5 Awkward Questions to Ask Your Protagonists (Janeen Ippolito) – A great set of questions to get to know your characters better. (My characters answered the questions in the comment section too. 😀 )
Who’s Your Daddy? (Redeemed Reader) – Fascinating thoughts here on the absence (or antagonism) of fathers in literature and what it might mean. “But there’s a deeper reason for the absent/adversarial-dad theme, I think: the central conflict of humanity is that we’ve lost our Father. We’ve made him our Adversary, or we imagine him as ineffectual, or we can’t find him at all. However unspiritual a man claims to be, deep down, he knows that something is wrong. Of course it is; he’s missing Dad.”
Writing Your Own Story Doesn’t Involve Your Editor (A.C. Williams) – I relate to this so much! “That’s how Satan gets to me. He tells me that my problems are unique, that nobody understands the way I feel, and that I should just grin and bear it all in silence. But every time I tell that voice to shut up and share what’s on my heart, I find dozens of people who feel exactly the same way I do.”
It’s Not a Talent Show (Jon Bloom) – This is great. So important for creative types especially! “There are times I fantasize about moving to a quiet cabin in northern Minnesota to escape the pressures that expose my lesser talents and just read books. You know what that is? It’s a sinful, talent-burying fantasy. I think it’s a common-to-man temptation for less talented servants.”
Sex, Death, and Christian Fiction (Simon Morden) – Fascinating article. So many great thoughts here, especially if you stick through the opening ramble.
Why I’m Not a Woman (The Other Brothers) – “So in support of denying the natural (maybe even genetic) desire to abuse alcohol, we set up huge programs to assist people in fighting what comes naturally to become something better. To be the best version of themselves. Yet, for the man who naturally (maybe even genetically) desires to have sex with another man, we tell him to just embrace that simple desire and pursue it wholeheartedly without abandon.”
I love your quotes you pick out for each article!
Thanks!