The Journal (My Letters to a Post-Apocalyptic Generation)

Here's a confession: I've always had trouble with journals.

Some people have trouble journaling because they don't have enough imagination; I have trouble because I have too much. Inevitably, in the course of detailing my everyday life, I get the notion that I'm narrating my quaint and historic story to a future generation. This future generation is nearly always post-apocalyptic, and since they don't know the slightest about their past, it is my solemn and noble duty to inform them, not only of my own life, but of every fact of relevance in today's world.

Then, someday my charred and yellowed journal shall be found, and the inhabitants of that future world will gather round in wonder as their history is unveiled before their eyes.

This gives my journals the weight of bored historian. My life is interesting; otherwise I wouldn't be living it. Things outside of my life, things that would be considered important to a post-apocalyptic generation, are the things that I find boring—and those are the things I find myself writing down.

I've gone through this process many times. The weight of mankind's history always brings my pen to an awful stillness, and the journal is put on a secluded shelf or in a dusty drawer, and I never look at it again. School assignments have gone to this dreary death; even self-imposed journals bow beneath this weight.

My perspective changed a year back when I started a journal—not out of a sense of duty to a post-holocaust race, but because I felt I needed a way to keep track of when and where I did the significant things in my life. When I did that, I wrote down only the things that I found important or notable, and as a result, I was actually interested in what I was writing.

Even this journal fizzled out, however—even the weight of the everyday was too much. It took me a half hour or an hour to write down the events of the day, and soon the days began to pile up. I couldn't find the time for it all.

By that time I had resigned myself to an existence devoid of journals—I didn't have the time, energy, or responsibility to write consistently.

Come October, I went and had a birthday. I received two bound notebooks: one brown and black with yellowed pages, one gray and brown with white pages, and both with all sorts of useful information—in Chinese.

Now, in spite of all the complaints I have lodged against journals, I have nothing against notebooks. They are among the most wonderful things of the world, full of blank pages waiting to be filled with anything you like—with lined paper to guide you and covers that smell like fake leather and office stores. There are few things in the world as magical as an empty page and a pen.

I sat on my gift for several days. What might I do with these great and marvelous gifts? The trouble with the blank page is that it ought to be filled, and I didn't know what to fill it with.

I got rid of one notebook easily enough: I decided to consign my poetry to this yellow-bound wilderness. (It worked out quite well; nearly all the poems I write today are first written in the notebook with my favorite extra-bold gel pen.) The second one gave me more trouble. After a long while, I decided to give journaling another go—but with a twist.

You see, I have a page on my blog devoted to a list of my projects. I give the date on which they were started, the date on which they were finished, their current status, and so on. This page has never ceased to fascinate me, because time to my consciousness is like an alarm set for some early hour—it goes in one ear and out the other. Dates and figures never seem to stick in my head like they ought to.

This means that every time I visit that page, I get to rediscover all of my own writing statistics. June 2009, you say? Marvelous! If I had followed my gut, I would have felt sure that I wrote that particular piece three years back, give or take a year.

I decided to apply this principle to the concept of journals. What if I did a sort of auto-biography, where I kept all of my writing statistics in one place? I would compile all that I knew about the time, place, and circumstances under which I wrote my novels into one notebook, in the form of a mildly sarcastic narrative. (If you want to know, the writing style of my notebook is very similar to the writing style of this post.)

The idea took off. It required some research; to this day I can't recall if my mom bought OYAN in summer of '08 or '09, since all I can remember are snapshots of warm stone, the Wild West, and downtown Wichita all running together like hot molasses. Keeping all that information in one place was an excellent idea, because otherwise I'd forget it all. This way, I get to rediscover it once or twice a week, and enjoy how my extra bold ink looks on the crisp white paper.

I started out narrating my past successes and failures, with a humorous and objective eye. Twenty-five handwritten pages and dozens of heartwarming statistics later, I brought my notebook up to date, and I thought it good.

My notebook and my favorite pen.

