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Life-Transforming Fiction

Life-Transforming Fiction

New Beginnings

Recently I had the privilege of performing the marriage ceremony of a lovely young couple in our community. It was a blessing to watch them grow in response to the premarital counseling in the weeks that preceded the wedding. We covered all the mechanics of the marital basics...

Diary Of A Crazy Writer

Words in Blue

Whoever said novels don’t affect readers lied. Whoever thinks God won’t use fiction to speak to us is wrong. Four years ago I pored over every Amish book I could get my hands on. The stories reminded me of simpler times, good people, and, especially, wholesome food.

Quantum Marketing

Branding … Again?

We’re talking about branding again because it’s an area most writers struggle with. Last month an e-mail loop I’m part of talked about branding, and it reminded me how confusing the issue is for many of us. Frequency—hearing a message again and again till it’s burned into your brain—turns thoughts into action. (See my column from last month on Dr. Seuss’s brilliant treatise on selling.)

Character Therapy

Hierarchy of Needs: Part Two

This month we tackle the upper two levels of esteem needs and self-actualization. Maslow’s fourth level in the pyramid is all about respect. (Yes, Aretha had it down pat.) People want to be respected and esteemed by others. There are two types of respect...

She Reads

A Visit with Mary DeMuth, author of The Muir House

Tell us a little bit about your writing journey. I wrote during the ’90s while my kids were little. Quite by accident, I proved Malcolm Gladwell right in his theory about 10,000 hours of practice equaling mastery. When my youngest went to preschool and I had a little more time to...