In 2019 I am starting an author newsletter–sign up here!
It’s that time again—time to look at the most successful posts of this past year! You may have noticed this blog has been a little less active these past few years, but this year there is good reason for it—I’ve had several pieces published in other publications! Some of you fellow writers out there may be able to relate to plateauing as a writer for a period of time, and then suddenly making a breakthrough. Or, in other words, finally gaining a greater understanding of what would improve your craft. This year was a bit like that for me, for two reasons: first, I spent the first part of the year in school, where my brain was stimulated; and second, I had health challenges that restricted my ability to do things other than write (at times it even restricted my ability to write). So perhaps that’s a silver lining?
For that reason I’m going to link to the very best of all the pieces I sent out into the world this year, not just my blog posts. At the end, I’ll give a little summary of my fiction adventures. If you succeeded in an area you hoped to succeed in this year, I’d be super interested in how you achieved that as well. Do comment below!
Here’s the list:
Top Blog Post:
Top Ten Works of Christian Fiction—What Are They?
This is basically my realization of how difficult it is to classify Christian fiction, before one even attempts to rank them. I’m glad it was viewed so often—I do think Christian nonfiction gets more attention than Christian fiction, and this should be rectified.
Another blog post that did well was Reasons for Declining Ebook Sales. This industry trend surprised me!
Piece I’m most proud of:
Contemplating My Uncertain Future, One Potato at a Time (The Globe and Mail, April 2018)
I used to read the First Person essays in Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, and think, I could write one of those. Except I clearly didn’t believe it, because I never submitted an essay. This year I did submit a personal essay about my experience seeking ‘useful’ work after graduating university—comparing my achievements to the useful potato-farming work my grandparents used to do. This is the first time I’ve been published in a national newspaper, so of course it’s the piece I’m most proud of this year.
Piece I put the most thought into:
Should a Christian Ever be Discontent? (Reformed Perspective, July 2018)
This piece was intense for me to write, because I felt like I was giving advice in an area of faith I hadn’t fully figured out myself! In addition, I didn’t want to write this one in a blog-post type of style, but I wanted to rather dig deeper and find more solid conclusions. As so often happens, the issue clarified itself for me as I worked my way through writing about it. I was glad to hear from readers that I managed to write about it from a slightly different angle than the topic is usually discussed from. I do want to take questions of human emotions seriously, especially emotions I experience myself.
The other pieces I published this year are: On Not Hurting Anyone While Dating (Christian Connection blog), Shocked by Augustine’s Confessions , (Reformed Perspective magazine), and Tips for Christian Women—How to be a Godly Leader in the Workplace (Christian Media Magazine). One great benefit of writing these type of retrospectives is that it forces you as a writer to look back on your progress—I think I might not have realized I did achieve more this year than last year if I hadn’t set out to write this post! So this is an exercise I do recommend you creatives to do.
On the fiction front, I just released a new short story for Christmas, I Believe in Santa. I also released Prince Charming in paperback! I had a lot of fun selling tangible copies that people could hold in their hands. Another ‘tangible’ work that I sold copies of this year is Six Decades, Three Generations—One House, a short personal story about the city I grew up in. This booklet gave me the wonderful experience of working with local retailers (Tix on the Square and Mandolin), which was quite exciting. So all in all, it was a year of new experiences! These inspire me to start the new year with new energy and new goals.
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