Christina Goebel Archives - Lovegoldenheart.com

July 17, 2021July 17, 2021

Best Editing Tips for Writers Series: 1

Christina Goebel, M.A.

I developed this editing series for fiction and nonfiction authors to save them time and money. After having edited for many authors and poets, I will tackle worst offenders here. Today’s topic is eliminating useless words. Let’s examine some.

The best editing takes your readers into your world without a thought for any mistakes. Image: Image by Ria Sopala from Pixabay

Sentences Needing Work

I am going to go to the store.

Are you preparing to leave?

He began to write furiously.

I am starting to believe that you have an excuse for everything.

The examples above contain words that serve no purpose in the sentence, and they are untrue. I am not going to to go the store. I am going.

Let me show you edits for the sentences above.

Revised Sentences

I am going to the store. (Didn’t need “to go.” )

Are you leaving? (Didn’t need “preparing to.” Notice the verb change.)

He wrote furiously. (Didn’t need “began to.” Notice the verb change.)

I believe you have an excuse for everything. (Didn’t need “starting to.”)

Further Edits

A further edit for the final sentence might be:

You have an excuse for everything. (After all, if I say it, then I believe it, yes?)

I suggest when drafting and editing your books or writing that you develop a suspicion of the word to. Am I using to as a preposition that indicates movement, such as “to the store”? Those are okay. Can I remove the phrase using to and the sentence will still make sense? If you can remove the phrase using to, do so.

In the final example, I removed I believe. Sometimes, saying I believe is useful. Other times, you won’t need to say that. Examine words you use frequently and if you or your characters say I believe often, have a good reason for the repetition.

Why Edit My Work?

Some people hate editing rules, but they are practical and meaningful. When you remove the extra words, your writing reads cleaner and truer. When I edit for the most advanced writers, I spend more time removing words that make their writing sound less unique and ensure they use more action, dialogue, and literary devices.

How to Save Money on Editing Services

If you hire editors for line editing (correcting the small mistakes like those above), Heaven help you. They charge more than other editors because it takes them hours longer. If you learn editing techniques, you then only need a lighter editing job, saving you money.

Future editing examples I provide will address some of the issues above, but next, I will share other problematic words and structures.

May 29, 2021May 29, 2021

GoldenHeart: How to Love Humanity Selected as a Top 100 Spiritual Book of All Time

GoldenHeart: How to Love Humanity was named one of the Top 100 Spirituality books of all time by BookAuthority! I was shocked and then I cried. GoldenHeart was part of a long journey — and a very spiritual one — that took me from utter despair to one of my greatest joys and passions.

Badge: BookAuthority Best Spirituality Books of All Time

When I wrote GoldenHeart, it was after a frank conversation with God. I had a devastating fall apart in my life. Everything I had trusted and believed dissolved before my eyes. Faith and family have always resided at my core. It was like someone pressed a destruct button and everything I prized deserted me.

That’s a good moment to speak with the One upstairs. I asked, “What do you want me to do?” Because I could barely pray and didn’t want to live. People worry about saying things like this. I was not going to harm myself, but I didn’t have the will to participate in the drama anymore. The exits away from the scenario would all hurt deeply and involve a lot of work.

Within thirty seconds of asking God what He wanted me to do, the entire concept of GoldenHeart: How to Love Humanity popped into my head like a download. I felt then that God had given me this book to write. As I wrote it, and worked feverishly to catch up to the ideas forming in my mind, I realized with humility that God had given me this book concept to save my life, then to save others, and ultimately, to serve in the lives of more people than I can count. It felt huge from the beginning.

If you are going through challenging times and every day is a struggle, I would like you to know that God excels in this area. When you have nothing left, pray. Things do not happen instantly. I think this occurs because so many lives intersect here. A change for you can impact others.

When I felt like nothing worse could happen and had to put Bible verses on Post It notes on doors to keep me moving, suddenly, God took over and used my pitiful weakness to usher in a new age of understanding.

I thought that family was everything and all of my love was intended for them. Looking back, my view of spirituality was limited to a small circle of people. Sure, I loved people everywhere because I was raised that way, but my happiness revolved around my focus on family and faith.

Then, there was no one. Sudden emptiness.

You know what God told me with GoldenHeart? That if I cannot love one person because they have removed themselves from me, then I can love all of humanity. We are not here to love one person.

If you are thinking that your close loved ones are what life is about, then what happens when some pass away? Who do you love then? Because either you or they will exit the equation one day. Death is an inevitability. In psychology, death is a top stressor of the human experience. All of our skills are needed to deal with some deaths of those close to us.

