If you don't already subscribe to She Reads, I invite you to sign up here. Today's article was thought-provoking, timely and well-said. My recent thoughts on Christians and Grit are a cloudy beginning to the ideas articulated in this article by Eric Wilson. If you are a Christian writer, I highly recomend taking the time to read this essay regarding the Christian Fiction maretplace.

Also worth reading today is Cathy Bryant's insights on the character trait of manipulation. Understanding why our characters do what they do is going to make them all the more "real" and believable on the page.

As for me, I've had little to report as of late regarding my own publishing efforts. This is not because I am cooling off the jets in my quest, but simply that I have decided to reserve most of my querying for face-to-face meetings at the conference I will be attending in February. I am still actively working on refining my synopsis (just reworked it today actually) and will be tackling another combing-through of my full manuscript very soon. (Yikes!)

In between I am shoring up other, more important, areas of my life to make sure they don't get overshadowed by my enthusiasm for "Getting Published". Those areas being my personal relationship with the Lord, and my family life. This blog is first and foremost intended to allow a peek into the process and journey of a pre-published author fumbling toward getting that first book into print. But you can expect to read devotions as they come to me, book reviews, poetry, and hopefully more guest posts. And of course I will keep you updated on any news regarding Beauty For Ashes.

Please stop and say "hello"- I'd love to hear from you!