I received an announcement about a writing contest going on at Regenerated Magazine. If you have teens in your house, here’s some incentive for a fantastic end-of-year assignment.

What I like most about this contest is that it’s sponsored BY teens and FOR teens. It’s encouraging for me to see Christian teens engaging their peers in such a thought-provoking assignment. And I love essay contests!

I hope you’ll help spread the word!

From the website:

Regenerated Magazine is holding an essay contest this summer for students ages 12-18. The topic is “How to live a regenerated life,” and the first place winner will receive an iPod Nano.

Regenerated Magazine is all about transformation, inspiring young Christians everyday to change our culture. Through the renewing of our minds with our biblical worldview, we’re challenging our peers to live for the glory of God.

How can you do this? How can you regenerate our culture in politics, in religion, in everyday life? How can you transform the world for Christ? Tell us! Write an essay about it—you might win an iPod® Nano!

Topic:

In Regenerate Our Culture’s mission statement, it says we are trying to “regenerat[e] our nation’s worldview away from the post-modernism holding it and back to the Christian worldview it was first built on. It can’t be denied that many in our nation have turned away from God in politics, religion, and their everyday lives. Our vision is to help bring about a positive change in these three important areas…”

What does this mean in real life? How can you live a regenerating life that will impact our culture for Christ?

Entrant Qualifications:

Students between the ages 12-18 as of May 1st, 2007. This contest is open to homeschoolers, public schoolers, and private schoolers.

Contest Dates:

All essays must be emailed to essaycontest [at] regenerateourculture [dot] com between April 1st, 2007 and June 1st, 2007 (closing on 10:00 pm EST).

Contest Rules and Guidelines:

* All work submitted must be entirely the work of the person submitting it. No outside assistance in, but not limited to, brainstorming, editing, proofreading, is allowed.

* The essay cannot exceed 900 words.

* All essays must be emailed to essaycontest [at] regenerateourculture [dot] com and the header must have the entrant’s name as the subject line, and the essay must be BOTH in the text of the email and attached in Microsoft Word format. The essay must be double spaced in size 12 Times New Roman font. The essay must have the entrant’s name and birth date as the title.

* All essays must be submitted by 10:00 pm (EST) June 1st, no later.

* The essay must not have been previously published anywhere. This includes on the internet (on a blog or other site).

* Regenerate Our Culture staff and board members may not enter. Regenerate Our Culture writers may not enter unless Regenerated Magazine has only published one (1) of their articles.

Judging/Judges:

Essays will be judged on the following:

* Biblical worldview (we’re not nitpicking the theology—just the essential doctrines of God, sin, man, salvation, etc.)

* Organization/Clarity/Logic

* Content/Writing Style

* How well the thesis is supported (how convincing the argument is)

* Grammar

Judges will be picked by ROC and their names will be disclosed when the contest winners are announced. They have been chosen for their excellence in writing, clear understanding of a biblical worldview, experience, and other qualifications. Judges’ identities will be revealed after the contest is closed.

I was recently contacted by this book publisher, asking if I’d be interested in reviewing one of their new children’s book series. While I browsed around their site, I found some great information for writers.

If you’ve ever considered writing a nonfiction book, you’ve probably heard by now that you don’t write the book first. You write a book proposal, which you submit to an agent or publisher. There are several different books that teach you how to do this, but this publisher’s site includes a very concise list of what’s required:

“In order to consider your nonfiction book for potential publication, we will need to see a proposal that includes the following items:

* A brief synopsis in 1-2 paragraphs
* Author bio or resume specifying credentials and publication credits, if any
* A complete table of contents, plus estimated length of manuscript in words and pages
* Two to three sample chapters (not the first)
* A description of the target audience
* One page/paragraph on your book’s unique advantages
* A list of competing or comparable titles and how your book differs”

You can read the rest of the guidelines here.

It is SO incredibly hard getting a good agent or publisher to notice your work. Your submission will most likely be piled high in a stack of other people’s manuscripts. How will you get anyone to notice you?

For one thing, make sure you submit EXACTLY what the publisher requests. If they don’t take unagented work, then don’t submit without an agent. If you have any opportunity to meet an editor or agent personally through a writer’s conference, then do it.

I keep reading over and over again that a book proposal must be sent to the right editor at the right publishing house at the right time. It’s a game; yes. You have to know when and how to make your move. BUT! Your odds of success are greatly improved when you know the rules of the game.

Just thinking about all this makes me want to eat a big piece of dark chocolate. *sigh.*

If you want to be published, one of the best things you can do to move toward your goals is to attend a writers’ conference.

