Archive for the ‘Criticism’ Category

I apologize. OK, maybe not.

Posted: January 15, 2013 in Christian novels, Christianity, Criticism, Religion, Writing
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Back in the late 90s, when I was a book editor at at Seventh-day Adventist publishing house, I had two friends who wrote a couple of books about how the world was going to end. One of them had his office right across from mine, and shared his work as he was writing it. As I read his work, I didn’t say anything, but thought to myself, “I could write this.”

About the same time, I got into a theological discussion with another editor, who happened to be a former Seventh-day Adventist pastor. I offhand made the comment that, “If Jesus were to come tomorrow….” to which he promptly responded, “Jesus can’t come tomorrow. There are specific signs and events that we know are going to happen, and it would take at least six months for these things to unfold.” To that I responded, “Who are you to tell Jesus what He can and can’t do?” All along through the Bible, people thought they had God all figured out, only to have Him surprise them in one way or another.

ITC small fileAnd so I got the idea of writing ANOTHER end time book. I say ANOTHER, because my denomination is kind of weird in that respect. There are many who don’t believe in reading fiction at all, fiction being defined as anything that didn’t actually happen. The cardinal exception to that is, of course, end-time books. As you can imagine with a name like Seventh-day ADVENTISTS, most of our identity is tied up either the Seventh-day Sabbath (Saturday) or the Second Coming of Jesus Christ (the Second Advent). And so even the traditionalists cut authors like me a little slack when it comes to telling a futuristic story like my book, If Tomorrow Comes. When I took this writing project on, I wanted to be faithful to the events that my church believes regarding last-day events, and yet interpret them in a way that people would not expect. And so I wrote my book.

It was published in 2000, was held in great acclaim by many people, loved by kids, and yet very few people bought it. Two years after it came out, the publishing house decided to take it out of print.

And so when I started my self publishing endeavor with Prevail Publications last year, one of the first projects I made available was a rewritten edition of If Tomorrow Comes. The original was published through a Seventh-day Adventist publishing house and sold through Adventist Book Centers; the new edition was made available through Amazon. I didn’t explain, I didn’t apologize; I didn’t hedge my bets. I just put it out there.

And it is actually doing quite well. In six months as an e-book, it has sold well and received more comments on Amazon than it ever did with the original printing. Many are very positive; some are not. Here’s an example of one of the critical ones:

“The book is well written and has an engaging story line,.. however the author makes assumptions that there is only one denomination and one way to worship that sets Christians apart and provides pleasure to God. The majority of this book seems to revolve around whether or not one chooses to worship on Saturday or Sunday,.. if you worship on Sunday,.. you are going to Hell. While the author is holding strong to his own doctrinal beliefs according to his own denomination, I find it short sighted, divisive and without substance. Christianity is not about a specific denomination, theology or dogma,.. it is about following what is put forth biblically and I believe the type of division that denominations and the understandings of man do far more to divide the church and limit God than it does to recognize His omnipotence, His mercy, His love and works against the Church Jesus envisioned as being one.

“Due to this I give the book 2 stars and will avoid this author in the future.” –Randy

I’m sorry Randy felt that my writing was “short sighted, divisive and without substance.” His is one viewpoint, and there are many others who disagree with him. But he is entitled to his point of view, just as I, as the author, am entitled to mine. I didn’t intend to deceive anyone. All I did was tell a story based on my view of what might happen in the last days of Earth’s history.

I have read my share of books that I have disagreed with, and I never felt like I was deceived, just because the author saw things differently than I did. Unfortunately, I find too often in Christian churches that we get defensive if someone expresses a belief that’s different than our own.

And so I thought long and hard about how I should react to his comments, and a few others. And my final conclusion is this:

Thanks for buying my book. Thanks for reading it. I am sorry I don’t believe the same way you do.

OK, maybe I’m not. But have a nice day anyway.

Give a Man a Fish

Posted: November 7, 2012 in apocalypse, Criticism, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, Writer's block, Writing, Writing class
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I have a young friend who sees himself as a writer of screenplays. He has education along those lines, with some of it coming from me. He’s currently working on a short film that he has high hopes for. I’ve read the script, and I also believe that it shows some promise. I’ve actually read the script three times, not because I was that infatuated with it, but because my friend keeps bringing it back to me, hoping I will tell him how to fix it. Another friend had referred to it as a “diamond in the rough.” It’s been through about five or six drafts, but has many more to go.

