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The Steve Laube Agency

The Steve Laube Agency

Helping to Change the World Word by Word

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Home » Writing Craft » Creativity » Page 2

Creativity

Spend It All

By Bob Hostetleron February 3, 2022
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If you’re anything like me (I extend my sympathies), the dawn of a new year brings with it a chance for reflection and re-vision. I like the hyphenated version of that word; I think it conveys the meaning a little better than revision. Re-vision suggests to me the casting of a new vision, new direction, new emphasis, new focus.

So, as I reflect and re-vision, I would like for my 2022 to be a year in which I “spend it all.” I borrow the phrase from one of my favorite writers, Annie Dillard, who wrote in The Writing Life (also one of my favorite books):

One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give now (Annie Dillard, The Writing Life).

Spend it all. I’m frugal by nature, but I see the wisdom in Dillard’s words. I can think of three excellent reasons to spend it all, every time you write, in everything you write:

We’re not promised tomorrow. Remember Jesus’ parable of the rich fool, who built more and larger barns to hoard his surplus, only to hear God say to him, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” (Luke 12:20 NIV)? As with crops, maybe with words. If we don’t “spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all,” who knows whether we’ll ever get to spend it at all?

We owe the reader our best. It is a grand privilege to be read, an honor and joy for any reader, even just one, to spend valuable time reading words we have written. How stingy would it be to take that for granted and fail to give readers our best? Not to mention (though I’m going to) it’s also a great way to lose readers and keep them from coming back for more. And who among us can afford to do that?   

Creativity is a muscle. Many times over the course of my writing ministry—which now spans more than four decades, fifty books, and hundreds of articles and blog posts—I have wondered just how many more ideas I can come up with and how much longer I can write such exquisite poetry and prose. (“Lord, forgive me, and try me one more time.”) But, somehow, God continues to bless me (and tolerate me); and creativity—like any muscle—gets stronger and better as it’s used. To use a different metaphor, spending it all primes the pump and keeps the inspiration flowing.

For those reasons—and more, which I hope some of you will suggest in the comments—I hope and plan to “spend it all” in my writing efforts this year. How about you?

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Category: Creativity, Inspiration

Edgy Christian Fiction

By Steve Laubeon January 31, 2022
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A number of years ago the question of what is appropriate to include in Christian fiction was asked, and I wrote much of what is below as a reply. Recently, this issue jumped back into conversations with the release of the film Redeeming Love, based on the bestselling novel of the same title by Francine Rivers. (Some reviews of the movie, not the book, that wrestle with the debate can be found …

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Category: Craft, Creativity, Language, Writing CraftTag: Craft, Creativity, Edgy, Language

Singing the Slushpile Blues

By Steve Laubeon August 30, 2021
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by Steve Laube

The unsolicited pile of proposals in my office (aka "the slushpile) taunts me every day.

"Come over here!" it says, tantalizing me with immanent possibilities. I say to myself, "Maybe it will be the next one I look at. That will be 'The One.'"

I've been told that many of you enjoy hearing some of the offbeat letters or intriguing proposals I see. Here is a sampling from …

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Category: Book Proposals, Creativity, HumorTag: Humor, slushpile

Books Are Signposts Along the Way

By Steve Laubeon August 16, 2021
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By Steve Laube

The novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, is a series of stories linked together in the small town of Macondo in South America. It is surrounded by a swamp and thus is known for its isolation.

One day the town was infected by a plague which causes insomnia. The people of the town were not unhappy at first …

Read moreBooks Are Signposts Along the Way
Category: Art, Craft, Creativity, Writing CraftTag: Craft, Creativity, Signs

It’s New to Them

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon August 4, 2021
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The other day, I was surprised to see an ad for a book published fairly recently regarding Kitty Genovese, a woman murdered as bystanders watched in Queens, New York, in 1964. This case was so notorious for its study of human behavior (Why would witnesses fail to act?) that people have analyzed the event for decades. Most adults know the name and reference without blinking. But what about younger …

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Category: Creativity, Inspiration, Pitching

The Dreaded Blank Page

By Steve Laubeon July 19, 2021
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by Steve Laube

A clean slate. An empty canvas. A fresh start. A new beginning.
Or a potential nightmare of guilt, failure, and shame.

Thus begins the process of each writing project. This blog post began with a blank page. I wondered why I ever agreed to write a blog. I procrastinated with enough excuses to be described as legion. I told myself that no one cares what I think on any …

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Category: Craft, Creativity, Steve, Writing CraftTag: blank page, Writing Craft

Original Writing

By Dan Balowon June 16, 2021
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Several years ago, I reviewed a proposal on a subject commonly addressed in Christian books and quickly noticed it was not entirely original.  It wasn’t plagiarized from another author, but the proposed nonfiction book was comprised almost entirely of the best-thinking from other Christian authors on the subject. There was little original thinking by the author. The material quoted from other …

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Category: Book Proposals, Creativity, Get Published, The Writing Life, Writing Craft

The Story We Bring to the Story

By Steve Laubeon June 7, 2021
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by Steve Laube

With all the discussion about the craft of fiction and the need to write a great story there is one thing missing in the equation. The one thing that is the secret to great fiction. And it is the one thing the writer cannot control.

That one thing is the story the reader brings with them to their reading experience. As a reader I have the life I have lived, the people I’ve …

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Category: Art, Craft, Creativity, Steve, Writing CraftTag: Craft, Reader, story

Success

By Dan Balowon May 5, 2021
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I am using the 20th year remembrance of the death of Clifton Hillegass as inspiration to make a larger point about the direction an author’s life can take. Clifton (pictured above is his statue in Kearney, NE) was the creator of CliffsNotes and passed away in Lincoln, Nebraska, at the age of 83 on May 5, 2001. I assume most of you reading this post are aware of CliffsNotes and also of how much …

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Category: Creativity, The Writing Life, TheologyTag: Success

Age Is Just a Number

By Steve Laubeon March 22, 2021
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by Steve Laube

Last Friday in the comments Dr. Richard Mabry wrote, "Tired after doing a few household chores that never used to leave me dragging. Now I’m ready to be up and dancing. Age is just a number, isn’t it?"

Then on Saturday I spoke at the Christian Writes of the West mini-conference where one of the writers asked "Do older writers have a chance? Especially if agents and …

Read moreAge Is Just a Number
Category: Book Business, Career, CreativityTag: Age, Career
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