Author: tinafriesen

  • How I Beat Writer’s Block

    At the Peace Arch border crossing, entering the U.S. from Canada, the border patrol person asked me what I did for a living. He seemed very interested when I told him I was a writer and offered me a cure for writer’s block. “You know what you have to do…

  • My Writers’ Conference Experience

    Last week I attended the Oregon Christian Writers Conference in Portland, Oregon. The conference began on Monday and ended Thursday afternoon. For any writer who has never attended a conference, I highly recommend it. One of the reasons to attend a writers’ conference is that writers have access to agents…

  • Orienting Your Reader

    I am currently on holidays in Manitoba for a month, visiting family and attending two weddings, as well as my mother’s eightieth birthday celebration. While I am here I am also trying to carve out some daily time for writing. This is more easily said than done. I don’t have…

  • What is Your Writing Worth?

    My writing is important to me, but lately I’ve had to take an honest look at what it is I want and need to do with my life. I’ve concluded I want to write. As a result, I am setting aside time to write. And, I’m putting my money where…

  • Getting Past the Fear

    Last night, at 4:00 a.m. I finally pressed ‘Send’ and submitted my first ten pages to the Oregon Christian Writes Manuscript Submission program. For $5.00 you can have an editor or agent look at your first ten pages when you attend the conference. They may or may not want to…

  • Why do you write?

    Recently I had someone ask me why people blog. I explored a few blogs to see what other writers are saying. If I were to sum it all up I would say we write for two reasons: ourselves and others–we want to give something to others and we want them…

  • 6 Things You Can Do to Keep From Getting the Flu

    6 Things You Can Do to Keep From Getting the Flu.

  • Don’t give away all of your marbles

    If you have been on my site recently you will have noticed that I removed a post I wrote this week. It was a post about a specific resource offered for half price for a limited time. In the post I questioned the wisdom of spending large amounts of money…

  • What I learned from the NaNoWriMo process

    The first two weeks of National November Write Month went better than expected. I managed to keep up with my target word count, more or less, or at least catch up. But then we ran into a bit of a crisis at work and my job had to take priority,…

  • Life is Like a River

    Just like a river, life keeps on flowing. It never stops and takes a break. I have been in the habit of dividing my life into segments, somehow thinking that there is a “stop” when one segment comes to an end. But life does not “pause.” It doesn’t even slow…