To keep my notebook current, I established a custom. Every time I finished writing, I would write of my exploits in the notebook. Sometimes I just wrote the date and what I did, how many words I wrote, and so on; sometimes I talked at length about this or that character and my personal opinion on how the story is coming along.

And really, it's an invaluable resource. In the future, I will be able to find the exact date on which I finished a particular novel or short story, how many words I had written, how long it took me, and so on. It's miles better than forgetting everything or keeping it up on a blog page.

If you're cursed with perpetual absentmindedness, like I am, or you just wish to keep track of your work, I'd suggest you try it. At the very least, write down the dates and numbers in one place.  

And since it's the only method of journaling that's stuck with me, I think I'll keep it.

Some Select Poems from the Secret Notebook

I write in a special Chinese notebook; it's not special because it is Chinese (that's the only brand of notebook we could find that had any decency), but because it houses some of my most precious literary creations.

That is, my poetry.

I'm mainly a novelist, but I must admit that I'm partial to a good poem.  Depending on my mood, there are times where I'd rather write poetry than prose.  (There are also times where I'd rather write theology than either.)

The poems have been accumulating lately, and I really don't know what I ought to do with them.  But writing is meant to be shared, and it cannot be shared unless it is read, and it cannot be read unless it is published.

So I'll park my poems here to ease my mind.  Take them or leave them; but if you do happen to read them, let me know what you think.

--

Don't Forget to Remember

I stood at the edge of an old mountain ledge

And the western wind tugged at my heart;

The sunset was red with dusky orange spread

And I wondered if I should depart.

But standing still there I felt in the air

A heaviness like saying goodbye;

I closed my eyes tight and around me the night

Drew the stars gently into the sky.

You'll find me there, you'll find me there,

Between reality, and memory

Trying to be what I could see

In everywhere, you'll find me there

In trying to meet what I had met

I remembered...that I forget.

I lay on the ground listening to the sound

Of the wind whispering in the trees;

There I was, at the brink, of a vast sea of ink

And from that sky came a chill midnight breeze.

I dug my hand in the dirt as cold clung to my shirt

It was that night in late December;

As I heard distant cars, I swore to the stars

I would never forget to remember.

You'll find me there, you'll find me there,

Between reality, and memory

Trying to be what I could see

In everywhere, you'll find me there

In trying to meet what I had met

I remembered...that I forget.

It was a night in late December;

As I heard distant cars, I swore to the stars

I would never forget to remember.

--

Pine Needles

I ran to the basement
And opened the door
And felt the pavement
Through linoleum floor
I fell to my knees
And crawled to the back
Behind Christmas trees
My reflection stared back.

The mirror was wide
And covered the wall
But as I looked inside
I saw something small
There was reflected
In the crook of the tree
Something unexpected—
You were waving at me.

I jumped to my feet
And stepped through the glass
And fell to a seat
Of knitted bluegrass
I blinked several times
And I looked around
The air smelled like limes
And wet earthy ground.

I stood and found you
In a huge Christmas tree
Ornaments around you
Far bigger than me
The wind swept you from
Your lofty green perch
And made my cheeks numb
The air white like a birch.

The wind came and brought
Me into the sky
The pine needles fought
Around me and I
Sailed above a wood
Of conifer and ash
And saw what I could
Through the pine needle mash.

I flew through a cloud
And the pine needles cleared
The wind whistled loud
Through a snowy white beard
And dropped me right through
The misty cloud floor
To a mountain all blue
With legend and lore.

You waited for me where
The water, cold and meek
Is tucked between the air
And craggy mountain peak
I saw my reflection
And looked from side to side
What greeted my inspection
Was home, and I sighed.

I'll move the mirror to
My room, and gaze inside
To stop and think of you
And me, side by side.
And sometimes in the night,
I'll hear the quiet sound
Of pine needles in flight
And dreams all around.  

--

Glassy Glory

The ocean is blue and clear as a bell
The waves are rising and crashing pell-mell
I look out for rocks, and since none can I find
I pick up from the sand a tiny sea-shell
It sinks through the waves and pays me no mind.