Because I knew my young friend was interested in script writing, I gave him a copy of “Story” by Robert McKee, the exceptional book on script writing that we are using for a textbook in my Drama Writing class. I checked back with him yesterday. Six months after receiving the book, he reports that he has read five pages in the book.

Now, I am happy to help students and former students out with their writing projects, but I am not willing to do their work for them. And a large part of the work of writing is recognizing what you don’t know, and finding out how you can learn it. For example, my weakness is the rewrite process. Even after 40 years of writing, I struggle–just as my young friend does–with knowing what needs to be fixed, and then going through the process of fixing it. That’s why I shared this book with this young writer.

As I have said many times before, if you are serious about being a writer, you never stop being a student. That also means reading everything you can get your hands on about writing, specifically those areas that you need to grow in. Forty years in, and I still do this. I don’t think I will ever master the craft, and that’s part of what entices me about writing.

 

On other fronts, I am struggling with National Novel Writing Month. I am presently working on “Infinity’s Reach,” the retelling of Pilgrim’s Progress set in post-apocalyptic America. My main character started off in Tennessee on a trip across the country, and at the halfway mark of the book, she is still in Tennessee. I am realizing that the book will likely be much larger and more complex that I had originally envisioned. For the purposes of NaNoWriMo, I just need to average 1,000 words a day to finish with my 50,000 words, but more important than the word count is completing the novel. Right now, I am just going to focus on getting some words on paper every single day–no matter how few or how crappy they sound to me as I am writing them.

That’s what NaNoWriMo is all about. Quantity, not quality.

Talk to ya later.

Serendipity or Divine Plan?

Posted: June 11, 2012 in book marketing, Criticism, Uncategorized, Writing
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My daughter, Melissa, and I just came back from a weekend in Conroe, TX, where she was interviewed for a possible job yesterday. She is working presently, and for the most part enjoying where she is. But the new position is in a better region, pays better with better benefits.

We got there Friday afternoon and spend several hours driving around, looking at the area and more specifically, apartments. The more we looked, the more we liked. Saturday we went to church and potluck afterward, then spent the afternoon once again driving around looking at the area.

We were surprised Saturday morning at church when a friend of my daughter’s from college and her husband appeared. We soon discovered that she was interviewing for the same job. Later we found out that a third young woman was also interviewing for the same position. We asked my daughter’s friend and husband to spend Saturday afternoon with us exploring the area and had a chance to talk to them. They are presently teaching in a one-room schoolhouse in Arkansas. Although she’s been trained to teach high school English, she was teaching grades one through six, with her husband teaching upper grades and acting as principal. Then about two months ago, he began having seizures. Many doctor’s visits later and one brain surgery, he is still on disability and they still don’t know what’s wrong with him. In the meantime, we learned that the small school where they were located wasn’t rehiring them for the next school year.

Melissa and her friend got to know the third teacher prospect on Sunday morning when the interviews began. The third candidate had just lost her job as a teacher in the Rio Grande Valley. After the interview, she told us that she was going home to the Valley to pack up her things, but had no idea where she was going to move to.

On the way home, I told Melissa that in some ways I wished I hadn’t heard the stories of the other two, knowing that only one would get the job. All three needed it, but that’s not how things work. Melissa said that if she didn’t get the job, she wanted her friend from college to get it. But I knew that two people would lose out in the end.

I also mused aloud what God does when three people ask for the same thing. If he says yes to one, it means saying no to two others. It’s one of those situations when you are glad you don’t have to make the decisions that God does.

We spent most of last evening waiting for a phone call, and it came at 9 p.m. The superintendent told Melissa that he was impressed by her interview, but she didn’t get the job. Melissa was philosophical about it, but I knew she was disappointed. It would have been an opportunity for her to get a job where she wouldn’t have to depend on parental support any more. We spent some time commiserating with her about it before we went to bed.

This morning, Melissa received a text from her friend telling her that she had gotten the job. They had asked her friend not to say anything until this morning. I know that Melissa was happy for her friend, and that helped her get over the larger disappointment she felt.

