Tag: Writing

Becoming a Writing Student Again | Wordquill article

Published on by Amanda TeroLeave a comment
Posting over at Wordquill today!
Writing is one of my passions. Another passion is teaching. Primarily, I teach piano and violin lessons. Throughout the years, I have had students that were difficult to teach. It was not because they didn’t have talent or ability—many of these students had a great potential they could have reached. But they would struggle in the same area for months—not because I didn’t give them solutions or didn’t work with them through problems, but because they never applied the solutions to themselves. They enjoyed where they were as a musician and didn’t really aspire to be much more than where they were.
So why am I mentioning this to a group of writers? Because recently, I have found myself exhibit the tendencies that I’ve seen in my students: an unteachable spirit. This one thing is powerful enough to keep us back from reaching our full potential, no matter what subject we are trying to learn.


Lately, I have been pondering a few questions in my writing life.

Continue reading…

Slow and Steady

Published on by Amanda Tero3 Comments
In usual life, I’m the hare. I don’t mean to say that proudly (cause we all know, the tortoise won the race 😉 ), but truly. I like to do things in a jiffy. Just… get them done already. 

But, as I indicated last week, there are weeks to slow down. And for some reason, the whole month of January has been that “week(s) of slowing down.” I may write an article about it someday, but it’s actually been a good month. God’s grace has been sufficient for a more relaxed pace, and I have gotten work accomplished. I’ve just also had days when I had energy to do literally nothing. But that’s okay. Still taking life one day at a time–and I have a new sympathy for people who struggle with chronic fatigue, and am grateful that this is but a season of life!

That being said… I did get my goal accomplished from last week, praise God!

Goals from Last Week
  • Write 1,000 words
    • Wrote 1,370! (does that make up for being a little short my goal last week? ;))
  • Read 30 pages in The Bowyer’s Bible
    • See images below, but yep! Check!!
  • Received beta-reader notes back for “Quest for Leviathan!”
I was also able to do some unexpected projects:
  • Wrote a 4k-word article (being posted this week)
  • Edited and scheduled a writing post for Wordquill (will link to that on Saturday)
Goals for This Week
This week looks a little busy for me. I’ll pretty much only be home with a clear schedule for 1 1/2 days. And, given that the other days are extremely busy, I may need to use a good portion of time to just relax and rest up (that “tortoise” part I don’t know how to do very well–anyone with me here? 😉 ). But! I’m going to try for some goals!
  • Edit “Quest for Leviathan”
  • Write 1,000 words
  • Read 20 more pages in The Bowyer’s Bible
  • Start another research book
    • (hopefully one that is easier to read and understand than the bow book 😉 )

From my Feed
Glimpses of those 30 pages I had to read…
And the one day in which I made significant progress:

(Yes, I got my goal in just one day, and only 200 words in another day… was that cheating??)
And other writerly/readerly posts…

Finally! My most-anticipated-read of January 2018 came in the mail! 
Courtesy of Bethany House for review. 

One of Thursday’s projects: getting an interview schedule for my the blog! 
Author Vicki Watson sent me her charming children’s series to review. 
Sonrise Stable books were a delight to read and I highly recommend them for children!
{look for these on Friday!}

Writing sometimes takes a very personal turn. 
Friday, I worked on an article about following God’s direction—
and the lessons I’ve been learning there. 
It required some reflection, a lot of Scripture look-ups, and transparent sharing. 
I’m eager to share the truths I’ve learned (and am trying to learn)! 
Proverbs 3:5-7 has been my anchor through SO MANY 
decision-making times. What passage do you turn to in these tricky times?
{being posted tomorrow/Thursday!}

Just for my brother… 
because he accuses me of posting “nothing but books.” 
Here! A picture of ME—and… a book… 

Now, from you!
What are some praises you have from last week?
What are some projects you’re anticipating this week?
What’s one of your most-anticipated read for 2018?
Do you find research books tough to read?

Quest for Leviathan!

Published on by Amanda Tero2 Comments

Yep! I’m ready to spill some more news about my short story!

By God’s grace, I finished the second draft of “Quest for Leviathan” last week, and it is now in the hands of some beta readers. I am hoping for a February release, but I’m going to try something new here: a few illustrations. No, not me. I can’t draw. But I have a friend who’s willing to try drawing some dragons for me! I’ll definitely keep you all updated!
Now that that’s finished and I’m not going to burst with the news anymore 😉 … a more detailed description of writing progress last week:
Goals from last week:
  • Write 2000 words
    • Wrote 1,958 (whoops, I should have checked that on Saturday!! 😛 )
    • I’m giving myself a little room for error, because my writing was all in editing, which makes it harder to add words–I don’t add words just for the sake of adding them. 😉
  • Finish reading Fiction-Writing Modes
    • Yep! See my review here.
  • Start a research book
    • I actually started and finished a book on the Warwick Castle! Review here.
From My Desk:
Or, my social media. 😉 This week, I was actually active on social media. If you can see this video, it kind of explains why:

If you couldn’t see the video, I decided to join up with the #janwritelog challenge, where basically you post and keep your followers regularly updated with progress.