The white foam sparks on the surface of the sea
And floats and swirls on the waves around me
The high tide throws waves up over the shore
To empty in a lagoon the color of tea
And disturbs the crabs on the pond's sandy floor.

The underwater rocks are slick with slime
The submerged plants are covered in grime
I stand on the rock, look out at the banks
The sea's glassy glory as endless as time;
Life is too wonderful not to give thanks.

--  

Daydream Sails

When the music soars in your ears
And the lyrics rise in your heart
When you're tired and ready for sleeping
But your mind won't let you start;

When the sea breeze like fog surrounds you
And the moon's face is veiled by clouds
When the ocean's call gives you grounds to
Take leave of the world's empty crowds;

When your heavy thoughts disturb the night
And your gaze moves beyond this world
When your weary eyes close and sight
The white sails of daydream unfurled;

Sail the moon across the star-strewn sky
Find me there, in almost-waking
Let the clouds go wandering by
While the stars are magic-making;

For there is a half-asleep realm
Far-flung across the briny blue
There, in the shade of a silver elm
I will close my eyes and wait for you.

--

Homesick

Familiar dirt roads push me up on rocky arms

To touch the sky, to taste the wind with a taste like freedom

I spread my arms out like a cross—and open

My eyes to a rusty fan stirring the humid air

And the hanging white of my mosquito net. I sigh—

Look about me, at dust and dirty tile. I love

This place, dirt and all, but not like my home. My home

Stirs my heart like the Kansas wind in the pine needles

The arms of the bent old soldiers keeping vigil.

I love it. I miss it. My heart hurts for it.

The still small voice whispers, Was it worth this?

Yes, I say—if not in my heart, in my mind.

Would you do it again? Yes, with both heart and mind.

Will I follow still further? Yes, a million times yes,

Till my strength gives out, with my heart and soul and mind.

But I can't help but return, it still hurts. It was

Worth every illness and trial to follow—but it still aches.

The still small voice is quiet, and then I hear it like

The distant waves on a nearby shore, carried on the winds

Of my home; I know, my child. I hurt with you.

And I remain silent, and let the sea breeze carry me to

My bed, and my heart is satisfied. It is enough.

The Great Writer's Dilemma: What Route Shall I Take?

So maybe I could say that I'm busy, but the fact that nobody outside of Facebook knows that I finished NaNoWriMo is my fault. Sorry, folks. Have a screenshot:

And okay, I'll admit it: every year, I promise myself that I won't flag after NaNoWriMo, and every year, I succumb to post-NaNoWriMo laziness.

So as of right now, I still haven't finished The King of Three, although I'm five to ten thousand words away from completion. But victory is near, and with the last week of school coming up, my schedule will be freed to finally wrap up the novel. All going well, I should have it done before January at the latest.

With the completion of The King of Three also comes the completion of the series as a whole. And Tornado C is finished, too. Having those two novels off my back will allow me to start on new projects, which is a huge amount of fun.

But here's the problem...I don't know where to start.

Right now, I have somewhere between five and six incubating ideas ranging from sci-fi to time travel to epic fantasy. And since my self-imposed rule is to never do more than one major project at a time, this means that I have to choose. Choosing is awful.

So, with that in mind, I'm going to lay out some of my ideas and have you choose—or, rather, advise me on what to choose.

Route #1: Publish ALL the stories!

Well, not really. But this is the more publishing-heavy idea of the three that I'm outlining here.

If I chose this route, my schedule would look like this:

As soon as I finish the King of Three, I return to my long-neglected Will Vullerman stories, revise the three remaining ones, polish all five, get them some spiffy covers, and publish them on Kindle for $0.99 each, and $2.99 collectively.

Then, after I finish that, I'll write the sequel to The War Horn, tentatively titled “The King's Coffin”. I'll probably take a break after finishing to fiddle with some other stories, but after a while I'll revise it like crazy and send it to pre-readers to critique. After that, I'll format, get a cover, and publish it on Kindle for $2.99.

Since that work will take up quite a bit of the year, by the time The King's Coffin is published, I'll probably start working on my massive Tornado C overhaul and see what I can do to find it an actual name. (I STILL don't have the foggiest what I'm going to name it. Titles have never been my forte.)

