Marketing tips, Writing tips What kind of environment creates good ideas? All of us live inside our own private versions of the adjacent possible. In our work lives, in our creative pursuits, in the organizations that employ us, in the communities…
Writing tips The Particular-to-General Opening Rather than being broad and expansive, another option is to offer a specific, detailed opening that draws readers in. They become engaged as they place themselves in a particular scene. …
Writing tips Write down a question While arriving at the edge of what’s obvious can be terrifying (often we’re overly eager to label it “writer’s block”), it is in fact a rich opportunity. If we can…
Writing tips Spiritual writing is hopeful. A writer of spiritual work believes that life is worth writing about. He or she believes that reflection and exploration will reap benefits. The spiritual writer communicates for the sake…
Writing tips The Thesis Opening Having a clear statement of your main point is an obvious and legitimate way to begin. The danger is that it can become convoluted and abstract. One solution is to…
Writing tips What Does It Mean to Be Creative? In a general sense, every human being is creative. This trait is not always flashy. Often it’s not called by its true name. But when you take the stuff of…
Marketing tips, Writing tips What’s the Gift? by David duChemin, from The Audience Academy, a bi-weekly email for artists, creatives and makers. I think the reason so many creative people get hung up on marketing is because…
Writing tips For now, my hands are full. No one owns God. God alone knows what is good. For reasons that will never be entirely clear, God has a soft spot for religious strangers, both as agents of…
Writing tips Spiritual writing is courageous. Otherwise it could never deal with the truth. Were spiritual writing not courageous, it would be impossible to do the hard work that makes the writing worthy of the label…
Marketing tips, Writing tips The Story Is Not About Us The larger point here is simple: the day we stop losing sleep over the success of our business and start losing sleep over the success of our customers is the…
Writing tips Spiritual writing is true. It compels us to see the truth and worry over the truth and allow the truth to change us. Sometimes we must reassess what we have seen as truth and…
Writing tips On Revision Writing for writing’s sake is marvelous so long as the writer isn’t in denial about his or her dreams. Most writers, whether we admit it or not, want our creations…
Writing tips We are helped to remember God, through the angel Gabriel, called on Mary to do what, in the world’s eyes is impossible, and instead of saying, “I can’t,” she replied immediately, “Be it unto me…
Writing tips Our favorite verses In the Christian New Testament, Jesus himself admits that he does not know everything there is to know about God. When his disciples ask him to tell them about the…
Writing tips Writing our way into the mystery Spiritual memoir entails moving forward by writing what we don’t know-writing our way into the mystery. “I haven’t a clue as to how my story will end,” Nancy Willard writes.…
Marketing tips, Publishing tips, Writing tips Competition turns out to be less central to the history of good ideas than we generally think The pattern of “competition” is an excellent case in point. Every economics textbook will tell you that competition between rival firms leads to innovation in their products and services. But…
Marketing tips, Writing tips Is there a deeper story? Before music went digital, Tower Records promoted their chain of record stores using the tagline “No music, no life.” Not only did the tagline help them sell more than a…
Writing tips Straight from the Authors – Part 1 In this article Angela Scheff from the Christopher Ferebee Agency interviews several amazing authors—Lisa Whittle, Jonathan Merritt and Leeana Tankersley—who describe their writing process and how it has changed over…
Writing tips No one owns God But there is a deeper message in the sermon at Nazareth, which is that no one owns God. The great religions may possess genuine revelations of God’s nature and purpose.…
Writing tips Facing the truth about my own story I’ve come to believe that artists are given the task of healing their culture through their explorations, through their renaming and revisioning of events. It is part of my gift…
