Into the Fire

Writers are a zany lot, aren’t they? Some labor and agonize over each word and sorrow over the results when their project is done. Others zip along at breakneck speed, the words hurling themselves at the keyboard as fast as the writer can type. Many are somewhere in between. Some decry the defiling of the art of writing if the language chosen isn’t musical, deep, scintillating, while others protest the boorish reads of all words and no play. Some favor epics and others the precision of short stories or the concerted beauty of a poem.

One thing all writers have in common is the fact that they just can’t stay out of their writing. Even a journalist—of which there are few true journalists today—has his voice, his style, his preferred delivery of reporting an event or situation. If you read the books produced by one author, be it non-fiction or novels, you will hear him in the subject or the story, in the protagonist or a supporting character.

A while back I wrote a post titled “Quirky” to illustrate this point. A few of you gave your comments showing what you did or didn’t include because of your preferences or practices. I find it very entertaining because it speaks of who we are as different individuals having in common the desire to create with the written word.

I am all over my novels. Just can’t stay out of them. Because they come from my world. My stories come from the Lord. I know that makes some of you bristle and insinuate my arrogance at such an assertion, but for me it’s true. I cannot come up with a story on my own. I just can’t. I know so many of you are much more creative than me and you have stories presenting themselves in your psyches frequently, demanding you finish one so you can begin the next. I have had overlapping stories appear in my mind, but they came of the Lord’s design because I had no clue, no inkling they were on the way. They came as a compulsion, a driving need to write it down lest it be forgotten and the loss would be too desperate to consider. A compulsion done in obedience. That’s how it is in my world of writing. You might snicker at that since out of six complete novels, almost seven, only one is published and that one with the black mark of being self-published.

A writer has his own style, preferences, personality, voice, loves, hates, etc. just like anyone else, but a creative writer must capture not just his own gamut of emotions and influences but those of many others, and he must combine them in captivating composites of people, places, and things in order to entice readers who will yearn to enter this created place and either feel soothingly at home there or feel the prickly heat of discomfort at having ventured too far into another domain of subtle surrealism—one that threatens or challenges them. Either way they come out of the experience entertained, jolted, inspired, wiser, or blessed—hopefully.

They will also come out of the experience knowing something about the author other than how that author puts words on a page. The reader will take away a glimpse of how this writer perceives some facets of life, whether the writer takes on a challenge through a lens of humor or tragedy or angst, and how a writer captures conversation in the dialogue of its unique characters. As well as many more subtle nuances and leanings of a writer. The characters themselves will often show a reader if the author sees or prefers you to see from a somewhat skewed view of humanity.

Some of this is fairly “universal” for writers. As a Christian, there is an added dimension. The essence of a writer’s faith will show up in the writing, and by that I don’t mean their doctrine or theology, although those could be included. What I mean to say is this: how and how much they value their faith in God, their salvation through Jesus Christ, and their relationship with the Holy Spirit will make its way onto the pages of their work. Because who a person is at the heart of that person cannot be denied or subterfuge-d. Some critics of Christian authors assume this always includes a conversion scene and other markers. Not necessarily so. But the love of God and a pointer to the redemption Jesus provided will most certainly permeate the story, and the author’s creative abilities will shine most gloriously in those endeavors.

Heavenly Father, you are the Author of pure inspiration, the Giver of Gifts. Jesus, you are the Word, the Redeemer,, and, Holy Spirit, you are the Spirit of Truth, the Counselor, the Comforter, our companion in this Age of Grace. How we need you in every endeavor. I need you desperately as always. Fill me with your inspiration that I may serve you daily. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.