Since I was editing Leviathan, I had several updates:

Beyond Leviathan…

Just sayin’… my sister knows how to get me the perfect gift!

Reminded that #lessismore in writing. #amreading 
“Fiction-Writing Modes” by Mike Klaassen. 
What book on the writing craft do you recommend? 
Any favorite writing quotes lately?

My Kindle has taken on a new important role lately, 
and has proven invaluable for beta reading!! 
I’m liking this device more and more as I use it! 
How do you use your Kindle?


Saturday projects: 
1) Tweaking the cover for “Quest of Leviathan”
2) Formatting a book for @faithblumauthor
What were your Saturday projects?
 
(not writing-related but…)
Books by authors I’ve not read yet. 
What should I bump up on my TBR {soon!} list?

Goals for this week:
Okay, I’m going to be quite transparent. I’m feeling really inclined to not make goals for this week. My energy level is still down from being sick after Christmas (vitamin D deficiency, we’ve discovered), and after pushing myself all week last week, I’m feeling way less motivated to do so for this week. BUT… I will attempt to make goals. However, each day this week, I’m praying that God will give me the energy to do what I need to do… and the wisdom to know what it is I need to do. It may not be writing this week. But, if the Lord so leads…
  • Work on current project
    • Let’s say, add 1000 words. I’m half-rewriting some chapters I’ve already done (no, it wasn’t a completed draft, I just had to change some things in the beginning before progressing)
    • And nope, I’m not spilling details as to what project I’m currently working on! Sorry… 😉
  • Read 30 pages in The Bowyer’s Bible
    • An incredibly detailed bow-maker’s guide (yes, for research) and kind of tough for this non-bow-maker to understand!

What are your goals this week? Did you meet last week’s goals?

Check, check…

Published on by Amanda Tero2 Comments
I surprised myself last week in writing. I was still under the weather, battling this sick bug that’s at our house. On the days that it didn’t drain my mental capacity, I didn’t have much energy. Which, for a writer, you don’t need a ton of energy to write (just mental capacity 😉 ). So, by God’s grace and His help I was able to…

  • Write 3,742 words
  • Finish two short story rough drafts!!!!! (check, check off my year’s list)
  • Read about 50% of Fiction-Writing Modes by Mike Klaassen
For being a sick week, I feel it was an extremely productive week, and my heart is full of gratitude for the Lord giving me the strength and ability to work!
I will probably wait and release this in July (“Christmas in July” 😉 ), but I wanted to give you all a sneak peek at short story #1 finished:

And then here is the first paragraph from short story #2!
These are both in the hands of beta readers and will probably need some editing before they’re released. You can be sure I’ll mention something about them when release dates are set. 😉

From My Desk
For those of you who aren’t on social media, here are some things I’ve posted on FaceBook and Instagram the past week:

Letter writing… it has been far too many months since I’ve done this! I challenge you: send someone a handwritten note in the next week! It will be a blessing to them!


Exact goal met for rough draft. Now that’s a first!

Teaching my sister how to format books! I love being able to share the things I enjoy with my younger sisters. What interests do you share with your siblings?
Goals for this week:
This week, I resume teaching. That means I likely will not have as much writing time. So, in considering that, I would like to…
  • Write 2000 words
  • Finish reading Fiction-Writing Modes
  • Start a research book
What were you able to accomplish this first week of 2018?
What are your goals for this coming week?
And feel free to answer my questions from social media posts. 🙂 Those are always fun to read!

Looking Backward, Looking Forward

Published on by Amanda Tero5 Comments
2017 was definitely not the writing year that I had expected, but when I look back over 2017, it was a good writing year. I didn’t get near as many words in as I had hoped, I’m not as far along in my writing projects as I had hoped, but I did make progress–and that’s what counts, right?
Looking back at 2017, I was able to…
  • Publish “Hartly Manor” (short story)
  • Publish “The Secret Slipper” (book 2 of Tales of Faith series)
  • Read 5 books on the writing craft (links to my reviews: The 12 Key Pillars to Novel Construction, Plot, The Story Cure, Creating Character Arcs, Write Well)
  • Start hosting writing days at our house
  • Finish second draft (major rewrite) of Nat’s story and place it in the hands of beta readers
  • Meet several new author friends
  • Read 9 Civil War books (fiction and non-fiction)
  • Read 2 medieval research books
  • Purchase a couple (few?) dozen Civil War books (hey, thrift stores have amazing deals, okay?)
  • Encourage others in their writing
  • Begin keeping you all semi-regularly updated with my writing progress (and hearing you all comment–that has been a big highlight of my blogging/writing year!)
  • Write some articles for Wordquill
  • Start at least a half dozen short stories and novellas still unfinished 😛
I’m sure there are plenty more writing blessings of 2017, but I’m coming off a week of sick-brain, which is fuzzy at best. 😉 That at least gives you a glimpse.