But for most of us, budget and time constraints prevent our being able to attend as often as we’d like. So, what’s the next best thing to going? Reading conference reports from those who attended! YEA!

This month’s Spirit-Led Writer includes two conference reports that kept me hanging on every word.

In her article, Writing for the Soul: The Sweet Agony, Beth Vogt reports on what it was like to attend her fourth Writing for the Soul conference in Colorado. Beth will have her first book published by Revell this August, entitled Baby Changes Everything: Embracing and Preparing for Motherhood after 35.

Beth wrote:

The list of this year’s conference speakers read like a Who’s Who of Christian writers: Liz Curtis Higgs, Dr. Tim LaHaye, Dr. Dennis Hensley, and James Scott Bell, just to name a few. Editors representing Discipleship Journal, Focus on the Family, MOPS International, as well as Tyndale House Publishers, Guideposts, and Bethany House and others were available for appointments.

She included notes and quotes from attending the different workshops. What an inspiration for those of us armchair traveling attendees!

And Linda Boe wrote a fantastic first-timer’s account of her trip to the Mount Hermon Christian Writer’s Conference in northern California. She was graciously given a scholarship by Cecil Murphey, which allowed her to attend. As a mother of three and grandmother of six, Linda relished every minute of this conference — and her enthusiasm is contagious.

I love reading articles like these! They remind me of all the wonderful reasons to attend Christian writers’ conferences; mainly, the people you meet will encourage you to keep on writing for God’s glory.

And one more thing:
If you’re seeking paying markets for your work, a great place to do some research is to read through the conference website and see what the faculty are looking for. For example, there is a detailed list on the Writing for the Soul website.

A tip from one of these sites might make your query letter stand out — it shows the editor you’re serious when you send them exactly what they’re looking for. Plus, you KNOW this information is current if the conference took place recently.

Have you ever had questions about copyright law?

I found a great chart on this website that shows public domain copyright law. In the U.S., anything published before 1923 is considered public domain. As bloggers, we need to be aware of copyright law and not publish anything that we need permission to publish.

For example, I’ve noticed some bloggers publishing whole poems or devotionals written by other people after 1923. We can’t be doing this — even if we link to it.

We can quote a few lines, if we’re doing it for review purposes, but we can’t just snag someone’s great poem and post it on our site without permission. The author should be compensated (paid) if the work is under copyright — and anything written after 1978 is under copyright automatically.

As writers, this is a risk we take when posting online — anyone can steal your work as well. If you’d like to write a book someday, be careful what you post online. Some publishers don’t want to buy work that’s already been seen online, even if you only have a small blog readership. What if your work has already been cut and pasted on a bunch of other sites? This could lead to legal problems down the road for your publisher — if someone else claims your work as their own.

Book contracts are getting so complicated these days — and many publishers now want to buy electronic rights to your work. Yet how can you offer them electronic rights if your work has already been published online?

I’ve learned a lot of this from more experienced writers in my writing group — and some of them have had to play the meanie when they’ve found other sites cut and pasting their work without permission.

Just be careful. If you’ve got a great story, think about how you’d feel seeing that story show up on another site under someone else’s name. It might be better to save it and send it to a print publication first … where you’ll always have proof that it belongs to you. (For help with writing markets, check out Sally Stuart’s Christian Writers’ Market Guide).

This chart, When U.S. Works Pass Into the Public Domain, was prepared by Lolly Gasaway of the University of North Carolina. If you’re a serious writer, it’s definitely worth your time to educate yourself on copyright law.

If anyone knows a link to a site about Canadian copyright law or other countries, I’d love to learn more about this.

Terry Whalin at The Writing Life blog just returned from the national meeting of the AJSA (American Society of Journalists & Authors) held in New York. This is the leading organization of professional nonfiction writers, with nearly 1300 members. Every year, awards are given for the most outstanding pieces of nonfiction writing.

For the first time, this year the AJSA sent out a press release with links to the winning articles. If you’re looking for ways to improve your writing, read through some of these articles and see if you can figure out why they won awards.

In particular, if you’re a parent of a teenage daughter, you should read Lisa Collier Cool’s Rescuing Rosalie, Part I and Rescuing Rosalie, Part II, as published in The Ladies’ Home Journal. This is the traumatic story of how the Cool’s teen daughter ran away from home and what happened. Lisa writes, “For eight unbearable days after our 16-year-old daughter disappeared, we had no idea where she was or if she was even alive. Our frantic search introduced us to a strange and shocking teen subculture we had been completely blind to.”

I hope you’ll bookmark this link and take some time to check out Lisa’s award-winning story over the weekend. It’s very powerful.

