Let's encourage each other...

Hi! I have been discovering for a while that there is a community of young Christian writers that is growing across the nation (and the world, for that matter). Young people who want to write wholesome books that glorify God. I got the idea to start a blog that compiles a list of all their blogs/websites as well as resources. I'm hoping we can have this be a centralized spot to find each other. I'm discovering new blogs, and I'm sure there are way more out there than I have even found, so if you know of any that I haven't, please, please tell me! I'd love to find more.

I think we should be encouraging each other, especially since the world wants to tear us down. You know... that we don't write that well, our stories our boring, we're too focused on God, or whatever.

Here's the facts:
-We don't write the best, but then who does? Charles Dickens, whose stories we love, writes with so much description, I have yet to finish a book of his. The requirement for a good book is not perfection. With practice comes polish. We get better if we write more. And that means some of what we write may be disliked by most people who read it. Seriously, we might not even like it ourselves, but the goal is to get better. Don't forget, even if you and all your friends like a story, there's going to be somebody that doesn't like it. You can't please everybody. But you know what is great? You don't have to. God doesn't call us to please everybody, He calls us to please Him. If we're trying to get better in our writing, then we're heading in the right direction.

-Maybe our stories are boring. I know I've written quite a few un-publishable stories. So what? All we need to do is sharpen our pens and get to work. Pick your best story and polish that baby up (and yes, I know it's your baby ;), and it might take placing your character in a not-so-great place, because as you should know, action drives the story forward. No one wants to read about a character that sits around and doesn't have any excitement in their lives. (This is why we need to push our MC through a doorway of no return.) But what if the character had been sitting in the same chair for a long time, not because they live a boring life, but because if they moved, they would set off a bomb? What if they were tied to the chair and they literally could not get up? Here's the thing: writers explore the 'what if's. Someone's got to do it. :) And if your 'what if' isn't exciting (yes, you're not the only one who bores themselves with their own stories), then change it. Switch to another 'what if', or better yet, just add one or two. Say your character is on a road trip. Okay, so add a few 'what if's. Where are they going? What if they were looking for hidden treasure? But, not just any treasure. What if it was in the deepest part of the ocean, and, with no money in their pockets, they were traveling across the U.S. to find every scuba diver they could, in the hopes that one might be willing to get into their newly-developed submarine and go to the bottom of the ocean?

-You can never be too focused on God. So long as you don't go so far as becoming a hermit. God calls us to serve others. But our ultimate focus should be on God. This doesn't give us a license to preach to our readers, but stories with morals are exactly what this world needs.

Anyway, I'm hoping to post at least once a week.

Now I'll be honest with you. I hardly write. The most writing I ever get done is during NaNoWriMo each year. And it takes me soooo long to get a book edited. But I'm still a writer. I write books. It may take writing the whole book in a month, but I still do it. And having written a book (even if it's just a first draft) is way better than never having written anything, don't you agree? I'd like to welcome all writers to this blog... those who've just started their first novel, those who've only ever written short stories, those who write poems, those who've written whole novels... even those who've published a novel or two! This place is for all of us.

 Do you write books? What genre do you write? I write historical fiction, contemporary ficiton, and my newest WIP is futuristic and slightly like a sci-fi, but with some historical elements as well. I don't know what genre that is. :)

Please read the page on the criteria for your blog links. If you don't meet the criteria, please understand we still love you. We just need to have set criteria, because if we don't, then it would be a free-for-all.

And finally, you can read more about me at http://awritingmaiden.blogspot.com

Nice to meet you. :)