>At the recent mentoring retreat I attended, author Mark Littleton (who recently published Big Bad God of the Bible and appeared on Fox & Friends) read and applied scripture related to the writing life.His devotional about the necessity for remaining in God's Word was personally convicting. And I'm still unpacking the implications of his meditation … Continue reading >Delighting in the Lord

>There are many things I could write about the HACWN Writers' Mentoring Retreat that I attended from Thursday through Saturday in Excelsior Springs, MO. And there are many things I must write as a result of it. But the biggest news is that an acquisitions editor at a major Christian publishing house is interested in … Continue reading >"Matthew" seeing light

>Yesterday I completed a manuscript.I use the term "completed" very loosely here, meaning that I finally got the manuscript to a point where there were no significant text gaps and major plot threads were incorporated. In other words, I got it into a form that I felt comfortable having someone else read. And I use … Continue reading >On Completion, Vulnerability, and True Fiction

>It's been too long since I posted to this blog and my last entry leaves the wrong impression about Libby and "bedtime."Since that first night Libby spent in her new wire kennel, when she whimpered a few times and barked once (which in all fairness was only natural after being "spoiled" by someone I know … Continue reading >Bedtime 2

>Dave slept upstairs for a week while I had a bad cold in an effort to avoid catching it. It didn't work. He has had a bad cold for a week and has been sleeping upstairs in an effort to avoid giving it back to me.This has been considerate of him and we sleep better … Continue reading >Bedtime

>Tim Challies, over at challies.com, has posted some excellent entries summarizing teaching from the recent Ligonier conference, The Holiness of God.Tim reports on conference speakers such as Robert Godfrey, Thabiti Anyabwile, Alistair Begg, and R.C. Sproul as well as other conference events and his personal reflections. His posts are well written, well organized, and well … Continue reading >Check out Challies and Venema

>Because Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead is one of my favorite novels, one might assume that I would be excited about her newest novel, Home, particularly since it deals with the same characters and events as Gilead.I confess, however, that I picked up Home with trepidation. I have never been a huge fan of sequels, believing they … Continue reading >Book Review: Home by Marilynne Robinson

>Yes, faithful readers, I'm back in blogging business!My son installed a new motherboard in my desktop computer on Saturday and I've been scrambling to get caught up with my work since. Suffice it to say that on Monday I was finally able to begin layout on a newsletter that was due at the institution that … Continue reading >I’m back!

>Just a quick update to let my many and faithful readers know that I have not been able to post because my computer's motherboard fried about a week ago.I am able to do some work on my laptop, but it's very difficult to work with its keyboard and touchpad. The cursor arbitrarily jumps to a … Continue reading >Update

>This is the time of year when people prepare their taxes and college students (or their parents) fill out annual financial aid forms. I've been working on financial aid forms for a long time--the thirteen years I attended college as well as all the years one or more of our children attended college.You'd think all … Continue reading >Seeing the Light