Monthly Archives: June 2015

Gotta Burn to Build

Religious, TDaC, Writing

An official half of all beta readers are finished with rough draft number one!  Huzzah huzzah!  With readings come critiques, and as requested, they are painful and unforgiving.  My stomach is in knots, my heart it is a’racing…yeah, the picture should be an easy one to draw. They burn, they burn! 

GOOD! 

These bodyblows help strengthen the writing, find flaws that I was blind to, and suggest trimming or plumping of certain areas or thoughts. Cool.  Of course, that means more work for me, but what’s the point asking for critiques if you don’t listen?  I’m not taking all suggestions to heart, mind you; after all, these are critics, not co-authors, so I’ll do as I please. It just so happens top please me to do most of what’s suggested. 

Among the best suggestions thus far are the addition of several chapters increasing the relationship between the three main characters, so that’s what I’ll be working on while the other half of my beta readers finish their copies.

In other pointless news, one of the exorcists whose book was influential to my writing “just” (May 2015) participated in the first ever recorded (so written) COUNTRY WIDE exorcism. Target: Mexico. Why?  In part, this heinous death cult of Sante Muerte, or “Saint Death”.  Evil, evil, evil!  People hesitate to turn to God but THIS gets their attention?  Tell me again how Satan isn’t real or isn’t operating in our world? 

Alright, end pointless rant and not coincidentally pointless news update. More as it comes!

Regarding Charleston

Uncategorized, ,

I find it difficult to address the racial terrorism that occurred in Charleston this week, so instead of focusing on the young man who committed the crime or the martyrs’ Earthly bodies that were shed, I want to focus on something the South Carolina governor said. To paraphrase, if we can’t feel safe in our churches, where can we feel safe? Respectfully, church is the last place I should feel safe, and here’s why: Christians are targets, period.

Those of us who are followers of Christ shouldn’t be comfortable because we know…or at least we SHOULD know…that we have a giant target on our chest. Satan isn’t gone; looking at Charleston, it’s clear it is still insidiously active.  The Pope recently said in a video message (again, paraphrasing) that Satan wants the ruin of all souls, but especially those who call themselves followers of Christ. We have spiritual targets on our chests, targets that Satan points out to the wicked and the weak.  Charleston is just a physical symptom of a spiritual disease. We, the Body of Christ, have the medicine for this illness at the tips of our fingers.  How many times have we been told to pray?  More importantly. How many times have we done it? 

Others will argue for greater gun control or checks on mental health or stricter rules on this or on that, but I will stand up and beg for more prayer…starting with me. I’m not the most prayerful person; I have my ups and downs like everyone else. One of the keys to spiritual defense (so I have read) is having a proper focus on right things. Praying for the bad to go away isn’t nearly as effective as praying for the good to sustain, so I will do my best to pray this week for the uplifting of those who have been affected and those who are suffering over this act of violence.  As Christians, let us also remember to pray not only for the families of the victims or those of the shooter, but also for the soul of the shooter himself. As one of God’s creations, we should pray for God to have pity on his soul and bring him home through conversion.

The attack in Charleston was a statement on race delivered at the point of a gun. Now it is time for Christians to rise and give our response at the joining of folded palms. May God bless and keep us, every one.

Persist, Persevere, and Push On!

Writing

Time to talk about taking time to write.

Now that beta readers are starting to send in their feedback for “The Devil and Casari: Ad Hominem”, I feel like it’s time to send a message to those who have always wanted to write a book but aren’t really sure how (because clearly I’m an expert now).  There are tons of great strategies out there involving character-first development, plot organization, visualization, chunking…if you can think of it, chances are someone’s used it as a writing method. As for me, whenever anyone asks, I try to always give the same advice. Ready?  Here it is:

Put pen to paper.

Conversely:

Put fingers on keys.

Got it?

Seriously, that’s about it.  I mean, that’s a start, and the journey of a thousand steps and all that, right?  I once read that the best way to succeed at something was to fail over and over again until you stopped failing, and so it is with writing.  You can have the best idea in the world, but until you put pen to paper or fingers to keys, you’ve got bupkis. Want to write a military thriller but don’t know how it’ll end?  It won’t if you don’t start. Have a great romance novel all bottled up inside looking for the perfect meet-cute?  Put fingers to keys and let the characters tell you how to get there.  Need a third example to really drive the point home?  Write it you’re darn self!

Here’s the thing: appreciate your failures, because every stop on that road is a milestone on your path to success. As to those milestones…they aren’t telling you how much further you have to go, they’re telling you how far you’ve already gone.  To quote Brandon Sanderson, “Journey before destination”.  It’s not where you’re going, it’s how you get there.

See, the place you think you’re going to doesn’t exist anymore…if it ever did. Success as a location simply doesn’t exist because, well, it’s always moving. If I could just get an agent, if I could just get on that top Amazon list, if I could just sell 1, 10, 100 books, then I’m a success. Problem is, success is always moving. To me, it is like light from a star born billions of years ago but just now getting to us; that star as we see it no longer exists and, in fact, is likely already dead and gone, exploded into something magnificent or collapsed into something dense and impenetrable. (Note to self: do post comparing success to stars like this.)  Either way, the point is simple: success isn’t where someone else tells you it should be, it’s wherever you are in your journey on the road.  Putting pen to paper or fingers to keys gets you on the road; the sheer act of writing makes you a successful writer.  So stop reading and start writing.

Seriously, stop.

Go away.

Write.

Roughly go the Drafts

TDaC, Writing

After weeks of primping and crimping and preparing and panicking and etc and so forth, the first official Rough Draft of “The Devil and Casari: Ad Hominem” is finally in my beta readers’ mailboxes.  May God have mercy on their souls.