• Dive Deep into Dialogue

    There are lots of different ways to start sketching in the empty page of a new scene. Dialogue. Setting. Action. Internal thought. But for me, the easiest way to get words on the page is to use dialogue—what I want my characters to say to each other—as the blueprint of my scene. Visit me over at Writers in the Storm today and learn the do’s and don’ts of dialogue. You might also be interested in Frame Your Scene with Essay Structure.

  • 10 Things a Mom Must Always Remember

    Once a mom, always a mom. We may enter motherhood through different avenues, but whether we cradle our bundles of joy the first moment of their lives or hold them tightly to us later, our love only deepens from the day we first meet. I’ve been a mom over twenty-four years. I’ll be a mom the rest of my life. It doesn’t matter how many birthdays my kids have, how far away they move, or how accomplished they become at taking care of themselves, they’re still the babies of my heart. As newcomers to motherhood, we might’ve heard it was a full-time, forever job. But did any of us really…

  • Why You’ll Never Be Content Without God

    Over the last 13 years, I’ve walked my son through cancer twice. More than a quarter of his 24 years have been spent on one goal—knocking leukemia on its butt. And that’s not counting the years of cleaning up the fallout of all that chemo and radiation. Kyle’s first treatment plan lasted over three and a half years. After I recovered from the shock, I zipped from anxious, to uncertain, to alarmed, to discouraged about 20 times a day. Watching him struggle brought on a sadness so deep my chest constantly ached. But every time I thought I’d tumble over the edge, a sense of calm caught me and held…