We CAN! promote our books

Unique Settings

Hi! Sherry Kyle here, writing from my laptop in central California.

By definition, setting is the period and place of a story. It gives a story authenticity and gives the characters and plot believability. In other words, your setting is the large frame, which defines the surrounding for your characters.

When I wrote my first published novel, it didn’t take long to decide where I wanted my story to take place. I lived near a charming coastal town that would, in my opinion, be a wonderful backdrop for the contemporary fiction world I wanted to create.

Membership Application Open Season

Aloha from Karen Whiting

 

CAN is open to membership applications until the end of 2011. It’s been great to be part of a group of published authors who help one another with marketing and marketing ideas.

 

Authors Criteria: Two books (at least one of which is still in print) published or contracted with a traditional CBA royalty-paying house (Christian Booksellers Association) OR one book (still in print) published with a traditional CBA royalty-paying house, along with a consistent record of magazine article sales to Christian publishers. Special Consideration: Self-published authors must have at least one traditionally published CBA royalty-paying book alongside his/her self-published book(s) in order to be considered. The CAN board reserves the right to accept or deny applicants at their discretion.

Quickie Three-Act Structure

Hi everyone, C. S. Lakin here with some useful info on novel writing, seeing as many are participating in Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month). I can't think of anything I'd rather do less, since I write two novels a year and spend all the rest of my work time reading, editing, and critiquing manuscripts--mostly novels. But I know for some people it's a great discipline.

An Author's Time ~ Reader Time

Greetings from contemporary fiction author, Deborah Vogts. If you're reading this, chances are you are part of the writing profession, and you understand how this activity fills nearly every nook and cranny of your life in one way or another. Because of this, it's easy for our lives to become lopsided, neglecting one or more ingredients that will make them richer, and will actually enhance our ability to "write" more effectively.

This past year, I've tried to evaluate the moments in a writer's life. The next three months, I'd like to break this down even further and consider how we spend our promotional time. This month, I want to narrow in on readers, specifically. 

Love Finds You In Golden New Mexico, by Lena Nelson Dooley

Love Finds You In Golden New Mexico, by Lena Nelson Dooley

Lena Nelson Dooley's historical romance, Love Finds You in Golden, New Mexico is ALL about love. Anyone who has studied the five different types of love--attraction (epithumia), romance (eros), affection (storge), friendship (phile), and selfless giving (agape)--will recognize examples of every facet of love in the characters Dooley created for her story. Surrounded by a vivid setting in the 1890s mining town, Madeline Mercer and Jeremiah Dennison interact with kind, lovable God-fearing friends, as well as selfish, conniving criminals, before finding one another. You'll find yourself turning pages far more swiftly than you might expect while reading a book set in this time and place. If you enjoy inspirational, historical, romantic fiction, you'll want to pick this one up.

This book review was uploaded by Cecelia Dowdy. Happy reading!

Basic of Poetry Writing II - Images

                        by

                  Donn Taylor

    In my last poetry blog we talked about finding strong words and putting them in emphatic positions in the poetic line. The end of the line is most emphatic; the beginning, next-most emphatic. Now we go on to specific kinds of strong words.
    As Lawrence Perrine wrote, poetry speaks in "higher voltage" than prose. One essential means of achieving that higher voltage is the effective use of images—words or phrases that appeal to one of the five senses. Why important? Because everything we know about the world we live in comes to us through one or more of the five senses. When we appeal to these senses in writing, we imitate the learning method our readers have used all their lives. Images are not only attractive in their own right: they are essential to gaining reader interest.

Tips from the Pros: Jeanette Windle

Good day to you from Sarah Sundin!

Today I have the honor of interviewing award-winning author, Jeanette Windle. Her most recent novel, Freedom's Stand, was nominated for the Golden Scroll Novel of the Year, and her novel Veiled Freedom was a finalist for the Christian Book Award and the Christy in 2010.

 

SS: Jeanette, how did you get into writing?

JW: Writing has always been such a part of my life, I can’t remember ever consciously wanting to write. The missionary kid boarding school I attended in the Venezuelan Andes put great emphasis on proper composition (we were doing term papers with footnotes in junior high), and we spent far too much time writing to ever daydream about it. I was newspaper editor and yearbook copy editor in high school. In college I did some short stories, then as a young missionary, my writing was mainly prayer letters and ministry material.

