The Key To Writing Strong Female Characters

I have written a few blog posts about the problem of women being used as objects in fiction, much less film, and as the father of three daughters I find this method of writing about women or the portrayal of women in film disgusting. What I’m writing about here is not “empowerment” or the advocation

Jesus and the Christian Writer

I’m a Christian writer.  In a nation that is becoming increasingly post-Christian I am proud to call myself a Christian writer.  If you do not believe that we are becoming a post-Christian nation, that there is hope for our nation to “go back to God”, then we have a long way to go, and in

One Book Every Self-Publisher Needs to Devour

I just finished reading a book by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch that is everything a self-publisher needs to know about self-publishing and how to be successful in that area.  It’s called APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur-How to Publish a Book. Basically, it is a book written by someone who knows the industry and how it works,

The U.S. of After Chapter 28

Ethan That lady knew something about me. I could see it on her face when she looked at my shirt. I knew that I had to put as much distance between myself and these people as possible and I had to do it soon.  I thought I’d wait until nightfall, see what I could find

The U.S. of After Chapter 27

Clayton I was bound and determined to get Jacob alone so’s I could talk to him. It seemed as if people really liked him here at this camp.  I don’t think he’d ever really been here, but I figured he just had a way with people.  Boy, was I shootin’ in the dark.  He had

The U.S. of After Chapter 19

Ethan The sky was falling. I remember as a kid my Dad used to read that story to me about Chicken Little, but now it was real.  Whatever smashed into the planet over the western horizon was sending up a plume of black stuff into the atmosphere that was blotting out the sun.  Everything was

Writing Exercise: Describing With Color

Writing exercises are essential for a writer.  It’s like getting up in the morning and doing pushups for your brain.  Today’s writing exercise is very simple, but will help the writer to learn that colors are used by our culture to describe all manner of details in a text. Step 1: On a piece of

An Independence Day Observation

Yes, I plan on writing today.  I wrote 2500 words yesterday (or rather last night in the wee hours of the morning).  I sat outside yesterday and watched my son and my middle daughter light water dynamite one after another, exploding ant hills and various other insect hovels… …but I must make one observation about