What does this have to do with writing? As I tell my students, even perfectly written stories have no guarantees of getting published. There is only one reason to buy your article or story or novel, but multiple reasons why editors should say no. It could be bad timing, length, the fact that someone just wrote the same thing, or just that the person deciding is in a bad mood. Just because you receive a rejection slip doesn’t mean you should give up on writing.

Someone on Twitter recently asked me to provide them with one piece of advice. My advice to them: Believe in yourself. Don’t give up. Tenacity is probably the greatest asset a writer can have. Talent is overrated.

And so I say to Melissa and the other person who didn’t get the job yesterday: hang in there. Whether you believe in serendipity or divine plan, it will all come together for you eventually. You just have to believe in yourself and act on that belief to make yourself someone that employers–or editors–want and need.

Hang in there.

Believing Is Not Enough

Posted: June 4, 2012 in book marketing, Christian novels, Christianity, Criticism, fear, Religion, Stories, Writing, Writing class
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My son, Matthew, was the kind of teenager that most parents dread. Obstinate, short-sighted, rebellious, he was a handful all through his teen years. A friend of mine, who was himself raising three daughters, told me, “I can’t imagine raising a teenage boy. It must be incredibly difficult.”

And it did have its challenges, like the time he put a baseball bat through his bedroom door because we told him no for something or another. But in the end, that pig-headedness is what saved his life.

Ten years ago, at the age of 23, just months after graduating from college, Matt ran his Mazda Miata into the back of a semi on I-35W not far from our home. He suffered traumatic brain injury, slamming his head into the top rail above his windshield. He was in an induced coma for a week, in intensive care for 17 days and in the hospital for two months. When it was time to leave the hospital, our rehabilitation physician discouraged from taking him home, instead recommending that we “institutionalize” him. But our family has always been self-sufficient, and we took him home nevertheless. The young man who couldn’t walk, eat or speak when he left the hospital was doing all three within three weeks at home.

Since that time, he has gone back to graduate school and earned a MFA in film, gotten married and now has a three-year-old son of his own. Many people say that it was the love and commitment of his family that brought him through this ordeal. And that is partly true. But I also know that his own determination (pigheadedness?) led him to never giving up on getting better.

If you were to talk to him today, at first you couldn’t tell that he had suffered a brain injury. But the challenges remain there. Many of the things we take for granted he struggles with every day. He has to write things down or he forgets them; if he doesn’t start his day with a list, he often forgets what he was supposed to do. He has trouble multitasking. And because the executive center of his brain was damaged, often his judgment is faulty.

Because of this, he has gone through many jobs in the past few years. Employers have certain expectations of their employees, regardless of whether you tell them up front that you have suffered a life-changing injury. And so the challenges of his life didn’t end when he left the hospital; in a sense they just started.

The majority of the world lives lives of acceptance. They will never affect world events. They will never build a house, run a corporation, or write a novel. It is that minority, that small percentage of people who have a dream or vision, who will do something different. And yet believing in a dream, believing in a calling, believing in yourself is not enough.

James 2: 26 says: “As the body without the spirit is dead, faith without deeds is dead.” Just as Matthew has to accept that every day presents him with a new challenge and he has to summon up the courage and belief to do what he has to do succeed, writers have to do the same thing. They have to believe in themselves, then they have to do what is necessary to succeed based on that belief.

Every year, I remind my college students that gaining a diploma will not guarantee them a job. In fact, it’s not even the most important thing they earn while in college. What’s important–and what employees pay for when they hire you–is what you learned and what you have become as a person in the process of earning that piece of paper.

And just as there no such thing as entitlement with higher education and employment, writers are not entitled to being read or published. Just because I have been writing for 40 years and written close to 20 books doesn’t mean you should read me. As the saying goes, the only book that matters is your next one.

The metaphor continues to us who are believing Christians. Jesus died for our sins, yes, and I am grateful for that every day. But that’s not the end of it. How does belief in that idea change the way we live?

Belief is the first, very necessary step. More would-be writers need to believe in themselves. But the litmus test of belief is where that takes you. Is belief in yourself enough to commit to 40 years of writing, even though most of it will never see the light of day?

I hope so, for very often that is what it will take.

Hang in there.

