It's 12:49 on Friday September 3, 2010

The wrinkles only go where the smiles have been.

Expanding My Horizons

Now that I’ve finished a first draft on my first novel, I’m working on outlining the second. As the first passes around to a few readers, and the plot develops in the second, I’ve become concerned about the track I seem to be following. Don’t Stop Believin’ wanders through the adult entertainment industry – exotic dancing. Sad Girl is heading down an even darker path: human trafficking. Are these really topics that belong in Christian fiction, I asked myself, several times. Am I really glorifying God?

I posed a version of that question to my friend/editor Joy, and she pointed me to several authors: Brandilyn Collins, Dee Henderson, Terri Blackstock, among others. I’ve read a few of Dee’s works, and just finished Terri’s Cape Refuge (and liked it a lot). Dee’s O’Malley series involves a violent stalker. Cape Refuge opens with a double murder. Collins writes Christian suspense. Can I do this?

Brandilyn had a great post the other day about a great fan letter, which in turn linked to a not-so-great fan letter, and that one was the one that really moved me. It was especially heartening to get an encouraging comment from Brandilyn on Facebook.

So I’ve been reading Brandilyn’s blog on a regular basis lately, and today there was a link to Mike Duran’s excellent blog, Decomposing. He’s got some great posts about some topics I’ve really been struggling with, so I’ve got some reading to do. Between his and Brandilyn’s blog, and the AFCW reading lists (social issues and author comparison, I’ve got a lot of reading to do.

January 29, 2010 | Filed Under Faith, Writing | 1 Comment 

6 Years, 10 Months, 18 Days

Two thousand, five hundred and twenty-four days.

Three hundred and sixty weeks.

101, 380 words.

Actually, no. I’m off by two words. Forgot to count “The End.”

Yes, roughly 60,576 hours later, Don’t Stop Believin’ is done, or at least the first draft is. Time to back up that file, and start thinking about another story or two before I start rewriting this one.

It’s been an interesting week, quite honestly. My mother-in-law passed away Friday, on her ex-husband’s birthday, which turned out to be the day after I wrote the last words. The moment itself was…humbling, and surreal. My first thought was, “Holy crap, I’m really done.”

It was certainly an intriguing journey. In the real world, I’ve changed jobs twice, and added a child to my family. In the book, two people have died, one gave her life to Christ, and another is almost there. It took me almost seven years to tell a story that only spans 65 days. That worked out to 151 days of actual writing, spread out over the aforementioned 2,524 days, or about once every 16 days. When I was writing, I was cranking out an average of about 670 words a day. But there were long stretches of no writing, for different reasons. Most of the time, I blamed my muse for no longer speaking to me. In her defense, I didn’t really try speaking to her, so it’s fair for her to keep quiet, I suppose. Ah well.

For the next few days, no more writing. Visitation is Tuesday, and the funeral is Wednesday. It’ll be a long week. I’ve already got the basics for the next story in mind. It’s a short I wrote a couple of years ago, and I think it’s worth turning into a novel. At least I hope it is.

January 16, 2010 | Filed Under Writing | Leave a Comment 

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