The main idea behind this one is twofold: first, to get my work out there so that when I have a “big” novel, one that I'll try to get traditionally published, I'll already have a reader base and some published works. Second, I have this crazy idea that my novels will become runaway bestsellers and I'll raise enough money to go to the 2014 OYAN Workshop.

The big drawback of this route is that raising enough money for an international plane ticket is improbable at best and impossible at worst. And if I knew for sure that I wasn't going, I probably wouldn't invest my time in publishing.

But there is this little thing of mine called hope...

Route #2: Become a publishing hermit!

That is to say, take the absolute opposite of my previous idea and publish nothing at all.

Under this route, I would mostly ignore my Will Vullerman stories (again) and focus on new projects, rather than working with old ones. First up would be a new novel completed with the OYAN supplement “Other Worlds”. It would be a sort-of sequel to Tornado C, but with less emphasis on “epic and dramatic” and more on “small and structured”.

Depending on how long that project takes, I'll either work on The King's Coffin (putting the publication date somewhere between Fall 2014 and Spring 2015) or go straight to Tornado C to start my revisions. (As you can see, I'm serious about getting my Tornado C revisions done.)

The main issue with this route is that Will Vullerman has been ruminating in my head for awhile. It would be nice to get it to the point where I can be done with it.

Route #3: The Great Compromise

My final route will take a middle road in between these two options, giving me a foot in both trenches. I'd start out with publishing Will Vullerman and then go on to work with my “Other Worlds” novel. After all this, I'd work on Tornado C revisions. This would put the writing of “The King's Coffin” somewhere between Fall 2014 and Spring 2015.

The biggest issue with this one is that, if I was to give my foolish hope a chance, I would want to go all in, rather than just publish some short stories in hopes that I'll get thousands of downloads.

And Route #4 is to ditch school to write and publish all of the above. Needless to say, route four is not an option, as much as I'd like it to be.

So there you have it! It's a choice between lots of publication, some publication, and no publication; little chance for the Workshop, even less chance for the Workshop, and no chance for the Workshop.

What do you think? I admit that I'm a little tied up about it. Spare me some wisdom!

Why I Write

There is always something that fuels a person's writing. If I had no reason for writing, I would not be writing at all.

I've written a lot about a lot of things. There have been multiple times where I have set forth the reason why I write—the source of my writing, the point of my writing, and so on. Sometimes I feel that I have to rediscover the “why” of writing, and the resulting posts are similar in many ways and different in other ways, like different sides of the same cube.

And so I'd like to clarify what I mean by “why” I write. I'm expanding on what I've already written on this subject. The source of my writing is, as always, Christ and what he has done for me. The ultimate point of my writing is to portray the truth that God has revealed. Those are the several “sides” of this cube.

So let me make it clear, lest I am misunderstood, that in this post I am not replacing God in “why” I write, but giving a different take on it. I'm turning the cube over to look at a different side. This side is, seemingly, more “secular”. (Really, there is nothing in this world that is truly secular, since my faith affects everything I do—even the things that don't appear to be spiritual.)

With that disclaimer, let me begin.

In a nutshell, I write to let other people feel what I feel.

When I feel something, when I learn something, when I see something, when I believe something, I want to share it with other people so much that I feel like I could burst. When I am moved, I want to move other people; when my moods are deep and thoughtful, I want to write in such a way that makes other people feel introspective. I coined a term specifically for the sort of poetry I love—if it's a good piece of poetry, it gives me “deep feelings”, that sort of good ache in your chest that makes you let out a deep breath and think of stars and moonlight and the secrets of the universe.

I'm a very, very intellectual type of person. I tend to process everything through my sense of logic and order, analyzing and organizing my thoughts. Debate is my forte, geometry is the only kind of math I like, and a good argument is my brain candy.

That means that “feeling” is not usually something that happens to me. Maybe my brain overcompensates, then, because what I do feel, I feel in a way that is almost violent. When something affects me, it affects me so much that it has to have an overflow, some way that it can escape.

