How to Plan Your Writing Goals for 2026: 5 Simple Steps to Move Your Writing Forward

From Edie: Learn how to plan your writing goals for 2026 with five simple, faith-centered steps to clarify your direction, set realistic goals, and move your writing forward with purpose.

How to Plan Your Writing Goals for 2026: 5 Simple Steps to Move Your Writing Forward

by Lori Hatcher

As the sun peeks over the horizon of a new writing year, do you know where you’re going? 

Maybe you have a contract, so you’ll be working on a book. Or you have a regular commitment to write for a magazine or contribute to a blog or website. Even if you don’t have any formal commitments, we all want to move forward in our writing journeys in 2026. 

You need a plan. 

But to have a plan, you need to know your destination.

The Complete Guide to Self-editing for Writers Part 2: Practical Tools and Techniques to Strengthen Your Manuscript Before Outside Feedback

From Edie: The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Writers explores practical tools and techniques to strengthen your manuscript before outside feedback, revision, and professional editing.

The Complete Guide to Self-editing for Writers Part 2: Practical Tools and Techniques to Strengthen Your Manuscript Before Outside Feedback

by Henry McLaughlin @RiverBendSagas

Last month, we began exploring the process of self-editing, of getting our writing in the best shape we can before sending it out to a professional editor.

Notice, I didn’t say before submitting it to an agent, a publishing house, or self-publishing it.

There’s an old saying from the judicial system: He who represents himself, has a fool for a client. In the same way he who edits himself alone, while he may not be a fool, is not preparing his work to be the best it could be.

More on this later. Let’s return to the process of self-editing.

Funny Christmas Songs for Writers: A Holiday Parody Writers Will Relate To

From Edie: A lighthearted collection of funny Christmas song parodies just for writers—filled with humor about deadlines, edits, publishing dreams, and holiday writing life.

Funny Christmas Songs for Writers: A Holiday Parody Writers Will Relate To

by DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills 

It’s a little hard to concentrate on writing when it’s Christmas Eve and the music of the season is rolling through our heads. We’re humming and singing along to our favorites and finding it impossible to write . . . or can we change the words in those songs to fit our writerly needs??

Dipping the Quill Deeper: Emmanuel

From Edie: A reflective Christmas meditation on Emmanuel—God with us—exploring presence, family, storytelling, and how writers can create with the assurance that we never write alone.

Dipping the Quill Deeper: Emmanuel

by Eva Marie Everson @EversonAuthor

Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us (Matthew 1:23 KJV). 

My daughter and her husband gave the name “Emmanuel” as the middle name to their second son.

Just today, I put Christmas music on in my car as I drove their oldest and myself to see a theater presentation of It’s a Wonderful Life (the first time I’ve ever seen it on the big screen!). As we traveled along the highway toward the venue, a stirring version of Veni, Veni Emmanuel began. Knowing that my grandson is currently studying Latin, I asked him if he knew what “Veni” means.

Last-Minute Christmas Gift Ideas for Writers: A Practical Wish List Writers Will Love

From Edie: Looking for last-minute Christmas gifts for writers? This practical wish list shares writer-approved gift ideas—from pens and notebooks to tech and cozy favorites.

Last-Minute Christmas Gift Ideas for Writers: A Practical Wish List Writers Will Love

by Ane Mulligan @AneMulligan

I'm working on my Christmas wish list for my husband. I'll leave copies of it in his TV watching chair, at his easel, on his desk, next to the toaster, and in the fridge, hoping he gets the hint. While this is not an exhaustive list, here are some gift ideas all writers will love.

How Writers Can Encourage and Support Other Writers: 6 Simple, Meaningful Ways

From Edie: Discover six simple, meaningful ways writers can encourage and support other writers—through reviews, sharing, kindness, and community-building all year long.

How Writers Can Encourage and Support Other Writers: 6 Simple, Meaningful Ways

by Tammy Karasek @TickledPinkTammy

There are a couple of things we writers appreciate from our readers. Some are very basic, read our books, tell others about it, and even write and leave a review of our book on several book selling sites. I’m going to take that one step further as we end 2025—maybe the suggestions below could be added to your Goals for 2026 list. 

Most of us enjoy receiving a gift or a kind word, wouldn’t you agree? How often are we quick to give those. I don’t mean to give your family and close friends gifts or show kindness, you should already do that. I mean do you share gifts and kindness to fellow writers also? Not only at Christmas when those are often anticipated, but throughout the year. 

YouTube for Writers, Part 4: Editing Tips to Improve Your Videos

From Edie: Learn why video editing is a valuable skill for writers, with beginner-friendly tips, tools, and a practical checklist to create engaging reels, Shorts, and book-promotion videos.

YouTube for Writers, Part 4: Editing Tips to Improve Your Videos

by Samantha Evans Tschritter @LoveSamEvans

Why is knowing how to edit a video a valuable skill for writers?

• Whether traditionally or independently published, writers need to promote their own work.
• Anything we can do to elevate our social media presence makes a difference.
• Engaging videos create opportunity to engage with readers.
• Videos lend one more way to share the gospel.

“I’m scared because I’ve never edited a video before.” 

Not gonna lie. This one is a doozie. Remember the look on your face the first time someone instructed you to sum up your entire book in fifteen words? That’s where I’m at. How do I funnel years of research and practice into a succinct, intelligible article? Let’s give it a go.