Switching Gears

Posted: May 15, 2012 in apocalypse, Christian novels, Criticism, fear, Religion, Science Fiction, Steampunk, Westerns, Writing
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It seems like I am always switching gears.

A little over a week ago, we had commencement, and I left teaching behind to focus on my writing career over the summer. Sometimes that takes a while to switch gears, but this time around, it doesn’t seem as hard. Maybe that’s because I have been spending so much time doing marketing for my independently published books.

But that’s where my next need to switch gears comes in. Since January I have self-published four books. One is an update of my classic end-time Christian story, If Tomorrow Comes. One is a collection of short stories entitled The Stranger and Other Stories that I am making available free of charge. One is a steampunk western entitled Tom Horn vs. the Warlords of Krupp. And the fourth is an apocalyptic story about a virus that prevents people from waking up entitled The Kiss of Night.

All of these are great books, and I am proud of them. But I have not spent as much time on any of them as I have what is coming.

The Champion is a three-part Christian suspense book series that answers the questions: Were the Old Testament gods real or not? And if they were, where did they go? This project is my baby. I have been working on it for five years and I am eager for it to succeed.

Right now, I am in the process of editing the first book, which introduces the main character 30-year-old Harris Borden, who sees himself a failure as a pastor. He asks for something significant to do, and his prayer is answered. He is called to confront the Universal Corporation, which is a front for demonic activity. He is thrown from a rooftop, shot at, chased into a collapsing building, wrongly imprisoned, stabbed, and well, you get the idea. While many Christian novels are looked at as too benign, this is far from it. And that’s just the first book.

So I find myself weeks away from launching The Champion, and am feeling a mixture of excitement and fear. There’s lots to do before launch. And I want to make sure that I present it in a way that will give it a fair shake.

In a lot of ways, everything I’ve done in independent publishing up to this point has been to teach me how to launch this. I’m eager to get people’s response to it.

 

Physician, Heal Thyself

Posted: May 4, 2012 in Criticism, Writing, Writing class
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It’s been a rough week.

It’s been finals week, and I have five classes that I am responsible for. That went relatively smoothly, but there’s a lot of work grading and making sure the final grade is truly representative of what I think the student’s effort deserves.

Then I’ve had a magazine to put to bed. I’m the editor of the University’s official magazine, which comes out twice a year. Since I’m on vacation next week, and the University president and the VP I answer to will both be gone for a month, there’s more pressure to get it done, or at least as much as possible, before everyone disappears. On top of that, someone I rely on to help with photography was sick all last week and in meetings this week. So yesterday and the day before were hustle days. We’re pretty close, but not quite there.

And some of the stress is self inflicted. I finished interior formatting for “The Stranger,” my collection of short stories that I hope to release very soon as a free ebook. Formatting is finished, but I am working with my son on the cover, and part of that was setting up the photo shoot for the cover image.

On top of all of this, I’ve been having stomach cramps and indigestion all week, nonstop. I got invited to eat at a Thai restaurant earlier this week, and I declined. On a good day, Thai food and I don’t agree. This week would be Custer’s Last Stand.

And finally, I got my first bad review for Tom Horn this week. I read the review and I don’t see where the critic is coming from. The stuff that he says my manuscript is guilty of are things I am very conscious of when I evaluate my students’ work.

It’s a good thing I teach writing.

More than once, I have mumbled and grumbled about some writing problem I have had, only to remember the advice I have given others. In this case, if I were my student, I would tell myself, “Self, one review does not a career make. When you see more than one person complaining about the same thing, it’s time to sit up and take notice.”

As a teacher, it’s also good for me to go through the frustrations that my students face, in this case, people who read your work and don’t read it right or don’t understand it. And there is the very real possibility that the critic is absolutely correct. So I can commiserate with my students when I tear their work apart. I had one student this semester who I could see had a very difficult time with the things I was telling her. But as the semester wore on, she got use to the criticism, and in fact, welcomed it as something necessary to help her grow emotionally and as a writer.

I tell my students often that I believe I learn more by teaching than my students do. And this is such a case. I want to grow as a writer. And even though I don’t agree with this critic, I am glad that I hearing these things. Or at least I think I am….

It’s easy to get your ego caught up in what you do. But remember, you’re only as good as your next book, so there is always room to grow.