By Wendy Parker As I read the phone text from my literary agent that another publishing house had decided not to go with my book proposal, my mind instantly went to a quote by Barbara Kingsolver that I had written down a few months before. “This manuscript of yours that has just come back from …
Author Archives: Jenny Blake
The Decision Tree of Plotting
By Nola Lorraine Have you ever read a book and been unhappy with one or more of the choices the author made? How could Bailey Flanigan marry that guy instead of the other one I was cheering for? How could Lucy Maud Montgomery kill off that character at the end of Anne of Green Gables? …
Devotional | On Trust, Rest and Uncertainty
This devotion was originally written for my newsletter subscribers. But I felt God called me to share it on this blog, in our current times, with a good part of the country in lockdown.I hope it speaks to you whatever your circumstances,Jodie McCarthy The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still. …
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The Interim Of Greatness.
By Wendy Parker Greatness is one of those elusive things in life that can leave as quickly as it came. It only rests on a person for an allotted time and then it is gone again. The interim of greatness reminds us that it’s only provisional and the length of time you can walk in …
Portraying True Characters in Historical Fiction
By Nola Lorraine Have you ever noticed that movies based on real events have different taglines? If it says ‘based on a true story’, it will stick fairly closely to the facts. The producer and director still take some poetic licence, or it would be a documentary rather than a movie, but the main elements …
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Devotional | You can’t rush balance
By Jodie McCarthy I extend my arms and move slowly through my exercise routine. As I come up on to my toes my instructor says, “You can’t rush balance.” I exhale and lower arms and legs slowly for the next rotation, holding the words tight in my mind for they speak not just to my …
NetGalley for Readers: Pros, Cons and Tips
By Nola Lorraine If you love reading, there’s nothing better than getting a free book or two … or twenty. You can do just that by registering for a free NetGalley account. NetGalley is a website where publishers and indie authors offer free advance copies of books in electronic or audio format so that they …
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Finding Your Worth In Print
By Wendy Parker Let’s face it, as writers, we all struggle from time to time with self-doubt. No, scrap that. We writers struggle daily with self-doubt! What fuels these thoughts, this knack to go down a rabbit hole within our thinking, is that we believe only real writers have their names printed on the cover …
Book Design and the Reader Experience
By Nola Lorraine As readers, we probably don’t think too much about book layouts until something goes wrong. The font’s too small and we can’t read it. The print goes so close to the inside margins that it’s hard to read. The text is so dense on each page that we don’t feel like ploughing …
What Story Are You Telling Yourself?
By Wendy Parker What story are you telling yourself? I’m here to give you the inside scoop on a small detail in the plot of your story you’ve probably overlooked because the long and short of it is, the story you’ve been telling yourself may need some editing if you’re going to fulfil the calling …