Your Vocabulary List:

• 1. CTA—Call to action, the “What next” step for your reader or viewer
• 2. Reel—a vertical video typically less that three minutes long. TikTok has the option for a ten-minute reel.
• 3. Short—Youtube’s term for a ‘reel.’ Youtube shorts can run up to three minutes. 
• 4. Long-form video—any horizontal video five to eight minutes or longer
• 5. Try- attempting a new skill with the possibility of imperfect success
• 6. KIT- Keep in Touch

Your Beginner’s Guide to Video Editing: A Video Editing Checklist:

• 1. First thing you need to do is create a horizontal practice video that you have no emotional attachment to or professional investment in. You could record yourself washing dishes or reading a passage of Scripture. Try to make the video eight minutes long, and try talking at your camera from different distances to get a feel for spacing at sound. This is not a ‘get it right’ video, It’s a ‘get it done.’ We’re not actually uploading this video.
• 2. Choose a program to work with. If you have no intention of recording videos longer that three-minute reels, Instagram and TikTok would work just fine for editing, especially if you record the video within their software.
• 3. For long-form videos—five minutes or longer—try Canva Pro ($13/ month), Capcut Pro ($20/ month), PowerPoint (free with Office), or I-Movie (free). The programs that simplify the recording process and save time cost more money. 
• 4. Spend at least twenty-minutes playing with buttons. I’m not joking. Get comfortable with the program. Know what all your options are. YOU WILL NOT (likely) CRASH YOUR COMPUTER. Options to be aware of: 
• Split—Use this to cut out dead space
• Transition—Can be overused, but this is a great tool if two split portions of video have awkward flow
• Animation—Most useful at the beginning or end of a video
• Effects—I often use this interchangeably with animation
• Filters—chose colors that grab attention or fit your mood
• Video Speed—Great for time lapse when demonstrating the completion of a project.
• Audio Speed—After my late husband died, my speech slowed. Sometimes I need to speed a video up to 1.1 to sound ‘normal.’ Anything faster than 1.1 with speaking sounds digitized. 
• Cropping—Just like a photo, you can trim the clutter on the edges of a video.
• Overlay—An image or video overlapping the main video—show an image of your book while talking about the book
• Library or Stock images/ videos—Canva and Capcut’s free versions come with free photos and videos you can use to enhance your video. Just drag and drop. I don’t work with PowerPoint or IMovie as much so I don’t know if those programs provide stock content. Drop a comment if you know the answer.
• Opacity—show two images over one another. Beautiful and mystifying when done properly.
• Caption templates—
• ‘Legible’ is the main priority here. ‘Fun’ is secondary. 
• Chose a font that your viewers can read, that you enjoy.
• Stick to the same font for every video for branding/ consistency
• Choose a template that displays 3-5 words at a time. You don’t want your viewer to read ahead of the words you speak. 
• I don’t like Youtube’s caption feature because they play two sentences at a time. I add captions with Capcut Pro before uploading a video to Youtube. That said,
• Youtube captions were a fantastic option before I started paying for Capcut pro because using Youtube saved hours of typing captions.
• Stickers—We’re not producing a middle school yearbook—Have a great summer! KIT XOXO—so go easy on sticker usage, but these provide a great tool when used well. My favorite stickers are ‘subscribe,’ ‘follow,’ and ‘share.’ You can also create stickers specific to your books. 
• Layers—used in conjunction with overlay
• Text—sounds simple, but play around with all the features to see which options you like best.
• 5. Now that you’re familiar-ish with the program, it’s time to try.
• 6. Upload a video to the program of you talking about your book and try your hand at editing a real reel. 
• 7. Be sure to include:
• Three Hooks in three seconds
• Movement
• Music
• Spoken words
• Captions
• Animation
• “In this video…”
• A ‘subscribe’ sticker
• A CTA 
• “Subscribe for …”
• “In order to _______, watch this video next.”
• “Join the newsletter for a free ____________”

I believe in your ability to succeed. 

The fantastic thing about video editing is if you forget to say something in the video, you can add the content in with stickers, picture overlays, and text. 

• 8. Music. 
• The best way to avoid copyright infringement with music is to wait until you upload the video to the platform you’ll be using the content on (i.e. Youtube, TikTok, Instagram) and then use music provided by the platform.
• Choose music that fits the mood
• Use ‘fade in’ and ‘fade out.’

My # 1 Time-saving Hack: Using a program that creates captions from audio (I use CapCut Pro), I insert captions first. Use the captions to eliminate dead space and repeated phrases. This saves the trouble of rewinding and relistening to the same sections of audio over and over. Here’s a one-minute reel, showing a time-saving video hack.

In this Video-Editing Strategies Video, I demonstrate how to use each of the elements spoken about in this blog. 

What is one new thing you learned by reading this article? What do you want to hear more about? Comment below. 

TWEETABLE

YouTube for Writers, Part 4: Editing Tips to Improve Your Videos from @LoveSamEvans on @EdieMelson (CLick to Tweet)

Don't miss the rest of this YouTube for Writers Series!

Part 1: How to Create Thumbnails that Get Clicks

Part 2: How to Define and Reach Your Target Audience

Part 3: Best Practices for Filming Videos that Engage

Part 4: Editing Tips to Improve Your Videos

Multi-award-winning author S. E. Tschritter (pronounced Shredder) specializes in articulating grief and loss, leading grievers toward hope and healing. Whether poetry, fiction, or non-fiction, Tschritter writes content that will stick with readers long after they close the cover. Her 20-plus years of ministry leadership experience and contributions to over 30 books enable her to serve others, speaking truth with transparency, humor, and love. 

Tschritter currently resides in Simpsonville, South Carolina with her husband, their three teen and preteen daughters, cats named Pitter and Patter, and their Siberian husky whom she lost the vote to name Onomatopoeia. Nothing refreshes Tschritter’s soul like gardening. She gardens to work through plot holes, writer’s block, character development, and book ideas. Tschritter spends a great deal of time gardening. You can find her on social media at Linktr.ee/LoveSamEvans.