I don't know if it's possible to start out a blog and not say something about what the author has been doing. So… here it is: I've been writing a book. 

No, I'm not kidding. It's called 40 Ways to Get Closer to God. 

Here's the cover. I'm happy with it. It's an important topic for me, and I was thrilled to be able to work on it with Keri Kent, a writer I respect. But let me warn you: if you read this book, you're not going to glow in the dark. It's not one of those, "I worked to be perfect… now YOU can be perfect like me" type of books. Those books always make me want to vomit. Besides, I'm not tall enough, and I don't have cool enough hair to get my picture on the cover. Instead, this is more of a "I'm a dork, but I did this stuff, so now I'm less of a dork than I used to be… in a way, I guess" sort of book. 

I can tell you one bit of good news: I know if you and I sat down at Starbucks to talk about this topic, the things in the book are exactly what I'd say. The stories (about my dad's suicide, or my friend's death, or my kids going for a pajama ride) are all true, and they're the stories I'd tell. There's no pretense here.

There's also no magic potion. Moving down the road spiritually takes time. You don't pick up a guitar one day and start selling concert tickets the next. You don't take up a paint brush in the morning and expect to create a masterpiece in the afternoon. Anything good takes time — and that includes your spiritual life. 

So I don't know if this is the most important thing you can do if

A year ago I decided to take some time away from from blogging. I was tired, becoming repetitive, and ready to take a break. So I took a year off. I've had a lot of people tell me, "You can't just take a year away from writing — it won't work." But… I did. So here I am, back to it. 

I love to write. I love to talk about writing. So, here I am, back to writing my blog. The focus is to offer advice, tips, and wisdom to those who want to write and get published. I hope you find it helpful. 

And yes, it feels good to be back. 

-Chip MacGregor

Think about this for a minute…

4 years.

Hundreds of posts. 

250 average readers per day. 

A half-million visitors. 

Time to hang it up. 

I've said what I have to say, and while there are still questions out there (including about 300 in my in-box that I meant to get to), I'm going to wrap it up. I feel like I've said plenty, I'm starting to go over some of the same material, and I need to just go focus on the authors I have the privilege of representing. So I'll blog once more, to say good-bye, but then I'm done. I'm going to fold up my tent, cash in my soup ladle, hand over my keys, and all those other overdone metaphors for wrapping it up. 

No more blog posts. No more bad poetry. No more whining about dopey queries and stupid ideas. No more offending the faithful. Time to spend my words on something else. I'll leave it all up, so you can wander through the archives a bit (once more, for the hundredth time — if you come to the bottom of the page and see a little yellow arrow that looks like this > , there are more pages to see on the topic). But I'm done. It's been fun. 

Chip

Seriously.

So many people have written to ask about me; wondering how my back is, specifically. Thanks. It makes me want to do the happy dance, knowing that people have been concerned, and especially to know that people have been praying for me while I've been recovering from what we are now referring to as the "sweater incident."

I spent the first week essentially horizontal, drugged up, and wiped out. 

Last week I was working on getting vertical again, but still on meds. I had some pretty good stretches of time when I felt capable of getting back to work, but I'll admit, I had a hard time finding the drive. That's when my mother reminded me that the brain is a muscle, too. I tried to take that as permission to not engage in too many projects requiring mental heavy lifting.

I think it was Tuesday of this week  that I began to realize just  how far behind I'd gotten on promised submissions, returned phone calls, mail, email, and bookkeeping. And that injuring oneself not long after being out of the office for a week-long conference is havoc on the follow up.

But now I'm feeling much better, playing a pretty solid round of catch up, and happy to say that I think I'm done whining. 

Pretty sure my family and clients are happy about that too.

Just thought you'd like to know…

Sandra

I am teaching a one-day workshop in Richmond, Virginia, on Saturday, November 6, at the Sierra Hotel near Short Pump. If you're in the area, I'd love to have you participate. All the details can be found here: http://www.regonline.com/the_perfect_proposal

BIG NEWS … Sandra is sitting upright again!

Chip says it's age which caused my back to go out for no good reason last week. I say it's the onset of cold weather since I was reaching into my closet for a sweater. And it wasn't even a heavy sweater! Anyway, just more motivation for me to move to Maui. 

Until then …

DEAL NEWS

Lacy Williams is writing MARRYING MISS MARSHAL, her first book for Steeple Hill.

Jay Patleitner has signed with Harvest House to write three more books following his recent title, 52 THINGS KIDS NEED FROM A DAD.

CATCH A FALLING STAR by Lynette Sowell was recently sold to Barbour.

CONFERENCES

Sandra is teaching at the upcoming Nov 6-7 Indiana Christian Writers conference sponsored by Wesleyan Publishing.

On November 6th, Chip is teaching a proposal seminar in Richmond, Virginia. Spaces are available…

Well-known writer Alton Gansky has put together a strong faculty for his intimate, new-style writing conference, coming up October 18-22 in New Mexico. If you’d like to meet people in the industry, but are a bit intimidated by one of those 500-attendee gatherings, check out what he’s doing at the Southwest Christian Writers Studio: http://www.altongansky.typepad.com/swcws/

Sandra has been invited to join faculty at the San Diego State University conference January 28-30, 2011; Florida Christian Writers conference March 2-6, 2011; and  Mt. Hermon, April 14-19, 2011.

OTHER NEWS/AUTHOR EVENTS

Anita Higman and Irene Brand's Summerside Press title LOVE FINDS YOU UNDER THE MISTLETOE, is going into its second printing after only one month. 

Theresa Flores has teamed with actress Abigal Mason and producer Dan Paulson to produce a movie of the week based on her teen sex-trafficking memoir THE SLAVE ACROSS THE STREET. It is currently being pitched to networks.

Poppy Smith will be the main speaker at Oregon Christian Writer's Fall conference this weekend.

AWARDS/REVIEWS

We've had a bunch of "get to know you" questions lately, so I thought I'd group several of them together…

Andrew wrote to say, "You used to be a publisher with Time-Warner — why did you go back to agenting?"

Some quick notes and random stuff…

Well-known writer Alton Gansky has put together a strong faculty for his intimate, new-style writing conference, coming up October 18-22 in New Mexico. If you’d like to meet people in the industry, but are a bit intimidated by one of those 500-attendee gatherings, check out what he’s doing at the Southwest Christian Writers Studio: http://www.altongansky.typepad.com/swcws/

The INSPY Awards have announced their list of 2010 finalists. Included this year are some authors we represent: Gina Holmes, in the Literary Fiction category, for Crossing Oceans; Jim Rubart, in the Speculative category, for Rooms; and Jenny B Jones, in the YA category, for So Over My Head. Other finalists included two authors we represent, but whose books we weren’t representing at the time—Dean Nelson for God Hides in Plain Sight and David Gregory for The Last Christian. And Mark Bertrand made the finalist list for his fabulous novel Back on Murder, but then was taken off the list when it was revealed his book released one day too late to make the list! You can see the entire list of finalists here: http://inspys.com/

Publishers Marketplace (a great resource that you should consider subscribing to) did some research on the number of deals being done so far this year in all of publishing. As usual, they reported things were slow in the summer, then picked up considerably in September. Overall books deals are up about 16% from last year (which is great news for authors), with “thrillers” being a clear growth category, and YA fiction on an upswing. And while big-money deals are growing, “debut” authors are down considerably—meaning publishers are looking toward their A-level authors to pay bills more than ever before. If you’re interested in staying on top of the publishing news, check it out at http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/automat/

In case you missed it, Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours, penned a wonderful piece of writing in the