Into the Fire

Those two little words mean exact opposites to different writers. To one group they mean strategic and supremely organized planning and construction. To another group those two words mean the sublime and supernatural planting of an idea and the inspiration to continue. After yesterday’s post (and others), it’s no surprise which group I’m in. And to be fair, there are those who fit somewhere in between borrowing from both methods in their composition of novels.

When I finished my first novel, I had no knowledge of the publishing industry. Obviously I saw nothing wrong with a huge book—especially since they’re the kind I love to read. It became a slow and intentional process to realize all that getting a book published involved, and I made lots of mistakes in the early going. Not that I’ve finished with making mistakes, but nowadays I could say they’re more calculated and less naïve than back in the beginning of my journey. The first thing I had to do was transfer all those notebook pages to my son’s brand new computer. I had zero understanding of computers. However, when I discovered how much easier it was to type on one than on a typewriter, I managed to get those 300,000+ words stored on this very same machine. I remember typing well into the night and often spending close to eight hours a day on this keyboard.

But my point today really is about what came next after that completion of my first novel. So we’ll skip ahead to after finishing that book and the exercise in self-publishing that followed. The realization of “having” to write, of feeling the “call”, the invitation to continue to put words down in story form, pushed into the forefront of my life. Plus, I now knew a little bit of what to expect. From myself. And we were no longer in the 7-day-a-week drain of training race horses. I had time to write.

Hope Of Glory is a story ripe for a sequel, so I started one. However, when the sequel loomed like an equal-sized rendition of the first book, I’d learned enough by that time to realize it would never do. I set it aside as the Lord took me into a wild escapade of prayer for a certain individual, the intensity of which is unequaled in my life before or since. And as a direct result of that prayer adventure, my second novel was written in a matter of months. Not years. Months.

By design the novel was written like a fictional biography with omniscient voice for the first part of the novel almost disappearing in the second half of the book, the word count ending at 140,000+. Why omniscient POV? I have no idea. None of my other novels are written in this format. This novel (The Famous One), borne from that intense prayer, captures a small measure of the burden the Lord placed in my heart for an actor.

The story came quickly as opposed to the writing of that first book. I also learned through writing this second novel that I would take short breaks from the process—and not to fear them. I’d know when they were over and I returned with renewed vigor to finish whatever the next section required. Comforting to discover that.

Following the completion of the second novel, I enjoyed a respite before another set of characters presented themselves in front of me and refused to move. Gladly I told their stories. Then another. Then another. Three novels followed in one year. By the time the fifth novel ended, the genre for my work insisted they be smaller, shorter. Those stories remain on this old PC.

One of these days I’ll explain the agony of writing the sixth novel, and the refreshment of writing the seventh. And the fun I’m having now in writing number eight after a two year break from finishing a book.

I write by design . . .

What is your design?

Lord, I'm desperate for you. For all that you are. Lead me in your ways everlasting. In the Name of Jesus, Amen