Like most of you, I can’t stop thinking about the tragedy that happened on Monday. Now we’re watching the victims’ families share about their personal loss. I was saddened to hear the English teacher’s story about what a disturbed young man the gunman was — as she discovered through his angry, violent writing.

What we write on paper is often a mirror of what is going on in our soul.

I’ve blogged more of my thoughts about this today over at Writer … Interrupted.

I just wanted to remind you that today, April 14th, is the deadline for Christian Women Online’s Her Life Reflected writing contest.

The magazine is looking for “stories that illustrate how your mother, or a mother that you know, has reflected the heart of God in her life.” The essay should be an unpublished work, 1000 words or less. You can read the rest of the official guidelines here.

The winner’s prize package includes $200 cash, a CD, a professional website or blog design, and several autographed books, including a signed copy of my little book, From a Daughter’s Heart to Her Mom, among other gifts.

If you haven’t already submitted a story and you’d like to, you still have time — if you do it by midnight! 🙂

I’m blogging over at Writer … Interrupted today about faith, writing, and tater tots. Yes, they’re all part of motherhood! I’ll be over there every Wednesday this month writing the midweek motivation, and I’d love some company.

Carol Kuykendall wrote the most FABULOUS essay in this month’s MomSense. Oh, you’ll have to go read it. If you worry your children are growing up too fast and losing their sense of wonder, Carol will restore your hope. I seriously have not read anything this beautiful in a long time. Here’s a sneak peek:

We are born with this precious, passionate childlikeness. It’s real. It makes a little boy dream of being Superman or some other superhero. It sends a little girl to the dress-up box to pull out anything that makes her feel like a princess, because something tells her she is beloved and beautiful, and that she can be whatever she dreams she can be.

You can read the rest of “Growing Down” here.

I’d also like to thank the nice folks at Mother’s Day Central who included me in their list of Top 100 Mom Blogs (#80!). I don’t know how scientific these little awards were, but hey, it’s great that someone took the time to look up all the links!

A big congrats to three of my favorite mom bloggers: Kelsey, Donna Shepherd, and Barbara
Curtis, who took the honors in the “Spiritual and Religious” category. These are all Christian writers, sharing their light, and it’s nice to see them get some recognition for spreading the Good News!

I’ve been writing a little magazine column in my hometown for almost three years. It’s truly one of my favorite ongoing assignments because I can write about anything I want to, and I love feeling a part of the community.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a column encouraging people to get outdoors and take pictures of their children — especially while all the spring flowers were bursting with blooms. I wrote a few paragraphs about how one of my favorite memories as a mom was of taking some pictures of my two oldest children in a patch of jonquils.

I revised that column into an essay and submitted it to an editor who was looking for stories for a Christian book publisher. She emailed back to thank me, and asked if she could hold it for a future project. I was of course a little disappointed, figuring that she was rejecting my story in a very nice way!

So what a surprise it was for me to hear from this editor a couple of months ago — nearly two years since I submitted. She wanted to send me a contract and said my story had made it through final revisions to be included in this beautiful new gift book, Blessed Among Women: God’s Gift to Mothers.

My story, “Spring Portraits,” is among several other essays written by moms and grandmoms celebrating the joys of motherhood, and I’m simply amazed to be included. It’s a hardback book, with artfully decorated pages — and there are poems, Bible verses, and famous quotations that make any mother feel that her job is the best, most significant job in the world.

If you’re in charge of planning a Mother’s Day tea or banquet, this book is full of inspiration (especially if you need some quotes for a speech!) It also makes a nice Mother’s Day gift for making someone you love feel special.

Our guest this week is Christine Lynxwiler, a mom and writer who lives with her husband and two daughters in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains.

She’s author of several novels, including her most recent, Promise Me Always, which I reviewed for this month’s CWO Book Buzz.

Welcome, Christine! Your book has inspired me to get outside and do some gardening!

Can you tell us a little about your main character, Allie Richards, and what she’s gotten herself into in this novel?

Ever since she worked for a lawn service/landscaping company in high school, Allie has dreamed of having her own. When she marries, she puts her dreams on hold to support her husband through med school, but he gets hit by a car and killed when he’s still an intern.

Left with a mountain of debt and two young daughters, Allie forgets her dream. But when she’s fired from her secretarial job, her Pinky Promise friends convince her to go out on a limb and enter a landscaping contest.

As a young widow, raising two daughters on her own, what kind of struggles does Allie encounter?

Allie has to deal with the same problems most moms do — children who love each other, but don’t always like each other. She definitely wishes that she could turn them over to the other parent sometimes, but that’s not an option for her. She’s on call 24/7 and has to worry about being solely responsible for putting food on the table.

