Dressing up your poor dog and taking a photo?
Priceless.
(No that is not our dog. We have a cat. But on Halloween we tell people she is a dog in disguise.)
Fun Fridays – Oct. 30, 2015
Blog
Tell Us All the Gossip!
Sometimes writers hear wild, wild gossip about the industry. Sometimes that gossip is true. Sometimes it is not. Sometimes it is halfway true. As your agent, I want to hear it! You might say, “Wait a minute! Aren’t you a Christian agent? Doesn’t the Bible say not to gossip?” Yes. And yes. But I need to hear this gossip. Not because I love to gossip. I don’t. I don’t have time. For one thing, I …
Lessons from Halloween
(First, one ground rule: This blog isn’t about, nor is it the forum for, either the debate on the origins of Halloween and whether or not Christians should celebrate it, or for the magic vs. no magic issue. Okay, on with the blog…) I used to love Halloween. Loved helping my mom decorate the house and make popcorn balls, the treat she always gave out to costumed munchkins at the door. Which …
Meet Your Reader
Every year a report or article appears in the media that show how the youth of our world don’t know very much. They are not speaking of ignorance as in stupidity, but in “not knowing” things simply because they have no first hand experience. Beloit College in Wisconsin has a running list going well into the future of things that college freshman know, or don’t know. A link to …
Does Anybody Read Books Anymore?
This past Thursday the Barna Group released the results of their survey called “The State of Books and Reading in a Digital World.” Feel free to click through to read the report yourself. Meanwhile there are a few observations of my own. Confirms What We Already Know About Gender For the entire 34 years I’ve been in the book industry we’ve concluded that women buy more books than men. The survey …
Where is the Romance?
When I talk with authors about their stories, sometimes they’ll say. “Yes, there’s romance. But it doesn’t happen until chapter five.” That’s when I look at the story and try to give advice on how they can change that. Granted, not every novel is a genre romance, nor should it be. And introducing the love element earlier shouldn’t turn the story into a genre romance. A more likely scenario? The …
Harvest Haiku
I just realized that we haven’t had a writing blog for some time, so what better time to correct that situation than autumn, when the air is pregnant with possibilities and the fragrance of change. I admit it, autumn is my absolute favorite time of year. I love the colors, the holidays, and the cooler weather. The way the birds are more active and the breeze more crisp. So come, you writers. Share …
Can I Have Your Attention Please?
In the last decade or so, there is a growing problem of fans being injured by foul balls and bats flying into the stands at baseball games. Discussion of fan-protection is becoming more important. Why are spectator injuries becoming more prevalent? Photos at the moment of impact of a foul ball or accidently thrown bat show dozens of people in the photo frame, with many looking down at their smart …
Fun Fridays – Oct. 16, 2015
Jeffrey Li and Celine Tam, ages 10 and 7 respectively, give a stunning performance of Josh Groban’s “You Raise Me Up.” Keep watching as it builds and builds to an exhilarating conclusion. (And if you want more, the boy did a solo a couple weeks earlier which is shown below.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeUJ4Y-XOeY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veIs0TQyaaM