Friday, May 30, 2014

Encouraging Words from Rose Ross Zediker


Rose Ross Zediker

Our mission at Seriously Write includes offering encouragement to writers. But it’s not one person’s or one organization’s job to lift up writers. As loving Christians, that responsibility falls on all of us. Author Rose Ross Zediker understands that, and she offers four ways we can encourage each other in our writing journeys. 
~ Dawn


Encouraging Words

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. (1 Thess. 5:11)

As Christian’s encourage each other in our faith journey, Christian writers must encourage each other in the long path to publication.

The writing life is filled with disappointments. Hopeful submissions return with generic rejection forms. Family and friends may fail as a needed support system. The book line you write for closes. This is why writers MUST support other writer’s efforts.

How can we do this?

Be gentle critics. Harsh criticism from our writing peers hurts our feelings and fuels self-doubt. Remember your manners when stating what doesn’t work in another writer’s manuscript. Kind suggestions are positive guides that can help a writer turn their work into a polished manuscript worthy of publication. Take these types of opportunities to suggest writing books or courses that address the issues in the writer’s manuscript.

Share information. Many beginning writers can’t afford a conference. If you’ve attended one, type up a review of the highlights to share with your writing buddies. You don’t have to go into specifics, just give them the flavor of the conference. Point them to an agent, editor, or publisher’s website or blog. Have you run across a new market or conference that would be a perfect fit for a writing companions work? Make sure they get the submission information. Be generous with your knowledge of the craft. Don’t withhold information because you think of another writer as competition. Chances are their style and voice differs a great deal from yours.

Give hope. Share your writing successes even if you are the only one publishing in your writing circle. Our enthusiasm in being published is contagious. It lets our peers know it can be done. It may give them the courage to submit their work, inspire them to research a new market or help them gain confidence to try a new genre.

Help market. Word of mouth sells books. Arrange for multiple author book signings. Talk up others author’s books on your blog or in person, give them as gifts, read their books and leave them in a public place, like a coffee shop for someone else to enjoy. Statistics show for every one book purchased, three people read it. Without doing the math, you can see it doesn’t take long to build a fan base from one simple gesture.

Writers must realize God gave us a talent and with that talent comes the responsibility of nurturing others in our profession. The more we encourage others, the more we too are encouraged. 


Tweetables:

Rose Ross Zediker offers four ways we can encourage each other in our writing journeys. Click to tweet.

As Christian writers, we have a responsibility to nurture others in our profession. Click to tweet.

The more we encourage others, the more we too are encouraged. Click to tweet.





CORA ANDERSON ISN'T LOOKING FOR LOVE.  The young widow is just trying to make a life on the prairie for herself and her newborn son. When handsome newcomer Luke Dow shows up at her cabin door, she soon relies on the man's help with her homestead…and dares to dream of the future. Luke came to the small South Dakota town to build a hotel and make his fortune. But he never expected to care for anyone, let alone the beautiful Cora and her baby boy. When Cora's land claim is challenged by a neighbor, Luke will do all he can to protect her and her home—and claim her heart.




Rose Ross Zediker writes for Harlequin’s Heartsong Presents line of inspirational romance novels. During the two plus decades she’s been writing, her byline’s been found on over sixty works of fiction, non-fiction and Sunday school curriculum. Rose and her husband live in rural southeastern South Dakota where she works full-time at the University of South Dakota. Writing occupies many evenings and weekends but she balances both careers with relaxing hobbies, sewing, embroidery, quilting, reading and spoiling her granddaughters.

You can visit Rose on the web at: