• Skip to main content
  • Skip to after header navigation
  • Skip to site footer

The Steve Laube Agency

Helping to Change the World…Word by Word

The Steve Laube Agency

The Steve Laube Agency

Helping to Change the World Word by Word

  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Interview with Steve Laube
    • Statement of Faith
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
  • Guidelines
  • Authors
    • Who We Represent
    • Awards and Recognition
  • Resources
    • Recommended Reading
    • Christian Writers Market Guide Online
    • Christian Writers Institute
    • Writers Conferences
    • Freelance Editorial Services
    • Copyright Resources
    • Research Tools
    • Selling What You Write
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Twitter
  • FaceBook
  • RSS Feed
  • Get Published
  • Book Proposals
  • Book Business
  • Writing Craft
    • Conferences
    • Copyright
    • Craft
    • Creativity
    • Grammar
  • Fun Fridays
Home » Trends

Trends

Impossible Books

By Dan Balowon August 16, 2023
Share12
Tweet
15

There are a lot of hard things in life. Some are downright impossible.

Entrepreneur and media guru Patrick Bet-David says the ten hardest things in life are:

  1. Getting Married
  2. Parenting
  3. Becoming an entrepreneur
  4. Keeping your health
  5. Overcoming addiction
  6. The loss of a loved one
  7. Leaving people behind
  8. Handling success
  9. Trusting others
  10. Massive failure

Many say the most difficult thing to do in all sports is to hit a baseball with a bat. When the best players ever can only successfully do it 30% of the time, it’s easy to make that case.

“The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters.” (Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees)

Albert Einstein said, “The hardest thing in the world is to understand the income tax.”

Then there are the impossible things, like licking your elbow, reasoning with a two-year-old, reasoning with a three-year-old, watching the movie Out of Africa all the way through, not yawning at a baseball game, not coughing in church, and remembering to change the furnace filter regularly. (Hmm, those were specific.)

Many feel the toughest part of writing is staring at a blank screen and deciding how to start.

Because it is important to know our limits, there are some impossible things for the Christian writer to fully understand and write about. Sure, there are difficult subjects to address appropriately or challenging hurdles, but knowing what things are impossible to write about in their entirety builds an appropriate amount of humility into the job of a Christian writer.

These are book topics or themes impossible to write in all their various facets, but go ahead and try anyway.

God’s glory in all his majesty
God’s holiness in its perfection
God’s mercy
God’s lovingkindness
God’s grace in all its undeserved blessing
Forgiveness in its completeness
How far the east is from the west
Freedom from the curse of sin
The Trinity in its complexity
Grace and truth combined
The crucifixion in its brutality
Christ’s sacrifice in its sufficiency
The resurrection in its total victory
Christ in you
The wonder of creation
True joy
The faithfulness of God
Adoption into God’s family
God’s sovereign will
What belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar
True repentance
Loving God with all your heart, mind, and strength
Loving your neighbor as yourself
Christ’s return
The new Jerusalem
The new earth
Living in a world without sin

Of course, we will never fully grasp the greatness and complexity of God, and that’s just fine. He wouldn’t be God if he was finite like us and understandable in all his ways.

Still, go ahead and try covering these impossible themes in whatever you write. Spend a lifetime in study and meditation; and if you understand one of them only 30%, you’ll be in the Hall of Fame for Christian writers.

 

Leave a Comment
Category: Inspiration, The Writing Life, Theology, Trends

Fun with AI

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon July 13, 2023
Share22
Tweet
16

Steve Laube always inspires me, and I found special encouragement from his recent post on artificial intelligence. AI provided an inaccurate biography of him, so I wondered if I’d have the same experience. I’m doing this field research, so you don’t have to! Chat gpt ChatGPT stands for “Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer” Then it included a definition that sent me to a hyperlink to download …

Read moreFun with AI
Category: Trends

Old MacDonald Had Some Help – A.I. – A.I. – Oh!

