by Katy Kauffman @KatyKauffman28 I tried so hard to make those baby trees grow. Two years ago, I transplanted three small trees from my front yard to the back, and for weeks I “mommy-ed” them. I watered them, staked their six-inch-tall trunks to the ground, and made sure no one…

By Cherrilynn Bisbano @bisbanowrites I am a fish, at least that is what my dad said. My parents worked at a private lake. At the age of four, my father threw me in the water over my head to teach me to swim. (I do not recommend his methods). I…

By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills Recently a reader asked about my hardest task as a writer. I had to think before answering. I’m working line edits before turning in my next story, so I’m immersed in every word, goal, voice, gesture, motive, plot line, romance, suspense, symbol, character(s), emotion, dialogue, narrative,…

by Sandy Kirby Quandt @SandyKQuandt Borrowing a phrase from that spinach-eating sailor, Popeye, I thought about how sometimes life shivers our timbers. Especially when our world shifts, as it has recently, leaving us to balance the teeter-totter of life without hitting the ground with a solid thud.  Purely on a…

By Cindy Sproles @CindyDevoted Let me begin by giving you this somewhat obscure statement. For others, we must. I recently worked with a writer who'd never written a novel before and as we worked through her critique, I could hear the discouragement in her voice. Sympathetically, I asked, "Do you want…

by Lynn Blackburn @LynnHBlackburn  People tend to assume if you’ve written a book that you must be creative in many other areas. The reality is while you may be creative with words, that doesn’t mean you have one ounce of skill with fabric, color, or that you have a clue how…