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Realm Makers 2025
At Realm Makers ’25, the annual convention for Christian sci-fi/fantasy writers, a young aspiring author approached me admiringly, her face red and her smile wide. “You’re Donald Maass, right?”
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Is Anything Real?
In the modern world, we struggle to distinguish truth from falsehood. We inhabit silos, echo chambers of our favored beliefs. Artificial Intelligence erases the lines between reality and illusion.
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Burnout (Part IV)
If you sense in the air a sapping, the loss of all your strength and joy; if you feel powerless to plan and act and there seems to be no purpose in your life; if you forget how to feel happy and you find no beauty anywhere—not even in a Christmas snowfall or a flaming…
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Burnout (Part III)
Have you ever traveled through The Land of Burnout? Have you stopped for a meal at Slim’s Bar and Grill? Perhaps you’ve forgotten it all. Perhaps your memories got jumbled as mine did.
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Burnout (Part II)
The best way to Burnout is not to follow any map, but to spin in tight circles at your regular job as fast as you can. Every job requires spinning—usually clockwise—though it’s often called something else, like a “Quality Initiative” or “Five Nines of Certainty.” Start spinning immediately.
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Burnout (Part I)
If you were wondering why I hadn’t written for six months, it’s because I wintered in Burnout. If you’ve ever stopped there, you understand. How I ended up walking aimlessly across an open, dusty prairie, with paper in one hand and a stylus in the other, I can only speculate.
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Embers of Burnout, Flames from Earth
Join us unencumbered across the arm of space and the reach of the ages. Let us consider together our hurts, our hopes, and our dreams, despite the distance, and encourage each other to sustain the embers of life.
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Conventions, Revisions, and Aging Humor
I’m traveling today with my son Ben to the American Christian Fiction Writers’ National Convention in New Orleans. My hat’s in the ring there for a First Fifteen Pages contest for unpublished authors.
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Publishing, Parachuting, and Three Lincolns
In the early 1990s, I was the best man for my brother’s wedding. For his bachelor party, we didn’t want to do anything immoral, so we decided to try something dangerous, instead: parachuting. My wife made me promise never to do it again. There would be three commands: get out, get all the way out…
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Horse Sense
Dear Reader, how I treasure your sticking with me on the road to publication. I learned this month I’m a semi-finalist in the Genesis Contest for unpublished authors. How delightful to receive an evening phone call from a contest organizer. (They don’t call you when you lose!)