By Steve Laubeon June 26, 2023
Share41
Tweet
11

There is all sorts of talk about artificial intelligence and the ease with which a computer can create content with a mere prompt from a user. For those of us who read science fiction it cuts too close to the famous H.A.L. scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey or the rise of the machines in Terminator or the autonomous military robots in Keith Laumer’s BOLO series. I dare say we are not there yet, but …

Read moreOld MacDonald Had Some Help – A.I. – A.I. – Oh!
Category: Trends

New Writer Lingo for a New Day

By Bob Hostetleron June 15, 2023
Share54
Tweet
16

If you’ve been writing (or hanging around with writers) for a while, you’ve probably seen or heard the abbreviation POV. It’s short for “point of view.” And WIP (“work in progress”), MC (“main character”), and perhaps even NaNoWriMo (“National Novel Writing Month,” which rolls around every November). But those, like many terms we writers use and abuse, have been around for a while. They’re kinda …

Read moreNew Writer Lingo for a New Day
Category: Career, Common Questoins, The Writing Life, Trends

Define the Takeaway First

By Bob Hostetleron March 29, 2023
Share15
Tweet
10

A few months ago, one of my friends (don’t worry, Sarah, I won’t mention your name) asked this question on social media: Writer friends: Do you ever write something, think it’s nearly finished, and fail to be able to define the “take-away?” So, “writer friends,” I’m about to do you a favor. I will suggest an approach that will save a lot of time, stress, regret, and other bad things. Ready? …

Read moreDefine the Takeaway First
Category: Craft, Get Published, Pitch, The Writing Life, Trends

Voices of Hope: Why Young Writers Are Important

By Dan Balowon March 22, 2023
Share13
Tweet
8

In the last month, I suggested some writers who might be worthwhile for the Christian publishing world to give attention. Those with a military or missionary season in their lives could be helpful to the Church today since they both lived a good piece of their lives in positions where personal preference, comfort, and fulfillment were far down on their priority lists. Submission, courage, …

Read moreVoices of Hope: Why Young Writers Are Important
Category: The Writing Life, Trends

Voices of Faithfulness: Why Missionary Writers Are Important

By Dan Balowon March 1, 2023
Share22
Tweet
20

I’ve been pondering the types of people, professions, and perspectives that might best write to the Christian church in the coming years. No Christ-follower can look at the world around us without seeing it unraveling at an astounding pace. Thinking back to the 1990s when Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye created the first books of the fictional Left Behind series, they would have been roundly mocked …

Read moreVoices of Faithfulness: Why Missionary Writers Are Important
Category: Career, Encouragement, Inspiration, Trends

Book Proposals I’d Love to See (What Tamela Hancock Murray Is Looking For)

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon January 19, 2023
Share325
Tweet
50

(Updated 1/19/2023) I’m thankful to the Lord that I’m a literary agent working for Him in Christian publishing. I’m grateful to the readers of this blog for being part of our writing community. As for approaching me with your work, let’s see if our passions match: Christian Romantic Suspense and Suspense Readers of Christian romantic suspense and suspense are a large and devoted …

Read moreBook Proposals I’d Love to See (What Tamela Hancock Murray Is Looking For)
Category: Agency, Book Business, Book Proposals, Career, Craft, Creativity, Romance, Trends, Writing CraftTag: Agency, book proposals

Bring the Books (What Steve Laube Is Looking For)

By Steve Laubeon January 16, 2023
Share274
Tweet
52
Read moreBring the Books (What Steve Laube Is Looking For)
Category: Agency, Book Proposals, Creativity, TrendsTag: Agency, book proposals

Book Industry Trends

By Steve Laubeon November 7, 2022
Share73
Tweet
13

Publishing is partly an exercise in guessing what might be the next surprise bestseller. Some of it is an educated guess based on certain trends we see in the industry and in society at large. Any exercise in naming these trends bears the risk of expressing the obvious or being out of date the moment they are stated. So bear with me as I tinker with some of the factors that are either influencing …

Read moreBook Industry Trends
Category: Book Business, Contracts, E-Books, Get Published, TrendsTag: book industry, Trends
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 14
  • Next
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Interview with Steve Laube
    • Statement of Faith
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
  • Guidelines
  • Authors
    • Who We Represent
    • Awards and Recognition
  • Resources
    • Recommended Reading
    • Christian Writers Market Guide Online
    • Christian Writers Institute
    • Writers Conferences
    • Freelance Editorial Services
    • Copyright Resources
    • Research Tools
    • Selling What You Write
  • Blog
  • Contact

Copyright © 2023 · The Steve Laube Agency · All Rights Reserved · Website by Stormhill Media