Except I don't talk. And I don't let many of my moods escape to my appearance—they stay hidden beneath a normal face.

That makes it so that my only overflow, then, is in what I write. I am not emotional; but when I have an emotion, it overflows. I write. My moods spawn poetry, my beliefs are born onto paper. Feelings become words, thoughts become poems, struggles become novels.

This isn't just restricted to the emotional side of things, however. This sort of thing happens to me intellectually too. When I learn something and it “clicks”, I want to share it with other people so that it can “click” for them too. When I understand something, I want to write so that other people understand it too. What I know, I want to articulate.

Obviously, the most common outlet for my “intellectual” side is nonfiction. This is why I enjoy debates, why I write articles, why I take notes. But this also makes it into my novels—The Voice of God is a good example. While my main themes were a mix of ideas, there was one theme in particular that was very intellectual. I wanted to show what the reality of hell looks like with people who had never heard of Christ. The dilemma revolved around how fair it was to condemn people for not believing in something they had never heard.

Of course, I didn't treat it like I would treat a debate, and I certainly didn't pause the novel to give a theological treatise. I did, however, embed it in the fabric of the story so that it came out organically. Faceless “people who had never heard” became actual characters who actually did die, leaving someone who thought he believed to struggle with the idea of them going to hell. What he chose to do and say was crucial with how the story would go and how it would resolve.

The main point of that example is how a concept can become easier to understand in the context of a story. Stories are how I show other people what I feel and see and learn. An actual character is easier to picture than a vague description of “those people”. It is one of the many tools I use to have the reader feel how I felt—by feeling how the character felt.

That is why I write: I use what I write to help people understand what I understand, and to feel what I feel.

Articulating the inarticulate is the job of the writer, and it's not an exact science. “Inarticulate”, by definition, means that you can't put it into words. But that doesn't stop us from trying. The test of good writing is how close you get to saying what you wanted to say—how close the reader gets to feeling what you wanted them to feel.

And that's why I keep writing, and perhaps why all writers keep writing.

We have felt the indescribable...and we want to describe it.

Night of the Living Writer

No, really, that's the story of my life right now.

Night of the living writer. The “living” part is kind of surprising, seeing as I often feel dead after writing. The majority of my writing is done at night, after all, and while it's fairly quiet and gives me lots of time, it does tend to wear on my energy.

Also, today is national Whale Explosion Day. Search Oregon's Whale Explosion on Google and watch the 1970 video. It kind of helps you when you're brain-dead. (:

And besides this, I really don't have much else to post about, other than I'm still on track with my word count. I hit the big 20k today: my current count is 21,130. Not bad! The story is on track. It's a bit slow right now, but it'll pick up in the next five thousand words or so and then hurtle to the finish line.

To those of you who are behind, take courage! You can do it! If you're really in need of motivation, shoot me an email for a word war. I'm usually available from 10:00 PM GMT to anytime after that. (I'm six hours ahead of CST, and five ahead of EST, if you need a conversion chart. ^_^) My email's on the Contact Me page.

Speaking of word counts, how is yours? Those of you who are doing NaNoWriMo, are you ahead or behind? Those of you who aren't doing NaNoWriMo, what's your current project and how's it coming along?

I think Tornado C's lack of brevity is rubbing off on The Voice of God. My MC is about to be launched into the plot head-first, but I'm already eighty pages into the novel! I'm hoping to wrap it up at 50k or so, but who knows?

One thing's for sure...I won't make last year's mistake. If The Voice of God does get long, I'm going to finish it before moving on to other projects. (:

May the Ninja go with you! Or to quote the Myrkian goodbye, “Fare ye well and God ye bless!” Write like the wind, and may your keyboard burn with speed!

So It Begins

That's it. I've finally started NaNoWriMo. Book Three of the Prophecies is officially underway. After midnight last night, I wrote a flurry of words; my current word count is 1,748, or it was at the time of this writing.  (That's the problem with scheduled posts...)

