When You Don T Like Your Story

Bestselling author, cofounder of Girlfriends in God, and writer for Proverbs 31 Ministries Sharon Jaynes reveals the secret to living a better story: understanding that the worst parts of our past are the very things God uses most. Many people don't like the story God is writing in their lives. The mistakes, failures, tragedies, and circumstances outside of our control linger in our minds and hold us back. How do we come to grips with the pieces of our stories that we wish weren't there? How do we silence the pain of what has been done to us and the shame of what we've allowed to be done through us? In When You Don't Like Your Story, Bible teacher Sharon Jaynes shows us how God untangles our most painful emotions with the fingers of grace, putting his redemption on display. In the hardest parts of our narratives, we get to see God's greatest work--and this changes the ending of our stories. As we overcome shame, offer forgiveness, and use our stories to help others, we find freedom from the past and learn to live in the restoration of the present.

What Can You Do When You Feel You're Just Not Good Enough? Do the voices in your head say you're not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough...or just not enough, period? It's time to stop listening to lies that sabotage your confidence and embrace the truth of who God says you are. Popular author and speaker Sharon Jaynes exposes the lies that keep you bogged down in shame, insecurity, and feelings of inadequacy. By recognizing the lies and replacing them with truth, you'll be able to silence the voice inside that whispers you're just not good enough accept God's grace and move past failures that have defined and confined you preload your heart with truth to fight your deepest insecurities Your confidence and faith will grow when you trade self-defeating thoughts for God's truth. Today is the day to embrace your incredible worth as a woman who is uniquely fashioned and spiritually empowered.

Whether you want to improve your impact in speeches, staff meetings, pitches, emails, PowerPoint presentations, or any other communication setting, this book provides a novel approach that teaches you how to go from simply sharing a thought to making a difference. --

This book is a collection of 15 dialogues that occurred throughout the United States and Europe with Byron Katie. Some of the people who worked with Katie have painful illnesses, others are lovelorn or in messy divorces. Some are simply irritated with a co-worker or worried about money. What they all have in common is a willingness to question, with Katie’s help, the painful thoughts that are the true cause of their suffering. In every case we see how Katie’s acute mind and fierce kindness helps each person dismantle for themselves what is felt to be unshakable reality. Although these dialogues make fascinating reading—some are both hilarious and deeply moving at once—they are intended primarily as teaching tools. Each took place in front of an audience, and Katie never lost connection with that audience, repeatedly reminding each person in the room to follow the dialogues inwardly, asking themselves the questions the participant must ask. The dialogue between Katie and these volunteers is an external enactment of precisely the kind of dialogue each person can have with their own thoughts. The results, even in the seemingly most dire situation, can be unimagined freedom and joy.

The Story Behind THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE If you've read his books THE WAR OF ART and TURNING PRO, you know that for thirty years Steven Pressfield (GATES OF FIRE, THE AFGHAN CAMPAIGN etc.) wrote spec novel after spec novel before any publisher took him seriously. How did he finally break through? Ignoring just about every rule of commercial book publishing, Pressfield's "first" novel not only became a major bestseller (over 250,000 copies sold), it was adapted into a feature film directed by Robert Redford and starring Matt Damon, Will Smith, and Charlize Theron. Where did he get the idea? What magical something did THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE have that his previous manuscripts lacked? Why did Pressfield decide to write a novel when he already had a well established screenwriting career? How does writing a publishable novel really work? Taking a page from John Steinbeck's classic JOURNAL OF A NOVEL, Steven Pressfield offers answers for these and scores of other practical writing questions in THE AUTHENTIC SWING.

Snappsy the alligator is having a normal day when a pesky narrator steps in to spice up the story. Is Snappsy reading a book ... or is he making CRAFTY plans? Is Snappsy on his way to the grocery store ... or is he PROWLING the forest for defenseless birds and fuzzy bunnies? Is Snappsy innocently shopping for a party ... or is he OBSESSED with snack foods that start with the letter P? What's the truth? Snappsy the Alligator (Did Not Ask to Be in This Book) is an irreverent look at storytelling, friendship, and creative differences, perfect for fans of Mo Willems.

The first draft is the easy part… In Blueprint Your Bestseller, Stuart Horwitz offers a step-by-step process for revising your manuscript that has helped bestselling authors get from first draft to final draft. Whether you’re tinkering with your first one hundred pages or trying to wrestle a complete draft into shape, Horwitz helps you look at your writing with the fresh perspective you need to reach the finish line. Blueprint Your Bestseller introduces the Book Architecture Method, a tested sequence of steps for organizing and revising any manuscript. By breaking a manuscript into manageable scenes, you can determine what is going on in your writing at the structural level—and uncover the underlying flaws and strengths of your narrative. For more than a decade this proven approach to revision has helped authors of both fiction and nonfiction, as well as writers across all media from theater to film to TV.

Winner of the 2003 Trillium Book Award "Stories are wondrous things," award-winning author and scholar Thomas King declares in his 2003 CBC Massey Lectures. "And they are dangerous." Beginning with a traditional Native oral story, King weaves his way through literature and history, religion and politics, popular culture and social protest, gracefully elucidating North America's relationship with its Native peoples. Native culture has deep ties to storytelling, and yet no other North American culture has been the subject of more erroneous stories. The Indian of fact, as King says, bears little resemblance to the literary Indian, the dying Indian, the construct so powerfully and often destructively projected by White North America. With keen perception and wit, King illustrates that stories are the key to, and only hope for, human understanding. He compels us to listen well.