Summer Writing Update

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This weekend I was working on my official author website. Which is kinda weird. I don't feel like an official author. :) I've had in my mind the themes I want to convey through the design, and it's starting to take shape (think mountains and books).

With only six more months to go before my first novel Thicker than Blood releases from Tyndale House, I'm keeping busy. The manuscript is currently in typesetting and then will be proofread. Several wonderful authors have agreed to read advance copies of the book for possible endorsement, so I might have some of those to share in the future.

And here's a tidbit for you. A very well known Christian music artist has agreed to read the novel for possible endorsement, too. I can't share who yet, but you'll be some of the first to know if she (okay, that's your hint!) is able to provide a blurb.

One more thing. I have an exciting feature I'm planning for my website that I'll talk more about in the future. For now, take a good look at the little stuffed ocelot up there at the beginning of this post. You'll be seeing more of him/her in the future. That's all I'm saying for now. :)

This summer I'm going to be putting the final touches on my second novel (working title Innocent Blood) and hopefully starting the rough draft of my third book. In the meant time, you can always find me conducting author interviews and writing book reviews over at TitleTrakk.com Be looking for ones with Donita K. Paul, Randy Singer and Tom Davis soon.

Speaking of, I recently read Tom's novel called Scared. It might just change your view on Africa and the AIDs crisis. If you'd like to read my review, click here. I highly recommend this one.

Donita K. Paul (Advice for Novelists, Part 99)

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Here's today's entry in our Advice for Novelists series. I've asked authors, agents, editors and publicists their response to the question:

"If you could say one thing to aspiring novelists, what would you say?"

Donita's advice is short and sweet, but that doesn't make it any less poignant:

Love what you are doing, not what you hope to achieve.

--Donita K. Paul, author of The Vanishing Sculptor, The Dragonkeeper Chronicles, etc. Visit her website to learn more about her Appreciate A Dragon Day and more.

A Word In Season From Alice Hoffman

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I was paging through the July issue of The Writer magazine last night. Alice Hoffman's interview caught my attention, and I'm glad it did. As I contemplate what to write for my third novel, several of her quotes stuck out and encouraged me. When asked, "What advice do you have for fledgling writers?", here's what she said:

My biggest piece of advice is to write, because I think sometimes people feel like they have to think up the story or they have to have something to say. I always feel like you might not know what you have to say in a piece of fiction until you start writing. It's really important to write your way into the story. It's good to know something of plot, structure and characters, but you find out what you really have to say by writing.

This can't be any more appropriate for where I am now in my writing. I always wish I was a plotter in times like these. I wish I could have a full outline and know where I'm going in a novel. But thus far, that doesn't seem to be my process. I have ideas, characters, etc. but putting them together and actually starting? I've actually started four or fives times now on this third book!

Here's another quote Alice shares that hits home for me. The interviewer asks her, "When you're writing a novel, what part is the hardest?"

The beginning is the hardest. Every time I start a novel, I think: "I don't know how to write a novel. I don't know how to make it come alive. I don't know how to tell a story. I don't know what I'm doing." I feel like it's a process of relearning every time.

Thank you, Alice, for sharing these words! Maybe the doubts are normal. Maybe it's okay to feel like I'm clueless and like I'm starting from ground zero every time. Maybe that's just the way all authors feel when starting a new project. Recognizing this might be exactly what I need to sit down and start typing Chapter One ... for the sixth time! :)

Defining Your Present With Your Past

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What if everything that's happened in your life thus far was to prepare you for today?

I had the chance to sit in on an interview my sister Tracy did with Duncan Phillips, the drummer for the Newsboys last week. He had a lot of great things to say not only on the band, but on living positive and being a Christian. A few of his quotes stuck out to me:

"I look at how much hard work it was [the early stages of the band] and also how loyal and faithful our Creator was through all this. There were so many what-ifs. I look back on it now with hindsight. I can see the hand of the Lord there in various situations. There was no way they could've happened by chance. Looking back encourages me when I look forward. I look forward now with courage because there have been a lot of times in our careers, especially just recently, where it was like, “Oh my gosh, what are we gonna do? This thing's over; we're not getting anywhere.” But the Lord has been good."

Notice his quote, "Looking back encourages me when I look forward". That says something to me today. I daresay all of us have experiences where God has moved in our lives, only we didn't recognize God's hand until later. In hind sight. Duncan continues:

"I know in my heart that He is real. I've seen what He's done in my life over the years. It's one of the great things about being a Christian for a while now - I can look back and see all the incredible things that could not have happened by chance. They happened because of an ordained process that can only come from the Creator, Someone greater than me."

As a writer, I see how true these statements are in my own life. Every experience, good or bad, can be used in my writing. In order to write deeply I need to have something to draw from. I'm turning 30 this year, but the Lord has blessed me with some amazing experiences.

I was traveling the country in my early 20s for our family business and have been in all but four US states. I saw my first bald eagle outside Flagstaff, Arizona sitting high and mighty in a huge pine tree. I helped put out a forest fire on the road up to Estes Park, Colorado. I saw a grizzly bear eating a dead animal carcass in Yellowstone National Park. I've driven down the streets of San Francisco at one o'clock in the morning. I saw the Twin Towers a week before they went down.

The funny thing is, as I was experiencing these things (and many more like them) I had no idea I would need them later in life. But as I write my novels I'm finding myself using these specific details. Just the other night I wrote about watching a hummingbird diving toward a stream, its shrill tweet sounding like a distant policeman's siren. That came from my own life too.

But here's the thing that goes back to what Duncan was saying. We ALL have experiences in our pasts that color our today. What if an experience we first thought of as negative actually developed our character into something that will impact our future? Our ministries?

I don't believe God purposely causes bad things to happen in our lives to teach us things, but I do believe He can help us through them. We can learn from the negative. And maybe we can use the experience in a book someday!

God has a specific plan for your life. He's ordaining your steps even now. Knowing that can change our outlook on life.

Best Mann for the Job trailer

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