Now, we get into 2018. I’ll admit, I have some writing dreams and goals. All of these, I understand, will be carefully prayed through week by week. But you can’t hit a target if you don’t at least aim. I’m taking a challenge here–cause I usually am not one for big goals. So, with God’s guidance and direction, I shall attempt to:
  • FINISH NAT’S STORY!!! (yeah, that kinda has to be #1 with everyone breathing on my neck ;))
  • Write book 3 of the Tales of Faith series
  • Finish and publish 3 short stories that I began in 2017
  • Start book 2 of Nat’s journey
  • Read 10 books on the writing craft (any suggestions?)
  • Read 10 non-fiction/research books
Now, I’ll admit, these look like crazy lofty goals for me because I realize how little writing time I usually have. So, while these are my goals, I’m also considering what I had asked y’all to be praying for a few weeks back: a balanced schedule. It is always possible that my teaching schedule will expand, and I’m going to try my best to keep an opening for family time. But when writing time happens, Lord willing those will be my goals.
What about you? What were you able to accomplish in writing 2017? Are you satisfied with those goals? Do they help you to make different goals for 2018?

Goals Completed and Upcoming

Published on by Amanda Tero5 Comments
Last Tuesday, I listed out my writing goals for the week. I’ll start with the uncompleted goal: research. I managed to get about three chapters and three pages in. So, not my five chapters like I intended. Whoopsie!
However, the Lord gave me a great writing week! My goal was to write 150 words each day. In fact, there was only one day that I only wrote 150 words. The other days surpassed that goal and I finished the week with a grand total of 3,170 words!

This week’s goals:

  • Average 150 words per day
  • Read 10 pages of research book each day
Yeah, yeah… so I may be cheating on the research book and lowering my goal, but it’s the week before Christmas and now that I’m finished with teaching this semester (i.e. vacation time), I’m going to strive to spend a ton of family time.
How did you do with your goals last week? I loved hearing them all!!
What are your goals for this upcoming week?
Oh yeah, and I likely will not be posting next Tuesday, as it’s the day after Christmas, and we’ll be out of town. 😉 But if I can average 150 words per day until the end of the year and finish that research book that’d be fantastic (there are 90 pages left, which doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a research book…a little hard to whiz through)!

Getting Back into Goals

Published on by Amanda Tero5 Comments
Praising the Lord, cause last week was better getting back into the niche of writing. Last week, I was able to…

  • Read 2 chapters of a research book
  • Brainstorm for a few hours
  • Write 1,909 words
I wasn’t able to fully kick back into full gear of doing it everyday, but I was able to make progress, and for that I’m excited.
This week, my goals are to…
  • Average writing 150 words each day
  • Read five chapters of research book
  • Reply to beta readers’ emails about Nat
Yes, I realize that, in my good ol’ days, this doesn’t seem like a huge goal. But, Lord willing, that will mean 1,050 more words than I had last week, plus being almost finished with my current research book.
Will you hold me to these goals?
Also, what are your goals this week?
Before I leave, a couple of posts from Instagram–inspired by researching. 😉 Researching… oh, researching… 🙂 