Regardless of your pain, if you expand your love to humanity, then your love is bigger than one person. When one is removed, it surely hurts, but you have the understanding that for your whole life, you will love many people in a variety of ways. Some need you desperately, and for some, I believe YOU are the only one that can save them with your compassion, kindness, caring, and service.

I can only think of myself in this moment as a tiny part of a gigantic history of humankind, and that God would look down upon me in distress and send me an instant book to write to save me and to reach you, I cannot believe that I am worth that time. However, at the same time, I know that God loves us deeply, so much more than we can understand. Babies don’t love us like we love them, not to the same depth. And we cannot love God as He loves us. As he loves YOU.

Book Review for GoldenHeart: This book will motivate you to lvoe yourself and everyone in this world. Amazon Reviewer

If you are struggling now, GoldenHeart is designed to speak to your heart and ultimately determine what your love mission is for the world, as well to investigate in the appendix fourteen Bible studies that have one main goal — to show you how God loves and how He loves you. I sobbed while writing the Bible studies when I wrote them and again when I edited them. I feel blessed to have been inspired in such a way and with such a blessing task. In the writing, love was revealed to me in a deeper capacity. I did not write about it in my book, but I felt guilty that I assigned little time to love One who loves me with such enduring force, and resolved that I will will continually pray, study the Bible, and speak with my loving God.

May 17, 2021

Making a Love Mission Reality

How many of us say we are going to do something and don’t? How often does that happen?

All the time, right?

Book Cover GoldenHeart How to Love Humanity by Christina Goebel — GoldenHeart: How to Love Humanity is a love manual that will teach you how to love yourself and others in a greater and more expansive way than ever before.

When I wrote GoldenHeart: How to Love Humanity, it was what a reader would call a “thesis on love.” It shares why you often don’t love yourself, how to get out of that programmed thinking and learn more about yourself to love. The next sections teach how to love others better with life examples. The inspirational love manual shares the large-scale love missions of Nobel Peace Prize winners and everyday people. Then, the reader is urged forward into his or her love mission.

Which left me in a bind with my love mission, lol. I felt called to work with orphans, the poor, hurting, and homeless. Those are my people — the forgotten ones and the people who many ignore. For my second GoldenHeart book, I decided to write loving, inspirational messages on life topics for people who are orphans, foster kids, are bereaved, or who just feel alone, even if they have family.

While writing the book, I realized that my method of speaking, and being a woman would limit my love mission’s capacity to reach hurting hearts. This isn’t in a negative sense. There are people craving a father’s voice, you see. Or a practical one, or a voice sweeter than mine. So, I expanded my mission by soliciting the help of people with some of the biggest hearts I know. Some never responded. Some said they would submit something and never did. A few didn’t work out for various reasons.

But thirty-five of my peers did me a solid.

Free E-book graphic says When life is difficult, We Are Your Family: GoldenHeart II — GoldenHeart II: We Are Your Family is a book meant for a lifetime, to pick up and read again whenever you have lost your way.

It took a lot of effort and is a time grabber, but GoldenHeart II: We Are Your Family is not a book. It’s a mission. I wrote a science fiction fantasy book and that is entertainment. But the GoldenHeart Series is a lifetime work to get it into the hands of people who need and want it. The e-book is free and the paperback’s profits roll back into the community it was written for by purchasing books for orphans and foster kids who don’t have access to computers, cell phones, or WiFi.

Sometimes, you undertake something and you know it will a huge commitment and you will need to pray for its completion and reach. That’s what the GoldenHeart Series books are. They are here to love the world. I hope the mission and love touches and blesses all who wrote for or read it.

I’m most at home on Twitter as @lovegoldenheart or on Instagram as @christinagoebel. I hope to see you and learn about your love missions — what you were born to do.

May 20, 2020May 17, 2021

A world full of heart

For ten years, GoldenHeart was a benched book. I didn’t do much to publish it, though writing it had saved my life.

In 2017, when I considered which of my completed books to self-publish, I prayed and asked. I felt GoldenHeart was the answer, and I determined to venture into the publishing world to make it happen.

After I made the decision to publish this book, I found heart-shaped seashells for days, and heart-shaped potato chips. My husband found them too, and you should have seen his face when he opened this fortune in a fortune cookie: you have a heart of gold. I met people who told me things that let me know–this book had a destiny.

GoldenHeart’s goal? To teach you how to love yourself and humanity–a journey you will enjoy!

I am Christina Goebel and it’s nice to meet you! I have served humanity in many capacities, as a: wife, mom, waitress, restaurant manager, English teacher, conference coordinator, disability advocate, editor, author, poet, and artist. Everything I have done has contributed to this moment, when I get to share with you how to make your life rock so much more!