Fly Little Bird, FLY!

April 16, 2010By Karen Barnett 1 Comment

There will be no Friday Book Pick for this week, because I’ve been busy putting the last spit and polish on my manuscript before it heads out into the big, cruel world. Now that it’s ready to fly, I feel like taking a walk down memory lane. I hope these pictures bring you a smile or a … Read More

Common Writing Mistakes: Talking to Youself

April 15, 2010By Karen Barnett 2 Comments

This is part three in my “Common Mistakes Made By New Writers (like me)” series. Part one discussed information dumps and part two talked about battling backstory. Feel free to check out those posts as well, but it is not necessary to read them in any paticular order. Today we will tackle another common problem: … Read More

Common Writing Mistakes: Battling Backstory

April 13, 2010By Karen Barnett 2 Comments

Last week, I started a series about mistakes commonly made by new writers (like me). The first entry focused on “information dumps.” Today, I’m going to discuss a related topic — backstory. Every character has history and we try often try to share every detail of it in the first chapter. You must know that she was born on a stormy … Read More

Common Writing Mistakes: Back up the Dump Truck…

April 6, 2010By Karen Barnett 2 Comments

Over the next few weeks, I am going to post about some of the common mistakes that new writers make and how you can avoid them in your writing. Please send me any writing questions that you have and maybe I can direct a post toward your area of interest. These are not in any paticular order of importance, … Read More

Heading Home

March 30, 2010By Karen Barnett 4 Comments

Tomorrow I head home from the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference, exhausted and exhilarated. I have made some great connections with agents and publishers and now I get to go home and do some hard work. I had two different industry professionals express interest in seeing more of my manuscript. I’m walking on air. For … Read More

More from Mount Hermon

March 28, 2010By Karen Barnett 2 Comments

 Today was another fantastic day at the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference 2010. I woke up way too early (4 AM) because my room had been invaded by a mouse that seemed desperate to eat a fiber one bar wrapper that I had dropped in my trash can. Here are some other highlights: We had a … Read More

Updates from Mount Hermon

March 26, 2010By Karen Barnett 2 Comments

It’s the first official day of the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference (2010) and once again I am amazed and humbled by the marvelous blessings that God pours out during this event. Here are a few highlights (for me) so far. Last night I got the nerve to volunteer during a earlybird session for “pitching … Read More

Mount Hermon, Here I come!

March 24, 2010By Karen Barnett 2 Comments

I’m running around today, finishing all those last minute details before flying out tomorrow to attend the Mount Hermon Christian Writer’s Conference. This is my second year attending the conference. To keep my nerves in check, I keep reminding myself of the amazing things that happened last year. I kept my expectations low, but God blew my … Read More

Lies, lies, lies!

March 17, 2010By Karen Barnett 3 Comments

Okay writers (and wanna-be writers), time to ‘fess up. What lies do you tell yourself that keep you from writing? The other day, I was listening to my MP3 recordings of workshops from the 2009 Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference, and I discovered a true gem. Author Joseph Bentz presented a workshop that he called, “Overcoming … Read More