tips:

Similarities between the Short Story and the Novel[i]

1. Both usually focus on at least one main character.

2. Both generally rely heavily on characterization.

3. Both require a plot evolving out of the needs and motivations of the main character.

4. Both require that the main character change in some way as a result of the plot action.

5. Both require clean, clear, crisp writing.

6. Both require a central theme.

7. Both require a particular point of view or slant.

8. Both require a beginning, middle, and end.

9. Both require competent use of the tools of fiction.

10. Both require the writer to feel deeply about his characters and subject.

Differences between the Short Story and the Novel

In the novel you can:

1. Create more complex characters.

2. Change points of view with each chapter.

3. Utilize subplots.

4. Cover more ground—in time, complications, characterization, and theme.

5. Give your main character a problem that cannot be easily solved and that is worthy of

his wholehearted effort and concentration.

Adapted from Carole Gift Page, “Fiction Facts—Similarities and Differences: The Novel and the Short Story,” The Christian Communicator, April 1992, pp. 7-8.

Have a good week spreading the

gospel through the printed page.

Donna Clark Goodrich