Seeds of Summer, by Deborah Vogts - A Book Review

Seeds of Summer, by Deborah Vogts

 

This was my first time reading one of Deborah Vogts novels, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Her words flow comfortably and pull you quickly along as if the story were all plot. But quite the contrary--the characters in Seeds of Summer are compelling and relatable in their struggles and desires. Heroine Natalie Adams faces abrupt upheaval in her life with admirable spunk, strength, and responsibility. Yet she has her weaknesses. One of those weaknesses is the new pastor, Jared Logan, who grows on Natalie despite their differences in faith. Their increasing interest in one another is fueled by how they each respond to the circumstances surrounding them, including Jared's uncertainty about his vocation, Natalie's challenging siblings and stepmother, and the role of God in their lives and futures.

 

It's not easy to write Christian fiction without slipping into preachiness. But Vogts has managed to pull it off. I would recommend this book to tweens and up.

 This blog post was uploaded by Cecelia Dowdy. Happy reading!

Long Trail Home, by Vickie McDonough - A New Release

Long Trail Home, book 3 in the Texas Trails: A Morgan Family series
by Vickie McDonough
Moody Publishers
ISBN 978-0802405852

A weary soldier returns from the War Between the States to discover his parents dead, his family farm in shambles, and his fiancée married. Riley Morgan takes a job at the Wilcox School for Blind Children and tries to make peace with God and himself. When a pretty, blind woman who cares for the children reaches through his scarred walls and touches his heart, he begins to find renewed faith and hope for the future. But when he discovers Annie feigned her blindness just to have a home, will his anger and hurt drive him away and ruin all chances for a future filled with love, faith, and family?

Bio:
Vickie McDonough is an award-winning author of 24 books and novellas. Her books have won the Inspirational Reader's Choice Contest, Texas Gold, the ACFW Noble Theme contest, and she has been a multi-year finalist in ACFW’s BOTY/Carol Awards. She was voted Third Favorite Author in the Heartsong Presents Annual Readers Contest in 2009. Vickie is the author of the fun and feisty Texas Boardinghouse Brides series from Barbour Publishing. Watch for her new books from Moody Publishers, Texas Trails: A Morgan Family series, in which she partners with Susan Page Davis and Darlene Franklin to write a 6-book series that spans 50 years of the Morgan family. The first three books release this fall. Also, next year brings the release of another new series from Guidepost/Summerside, Pioneer Promises, set in 1870s Kansas.
Endorsements:


Hold on to your heart—Vickie McDonough is about to steal it away with an irresistible love story so unique and fresh, it will leave you breathless. It may be a “long trail home,” but the pages have never flown so fast! This is prairie romance at its very best—I loved it!
Julie Lessman, award-winning author of The Daughters of Boston and Winds of Change series
McDonough fans rejoice!  Vickie’s given you another winner, this timing bringing post-Civil War Texas to life in a memorable story of loss and love, of regret and redemption.  You won’t want to miss this poignant tale of two wounded souls searching for the true meaning of home.
Amanda Cabot, author of Tomorrow’s Garden

This blog post was uploaded by Cecelia Dowdy. Happy reading!

A Night Offering

Behold, bless the LORD, / All you servants of the LORD, / Who by night stand in the house of the Lord! / Lift up your hands in the sanctuary / And bless the LORD.                                                      Psalm 134:1    

Hi, Elizabeth Baker here, getting sentimental as I think how similar my writing is to another craft I love so well. Singing. Both are deeply rewarding, financially unprofitable, and always an adventure, especially when I find the final product blessing only an audience of two: just me and Jesus.

They still let me sing solo in church although every time I open my mouth I know the clear, sweet notes I used to enjoy are not what they used to be. Yet, as the high notes begin to warble and the low notes become more strained, I can still rejoice because God puts his stamp of approval on many kinds of songs. Including mine.

Jerusalem was famous for its songs. Both men and women were employed as singers [Ezra 2:65, Nehemiah 7:67] and because they served in shifts, [I Chronicles 9:33] there was always music in the temple. Seven days every week, around the clock, day and night someone was singing in the house of the Lord. Many songs were vast productions. It must have been an honor and joy to be a part of that special, grand-scale praise.

But the Bible mentions another kind of music and the older I get the more value I see in this second kind of praise. This is smaller music. Personal music. Music that doesn’t need an audience to give it value. The psalmist commended those who sang by night in the house of the Lord. [Psalm 134:1] These were hours when no big production rang out and there was seldom a human audience to see the show. Nothing but an empty room and a single voice singing to the ever-present, unseen God.