Re:Word is a weekly roundup of stories on faith, relationships, and the creative life.

1. How Big Is Your BUT? – Watch Lysa TerKeurst's webcast on overcoming excuses.  (via @LysaTerKeurst)

2. On Writing The Perfect Ending – Sue Brower (Executive Editor at Zondervan) shares proven wisdom for making your romance, women's lit, or suspense story go out with bang. (via @acfwTweets).

3.  The Cost of Not Failing - The engrossing story of would-be comedy star Duke Fightmaster leads Ed Czyewski to observe, "When we refuse to fail, we rob ourselves of important lessons … and prevent ourselves from taking important steps forward." (via @TheHighCalling).

4. Four Ways to Be a Better Friend by Ann Voskamp (@annvoskamp).

5. What about Purgatory? asks author and scholar Scot McKnight… (@scotmcknight)

The poet Dante presents his poem "Purgatorio" to the city of Florence.

6. Five Ways to Spice Things Up with Your Spouse by author Sheila Wray Gregoire (@sheilagregoire)

7. 19 tips for authors (and aspiring authors) by Seth Godin. If you're not familiar with Godin, he's an incredibly entrepreneurial (and busy) thinker, writer, and marketer — so I'm not surprised his first love is for self-publishing. We disagree on a few points about publishing (i.e., Tip #7), but even when Godin isn't right he's worth considering. Here are two of my favorites from the list:

The best time to start promoting your book is three years before it comes out. Three years to build a reputation, build a permission asset, build a blog, build a following, build credibility and build the connections you'll need later.

Pay for an eidtor editor. Not just to fix the typos, but to actually make your ramblings into something that people will choose to read… One of the things traditional publishers used to do is provide really insightful, even brilliant editors… but alas, that doesn't happen very often.*

(*I can't speak for the personnel at other publishers, but my editor colleagues at Zondervan are insightful and even brilliant. // I tip my hat to Zondervan author @pastorbrady for bringing Godin's post to my attention.)

- Adam Forrest, Zondervan

(Disclosure: Some Re:Word stories are by Zondervan authors. Some are not. All regard words or the Word, and all are useful / enriching / or just flat-out interesting. Image attribution: Domenico Di Michelino [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. This post does not represent the views of Zondervan or any of its representatives. The writer shares these personal opinions for information purposes only. To receive new blogposts in your reader or email inbox, subscribe to Zondervan Blog.)