Can you give us some details about the Pinky Promise Sisterhood? What role do these friends play in Allie’s life?

The Pinky Promise Sisterhood formed out of necessity. Sometimes you have to have someone who will keep your secrets.

From the time in second grade when Lark and Allie found out they had matching Dukes of Hazzard lunchboxes, they knew they’d each found a friend. But when Lark told Allie that she’d never had a daddy and showed her how to pinky promise not to tell, the sisterhood was born.

A few years later, rich but unhappy Victoria was allowed in, and then when the trio were young adults, they befriended Rachel, seventeen, unwed and pregnant. Secrets bound them together to start with, but now love keeps them from ever forsaking each other.

You introduce a romantic hero in this novel, Daniel Montgomery. What do you think holds Allie back in trusting him?

When you’re writing first person, from the heroine’s point of view, I think your hero has to be larger than life. Daniel Montgomery fits this bill. He’s a risk-taker on a Harley.

But at the same time, he’s compassionate, solid, and safe. Allie can’t see past the first part. And she’s afraid. Afraid to trust anyone who can’t promise her always. And we know there’s only One who can do that.

As a writer, do you see yourself in Daniel?

Maybe, but to be honest, I saw myself in Allie too. Even though their dreams were very different, hers — to start her own landscaping company, and his — to write the Great American Novel, they both took a chance on achieving their goals. Following any dream is a scary, albeit rewarding, journey.

Yes, that’s true. There’s a strong theme of gardening throughout Promise Me Always. Are you also a gardener?

I’m not a gardener anymore. But I still think about it a lot. My deadlines have been so back-to-back for a while now that I don’t get my hands off the keyboard long enough to get them dirty.

For three years when we lived in Powder Springs, Georgia, I worked for a landscaping company. When I first started, it was a lawn service, but even then I liked the satisfaction that came from mowing a lawn, weedeating, edging it, and standing back to admire my work.

Then my boss expanded into landscaping and I LOVED it. I worked until I was seven months pregnant with my first daughter, then quit. But I’d always rather be outside.

I’ve been on a pressing deadline lately and Saturday, I took my laptop outside and wrote while my husband planted in the garden.

Sounds like fun! How does Allie grow spiritually as a Christian woman during this novel?

When the story starts, Allie has fallen into the trap of thinking she’s in control of her life. She doesn’t like things that mess with her perfect plan.

By the end of the book, she has to admit that God is the only One in control. I can’t speak for all Christian women, but I know that as I wrote the parts where Allie was literally forced to put things in God’s hands, I squirmed. I am a bit of a control freak, so this book was cheap therapy for me.

What’s next in the Pinky Promise Sisterhood series?

Right now I’m working on Rachel’s story. She’s a chiropractor who is happy living alone with her two dogs. But when she ends up taking care of a rebellious teenage girl for the summer whose only love is horses, it’s hard to handle it without some help. Along Came A Cowboy will hit the shelves in the spring of 2008.

Wow — you’re definitely staying busy with deadlines! In your Novel Journey interview, you detailed your journey to publication. What has surprised you most about being a published novelist?

I thought my life would change considerably when I got published. But it hasn’t. I still have fears and insecurities, bills and dirty dishes, good days and bad days.

Before I was published it seemed like publication was the goal, the end of the journey. Now each story is just a signpost along the way toward growing as a writer and as a person.

Do you have any advice for moms who try to squeeze in a little writing time while they’re also busy raising a family?

My only advice for moms is kids grow up fast. My little one was tiny when I started writing. Now she’s ten. I’ve missed too many chances to read a story to her because I was writing one. That’s my new goal. Be more responsible about my word count so that my house doesn’t have to become a one-parent household around deadline time.

On the other hand, don’t use your kids as a cop-out, a reason not to write. Carve out some time each day. A fulfilled mom is a great mom!

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I have to put in a plug for the book I just turned in titled Forever Christmas. This is written in a voice similar to the Pinky Promise books.

Forever Christmas is set in Jingle Bells, Arkansas, a little town where, according to the welcome sign, “The Spirit of Christmas Lives In Our Hearts All Year Long.” Former runaway bride, Kristianna Harrington, has to fight to save the town she loves without losing her heart in the process.

I’ll be posting the cover or at least a link to the amazon page for the book on my website in a few days.

We’ll have to check that out — thanks for taking the time to chat with us, Christine!

Thanks for having me, Heather. It’s been fun!

You can keep up with Christine Lynxwiler’s writing and family life via her website, which she updates regularly with an awesome blog!