November: No NaNo

Published on by Amanda Tero6 Comments
Writing… what’s that again? 😉 
Just kidding. Though honestly, November was one of those months where writing definitely was pushed to the back burner. In exchange, a lot of wonderful things happened. My friend Kenzi came down and spent about two weeks, we had a Bible conference (with more friends!), did our annual sibling Christmas-shopping trip, my niece was born (yep, second time being an aunt in less than two months!), we had a make-shift Thanksgiving (due to my niece being born that week), and about a hundred other smaller things filled the month. So November wasn’t much of a writing month for me.
However, I did get to do some brainstorming on a writing project and make wonderful progress with character development and ideas.
And the last week of November, when I was “just getting back on track” with normal-life stuff, God allowed me to put in a few thousand words in another project! This one was a completely an unexpected blessing. Our family went two nights to sing at a revival service over an hour away. I usually don’t write in the van, because I sit in the back seat and have ruined two laptops with the jostling (just trust me on that one 😉 ), but since our family has diminished in size, I was a front-seater, which isn’t nearly as bumpy as the back seat. Added to that, I was writing while my writing-sister, Rachel, was nearby. So we did a ton of brainstorming as well.
So writing hasn’t been as much overall since last writing update, but what has been done has felt very productive.
Nat is still in the hands of beta readers. I have gotten helpful feedback from a couple of them, and the remainder are hopefully going to get my their notes by the end of December so I can start the New Year off with editing his story.
How you can be praying
I’d appreciate prayers for wisdom. As many of you know, I teach around 30 music students, run WAJN (arranging and publishing music books and CDs), and assist with our family’s singing group, as well as write. Many times, it is hard to know the balance of what I am to do when–when am I to be fully available to my family, when am I to set apart writing time or arranging time, etc.? I am beginning to see that it’s a day-by-day need for direction. Yes, there are dozens of stories that are just begging to be written, but I don’t want to write at the expense of being available to others and following God. So, many times, I just need wisdom with how to balance my schedule.
How can I be praying?
I wouldn’t want to leave off without asking how I can pray for you. Whether it is in writing or something completely different, I’d love to pray for you. If you want to keep a comment private, please say so at the beginning of the comment and I will not publish it or you may email me at amandaterobooks {at} gmail {dot} com.
How many of you did NaNo? What were your goals and did you meet them? Tell me a little about your story, too. 😉

Out of a Rut

Published on by Amanda Tero3 Comments
Last week was a complete non-writing week for me. I’m not complaining, because in that week, I was able to focus some much-needed time on WAJN projects (Christmas CD coming soon, Lord willing!!). The primary reason I didn’t spend the week writing, though, was because I wasn’t exactly sure what to do next (you may remember the article I wrote about that).
Yesterday, I spent a little time walking and praying–specifically focusing on my writing projects. You see, my original plans were that, while Book One of Nat is in the hands of beta-readers, I would write as much of Book Two as I could. That way, hopefully it won’t take as long as Nat’s story took. 
The more I thought of it, though, the less comfortable I felt about that idea. There are still a few glitches in Nat’s story that I know need to be worked out before I begin writing book two. Yet, I still wanted to get the plot down for book two. I did a little brainstorming on it last week, but the well was d.r.y.
Back to my walk. As I walked and prayed about it–praying for ideas, for direction, for anything, the Lord gave me that light bulb (i.e. “DUH”) moment: work on something else.
After all, whose schedule was I following? Mine? My readers’? God’s?
Write something else.

The instant the thought crossed my mind, I felt greatly relieved. That was my answer. And now that I knew, my writing life seemed pretty simple. After all, there’s this other story I’ve been yearning to write, but so far, the timing of when to write it hadn’t happened. I began mulling over this idea, praying about it (I had the general gist and location, but the plot just wasn’t there yet). Within an hour, the Lord provided a rough synopsis of the entire story–climax and everything! This usually doesn’t happen, so you can imagine how excited I’ve been! I’m ready to climb out of my little writing hole and race across the field of ideas, picking bouquets of words and tying them together with ribbon-like themes. My desire is to have this rough draft completed by the time I get Nat back from beta readers. But, God’s plans aren’t always mine, so we shall see.
What excitement has happened in your life lately?
What do you do when you’re in a rut (whether in life or in writing)?

When Life Hands you Writing Days!

Published on by Amanda Tero2 Comments
Last Monday, I woke up planning to be very flexible with my week. As you saw from last week’s post, life kind of took a crazy turn. Things have settled back down for now–but I want to thank you all so very much for your prayers!
Now, back to writing… I seriously did keep my free hours of the week open, planning on being available if something came up and I was needed elsewhere. Would you know, though, that out of the last two months, last week gave me the most writing time I’ve had?! God is so good! I seriously feel a bit spoiled. 😉 All of that to say…
Yep. You see an “Edited” stamp on every single chapter for Nat’s story!!! As of Friday, Nat’s story is now in the hand of the beta-readers. I’m still going to project a Spring 2018 release. I imagine once I get my readers’ feedback in, I’ll have some more editing to do! And you never know when someone may make that great suggestion that calls for a little rewriting.
So… I’m currently in between projects! It’s such an odd feeling to have! I also realized… soon I’m going to have to transport all of my Civil War books back into my closet-bookshelf and out of my study-bookshelf, to make room for the next book’s research! I have a lot of planning to do for book two in Nat’s series (which, as a way of update, I have both a series’ title AND titles for all three books in it!! Can’t share quite yet… but I can’t wait to tell y’all!).
Last week was an exciting week for me! But do you ever get that feeling of, “Wow. This is done, now what?” I mean, I’ve been working on Nat’s story off-and-on for the last 1 1/2 years (praying, praying that book two doesn’t take me that long!). I’m still praying for wisdom with the next thing to focus on! Your prayers are also appreciated! 🙂
What are you up to this week? Anything exciting happen for you last week?