First Line Contest Spring 2009

The results are in. Our winner will be announced at the May 4th meeting.

Thank you to all who participated in this contest. Proceeds will help fund our new chapter.

Special thanks to our judges: Kathy Kovach, Donita Paul and Margie Vawter.

We'd also like to thank Pauline Fortuna of Fat Tuna photography for donating a portraiture session. Pauline does excellent work. Please consider her for all your portrait needs.

Colorado Chrisitan Writers Conference 2009

For more information go to: Write His Answer.

Mile High Scribes Meeting

Monday, April 6, 2009

7:00 PM

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Barnes & Noble

Park Meadows

Speaker: Chris Richards
Five Scriptural Reasons to Write

Driven to write? Yes. Why be a Christian writer?
Come for a lively discussion about the Biblical reasons why we write.

Chris Richards’ writing activities have included newspaper articles, newsletters for churches, swim teams, gymnastic teams, marching bands and women’s groups. During more than thirty years teaching Christian education for all ages, she revised or wrote lessons to meet the specific needs of her students. Chris is currently combining her loves of writing and of teaching to encourage young people to write. She is an active member of Words for the Journey Christian Writers Guild, American Christian Fiction Writers, the Christian Writers Guild and Toastmasters International. Visit http://passingthequill.com/ for more information about Chris.

Mini Retreat at Home

My desk is clear physically, but mentally its stacked high with a load of work and it takes time away from my writing.

Therefore, I’m taking charge and am blocking off a few days for writing. I’m calling it a mini retreat. My three day retreat will be April 6^th - April 8^th. On these days, I will devote at least 8 hours to writing, praying about writing and reading about writing.

Join me won’t you? I will be in my office, with the door closed. Perhaps I’ll play an ocean sound track to drown out the noise in the house. Even though I can’t get away physically, I can create a retreat-like setting right here at home.

Mile High Scribes

First Line Contest

1st prize Professional Headshot

by

Fat Tuna Photography (A $75 Value)

2nd prize

$10 Barnes and Noble Gift Certificate

Contest Guidelines:

Open to members of Mile High Scribes and/or ACFW Colorado

$5 entrance fee, $7 non-members.

Email entry as an attachment to Imboldandfree@gmail.com

write First Line Contest in the subject line.

Enter a first line (first sentence) you’ve written that especially like

Published or unpublished.

Enter Now! Deadline midnight April 1, 2009

For More information and further updates:

www.milehighscribes.blogspot.com

www.fattunaphotogrpahy.com

Seeking Stories on Prayer

Dear Writer,

I’d like to invite you to be part of an exciting new series that Guideposts is sponsoring: The Incredible Power of Prayer.

You may have contributed to one or more of my story volumes in A Cup of Comfort, Life Savors, or Love is a Verb. Great! I’d love to hear from you whether you’re a previous associate or have not yet submitted anything to my projects.

Prayer is the heartbeat of the Christian life and is an amazing gift from God to us. A prayer in faith can spur God’s heart to “move mountains” on our behalf. The incredible power of prayer can accomplish miracles that go far beyond anything we humans can accomplish on our own.

Guideposts reaches millions of Americans with their upbeat message of God empowering us. And now, Guideposts is launching a series of 12 books on various aspects of prayer and how people from every walk of life have been transformed through God’s responses. These books will be mailed monthly as part of a book club promotion, and will be exclusive to this readership.

I am now collecting submissions for the first three books in the series and would welcome as many stories as you wish to submit. The first volume is Praying from the Heart and covers God answering our deeply felt prayers of great passion, sincerity, and trust. These prayers may be repentant, express deep gratitude, or describe desperate cries that lay bare a person’s deepest needs.

The second volume, The Healing Touch, deals with stories about prayers that lead to physical, spiritual, relational, or emotional healing. They may involve relationships that don’t resolve perfectly, but bring a closer relationship with God and a new sense of purpose and greater ability.

The third volume, Expecting Miracles, includes personal experience stories about audacious prayers with powerful answers. This is where the need is great and God responds extraordinarily. The answers don’t need to be purely supernatural; God can work in mysterious ways using all kinds of means.

Submissions can be up to 2000 words. Each story should have a creative title, an attention-grabbing lead, main body explaining a conflict or challenge, and a resolution. These need to be descriptive and compelling personal experience stories—not simply testimonies. We prefer original stories but you may also submit previously published stories. The payment is $25 for stories under 1000 words, and $50 for longer stories. You may retain the rights to publish the stories in magazines and books with smaller distribution sources.

We are accepting manuscripts from now until at least June 15 for the first three volumes. We’ll announce the finalists for the first volume around October 15.
Please include on each manuscript—not in headers or simply in the e-mail—your name, contact information (address, phone, e-mail, rights offered) and a bio of up to 30 words. Please attach to the e-mail rather than pasting text in the body.

Please direct all inquiries and manuscript submissions to my colleague, Jeanette Littleton at IncrediblePrayers@earthlink.net. And please feel free to let others know about this project. If this e-mail has been forwarded to you, and you can’t submit to this call, but would like to be notified about other editorial needs as they arise, please send us your e-mail address and we’ll add you to our notification list (we do not sell or distribute these e-mail addresses).

Blessings to you and yours,

Jim

James Stuart Bell
Compiler, Guideposts Prayer series

Once upon a bandwagon . . .

There are a limited number of plots for stories. I can’t remember if it is seven or nine plots, but the bottom line is that’s it – no more. So we know anytime we write a story the plot will be the same as someone else’s.

Clichés all have an element of truth. That is why they are created. But, are our stories based on clichés of dozens of other authors?

I loved the first dozen or so stories I read about Amish girls trying to reconcile their place and their faith with the world. Now, I cringe when I see a book cover with a picture of a girl in an Amish wagon.

How many heroines struggle to escape their abusive athlete/lawyer/soldier/doctor/movie star husband, gain their freedom and are in love with a new athlete/lawyer/soldier/doctor/movie star at the end of the book?

How many women are “not even 100 pounds soaking wet?” How many men are strong, muscular, with wavy hair and ice-blue eyes? And, why is it only a man who looks like this can solve all a woman’s problems?

Why do a man and woman who grew up hating each other always get thrown together, discover they actually love each other, and live happily ever after?

Here’s my suggestion. Let’s jump off the bandwagons of clichéd stories, grab some material and tools, and build our own bandwagons which take these basic stories and give them new twists with well motivated characters.

Hummmm. I see a large woman teaming up with a scrawny geek. They work together to solve the problem at hand. I think I need to stop blogging and start a new novel.