Angels at the Crossroads

Ann H GabhartAnn's Posts, One Writer's Journal 74 Comments

For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. Psalm 91:11-12 (NKJ) Fourteen years ago my first inspirational novel, Scent of Lilacs,  was published and readers were taking their first trips to my little town of Hollyhill that …

Turning the Calendar

Ann H GabhartAnn's Posts, One Writer's Journal 8 Comments

Happy New Year! Turning the calendar from December to January is always a good time to think about the last year and consider what might be on the way in the coming year. Of course, we can’t know the future. Most years carry some good and some not so good.  But when we’re at the beginning of the year, it’s …

Flowers in the Garden of Storytelling

Ann H GabhartAnn's Posts, One Writer's Journal 12 Comments

Friends are the flowers in the garden of life. (Unknown) I had great fun at the ACFW Conference. That’s the American Christian Fiction Writers Conference. The ACFW is an organization that promotes Christian fiction and helps writers, both published and those hoping to be published, find ways to improve their writing to entice readers into their fictional worlds. This week …

“Where Do You Get Your Ideas?”

Ann H GabhartAnn's Posts, One Writer's Journal 9 Comments

Ideas come from ordinary, everyday life. And from imagination. And from feelings. And from memories. Memories of dust in my sneakers and humming whitewalls down a hill called Monkey. ~Jerry Spinelli “Where do you get your ideas?” I’m guessing that is a question many writers have tried to answer, including Jerry Spinelli in the quote above. Imagination can be a …

Cutting All Those Unnecessary Words

Ann H GabhartAnn's Posts, One Writer's Journal 5 Comments

A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. ~William Strunk, Jr. Oh, the joys of editing. Actually, editing is the easiest part for me when I’m writing. Of course, I have to admit that I find editing and …