Behind the Scenes of the Heart of a Warrior Series

I’ve been working on a project for my day job centered around this idea: “What does it mean to be courageous?” And it got me thinking about the beginnings of the Heart of a Warrior series. This series began in a fourth-grade classroom while I was substitute teaching. They were taking a quiz, and I had just watched a news update on …

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Gearing up for ACFW

Time for an update on my writing progress! Shadowed is with endorsers, Surrendered is underway, and the next proposal for the Heart of the Lion series is finished (as of today). Which means…it is almost time for the ACFW conference! This is the first year I will be attending as a published author. I love meeting other writers and can’t …

Kariss Writing Life 3 Comments

I’m Just the Messenger

“How’s the writing going?” my coworker asked this week. Usually, I have a tailor-made answer ready for this. “It’s going.” “I’m getting there.” “I love it. It’s hard, but I’m excited about it.” “I’m overwhelmed. But at least it’s for a good reason!” But this time? This time, I groaned. Out loud. Before I could catch myself. The truth is …

Kariss Writing Life 9 Comments

Failure Builds Fighters

Failure can either defeat us or make us fight harder. My parents thought it was weird that I kept every grad school rejection letter. They watched me mourn over every no until the last few when I started asking “now what?” While some might see this as self-deprecation, I saw it as powerful motivation. As discouraged as I felt at …

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Erasing Your Excuses

In high school, my band director erased “can’t” from my vocabulary. We were a championship band, first in the state for 4A high schools. He delighted in giving us the most challenging routines and music while watching us rise to the occasion and tolerated nothing less than our absolute best, knowing that our greatest potential often lay just below our …

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