I’m sorry for the lack of posts lately! My brain has been totally absorbed with new baby and family stuff and I haven’t had a lot of mental bandwidth for writing articles, barely adding a sentence or two to my book every few days! But I try to keep up my Simmer Starters, because they are fun – and here is my collection for this week.
Change the Face of Female Villains (Barely Hare Books) – This was an interesting post…I’d never noticed before how female villains tend to fall into cliches more than male villains these days. “What can we do as writers to break free of these chains and create female villains that are just as bad as the boys? What do female villains need to be as equally threatening, if not more so?”
How to Create a Rational Magic System (Chris Winkle, Mythcreants) – Oh, how I love worldbuilding… Awesome, very thorough article about creating magic systems!
7 Ingredients of an Amazing Climax (Chris Winkle) – Also from Mythcreants…I just rediscovered this site and am enjoying a lot of the in-depth, helpful articles there. This one helped me rethink my book’s climax and come up with some good ideas to make it pack more punch.
Learning the Craft (Steven Pressfield) – LOVE. “If you and I want to take ourselves seriously as writers, we have to ask ourselves not just, ‘Am I studying the craft?’ but ‘Am I studying my craft?’ ”
Why We’ve Made Too Big of a Deal Over the Phrase “Looks Like You’ve Got Your Hands Full” (Katie Bennett) – A beautiful example of responding with grace in a world where mothers often respond to innocent comments with offense (and I’m guilty of that too!).
Help! Mommydom Leaves Me No Time For God (Holly Elliff) – Encouraging and convicting! “Since these kids, at the ages they are at this moment, are God’s will for your life, does He intend to speak to you in the next decade or so when you don’t have free time? Of course He does. So how is that going to happen when you have so little time you can control?”
Praying the Bible (Tim Challies) – This is really a book review, but I might need to pick up this book because this approach to prayer has revolutionized my desire for a daily devotional time! It has been so very helpful (along with deleting my Facebook app and sticking my Bible app in its old spot! That was a very useful brain hack, and got me diving into the Bible multiple times a day the way I might check a social media app).
Hahaha. I’ve got to read the female villains one!