Buzz

ACFW Happenings

Heard It Through Hartline

Publicity

Track Changes

Supplementing Your Habit

Publicity - Everyone Needs It

Fresh Beginnings

Happy New Year! The year 2011 is now in the history books, and several people are, frankly, glad to see it go. For many of us, 2011 provided great opportunity, yet for others it proved to be challenging—or both. Now take a deep breath. Can you smell that? That’s that new car smell—well actually, that’s that new 2012 smell. Embrace it. The great thing about newness is that we can learn from the past and live in the present to prepare for the future. So let go of 2011 and embrace 2012.

ACFW Happenings

Welcome to Genesis 2012!

Contest season is heating up with contests like ACFW’s Genesis for unpublished authors, which will soon be accepting submissions. Often writers wonder if it’s worth risking their babies to the world of contests. So this month, I’m turning over the column to Vickie McDonough, ACFW’s treasurer. Vickie brings a unique perspective with interviews with many finalists and winners.

Track Changes - One Editor's POV

We Plan; God Laughs

You may have noticed I didn’t have a column up for December. There’s a pretty good reason for it. Oh, I had such amazing plans for December. I was in the middle of a tremendous project at work, and the details were wrapping up. I needed to finish a book and handle the last three classes of a course I taught on Thursday nights. Both of those would be finished by December 15. I had vacation time built up, so I was going to take a real vacation the last ten days of the year—the first real vacation I’ve taken in twenty years.

Heard It Thru Hartline

Did You Make a New Year’s Resolution?

That’s the traditional way to greet the New Year. The only time I have kept any resolutions is when I resolved not to make any more fool resolutions. In our family, welcoming the New Year and bringing us luck involves eating black-eyed peas and sauerkraut. Well, actually the sauerkraut came from my wife’s side of the family. Actually we do these things not because we think they will bring us luck but out of tradition. I don’t believe in luck; I believe in being in God’s favor.

Supplementing Your Habit

2012: Go for the Gusto!

We’ve talked about it, danced around it, wondered about it . . . and now it’s here. 2012: the year of the Mayans. All doom, gloom, and sarcasm aside, 2012 proves to be an exciting year for freelancers. How do I know this? Because I’m a woman of faith, of course! Instead of looking at this year as the “end” of something, let’s see it as a new beginning! Opportunities abound. Grab hold of them as never before, and do so with newfound enthusiasm.