Welcome to the online home of Tim Challies, blogger, author, and book reviewer.
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I am often asked if there is a future for blogs, bloggers, and blogging. It has been 20 years since they showed up on the scene and so much has changed by then. Can they really have a place even in 2020 and beyond? I am convinced they can, and I say that based on a number of good reasons which I’ve laid out elsewhere. But a question remains: If you want to get started with blogging in 2020, how …
Over the past few weeks writing has been tough. I don’t think this is anything more than the natural ebb and flow of the writer’s life—there are moments where the words come easily and moments where they seem locked inside. Recently, they have seemed locked within my mind, so even though I’ve got ideas, it has been tough to express them with clarity and insight. This has prompted me to consider why it is that I love to write and …
When I talk to writers or talk about writing, I’m inevitably asked questions like these: What books have most influenced your writing? What books do you recommend to become a better writer? My answers have varied through the years, though William Zinnser’s On Writing Well is generally near the top of the list, and I’m always sure to hold up Malcolm Gladwell as the kind of writer I’d someday like to become. Yet I’ve always known I haven’t read enough …
During the past few weeks I’ve been asked many questions about blogging and other forms of writing, so thought I’d tell you about the three tools I consider essential to my writing life. There’s an app, a font, and a calendar that represent the heart of all I do. The App: Ulysses For many years now, the great majority of my writing has been done in an app called Ulysses. This is a Mac-only app, though iA Writer is a …
During a recent trip to China , I was invited to spend some time with some friends who live there. They asked me questions that ranged far and wide, but here we talk about productivity and how we can remain productive over the long-haul. Transcript How do you continue to come up with new ideas for content and produce it so regularly? Well partly, it’s what I do, so I just have to come up with content. So, the longer …
While in Zambia for my recent EPIC trip, I held an Ask Me Anything event at Central Africa Baptist College. Here are a couple of the questions and answers: one concerns the relationship between reading and writing, and the other asks for practical tips to become a better reader. I hope you find the answers helpful!
While in Zambia during a recent EPIC trip, I held an Ask Me Anything event at Central Africa Baptist College. Here are a couple of the questions and answers: one concerns how to become a writer people will read, and the other is about how to maintain productivity in work. The answer is slightly ironic given my current situation (I didn’t mention not getting nerve damage is essential for productivity) but anyway, here are my answers.
There isn’t much I know that wasn’t taught to me by someone else. There isn’t much I count as wisdom that didn’t come to me by way of someone older and wiser than myself. The wisdom I am about to share is of exactly that kind. I won’t reveal the source, but will say it was a man known for that rare but beautiful combination of a gentle spirit and a wise mind. This man works with words. Words are …
I’m asked the questions all the time: What does it take to be a writer? How can I be a better writer? How can I be a more successful writer? They may dream of launching a blog or getting published in a magazine or completing their debut novel. My reply is always the same: Writers write. It’s the most obvious advice in the world, I know. But it’s advice every writer needs to hear and take to heart. Writers write. …
Much of life is an attempt to bring order from chaos. The pastor who sets out to prepare a sermon fills his mind with information and then needs to arrange it according to a unified theme. The author who sets out to write a book collects information from a hundred sources and then needs to lay it out in a logical manner. Ministries, marketing campaigns, fundraising drives, and even family vacations begin as chaos and eventually come to a state …