How's your writing coming, folks? Reached that 1,667 word goal yet? It seems easy, doesn't it? Too easy, in fact. And it is. Believe me, just two hundred words will seem like a million a couple weeks from now. Enjoy the easy going while it lasts. ;)

Oh, and my apologies for not getting it up sooner, but I have written up a rough (and rather long) synopsis for The Voice of God. Feast your eyes upon this, mates!

–

“Everything you know, everything you thought you knew...it's all wrong.”

Far beneath the ground, the realm of Myrk stirs for the first time in eras. They've tunneled deep and confined themselves from the rest of the world, but the coming of five strangers is going to change everything.

Edon Silversword is one of those five strangers. Once called the Champion, he discovers in Myrk that Arowdae has been lied to for generations. Combined with the news of his parents' deaths, he struggles to keep his faith. He's found the Prophecy of Einarr, but wracked with a strange illness and grappling with this news, he has to set out on a quest he's barely prepared for. Accompanied only by a Myrkian guide who won't stop talking, and his faithful friend Knerath, Edon must go far to the north, to the fabled Icedelves...and into the unnatural darkness created by the Daske.

In Myrk, his companions—Sirius, Ryni, and Rozan—have to stay behind to convince the pacifist High Presbytery of Myrk to defeat their subterranean enemies and rise up one last time to defend a country they thought they had abandoned. For a new Dreadman has arrived in Arowdae, and with new devices of war from his master, he begins to set in motion a plan to destroy all resistance against him.

At least, that's what they had planned. But when Sirius learns that the Dreadman is not the only new arrival in Arowdae, he faces a terrible decision: to disobey the strict orders of the High Presbytery and risk losing their support, or to set out on a desperate attempt to rescue the man he once called his father.

Meanwhile, in Kr'ark, the disappearance of the Silverswords leaves a gap in leadership. Farion steps in to fill the hole, but the people are growing complacent and he needs an army to fight off the encroaching darkness. With the false king Reine making moves to obtain control over the city, Farion struggles both with the burden of leadership and desperate loneliness.

The darkness is growing, and the faith of all followers of the High Lord is being tested. But there is one last promise held out in the Prophecy of Einarr, and it is the only way Edon Silversword may be able to make sense of the mess and regroup the scattered forces of good.

He holds on to the hope that he is promised: that he is the Witness, and will hear the voice of God.

–

Thoughts? Synposes of your own? Share away; but don't go reading my blog when you should be writing. Drop down and gimme 2k! ;)

Blood on Paper

One writer famously said, “Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.”

While this is not terribly practical advice, it is right in one respect: when you write a book – I mean, when you truly write a book, not when you're typing out escapist fiction – you are writing with your own blood.

In the Old Testament, blood is regarded as something sacred. Blood is, in some ways, the essence of who somebody is. Thus, when sin is paid for, it is paid for in blood; first by the sacrifice of a perfect lamb, and finally by the sacrifice of a perfect God.

And when we write novels, we pour ourselves into these characters. We pour our essence into them; we give our blood. Our blood is written on paper in the form of words. It is only when this happens that our stories really and truly come to life.

Before I started the Prophecies – or even after – I had the vague idea that I would write “something awesome”. Even as late as NaNo 2010 the goal of my writing was, in some ways, to glorify God; but my other objectives was just to make the story as cool as it could be.

It wasn't until I revised The War Horn and started work on Tornado C that I solidified my “writer's creed”: that my first and primary objective was to glorify God, and second to create something that would nourish the reader. In The War Horn, I glimpsed something of what a novel would be like when I had that “creed” as my primary purpose. The story was, and still is, the strongest of my tales in terms of theme. (Tornado C will challenge that position once I get to the climax, but that's a long way off.)

When I started outlining Tornado C, I was at a period of growth. I was learning how to further live with God at the center of my life, and how this plays out in another culture – and in my writing.

I discovered something incredible at that time: that all of my work was as straw if I didn't pour myself (and my beliefs) into them. “Writing what you know” doesn't just mean doing lots of research. It also means that the characters themselves won't have life unless you truly know them. And how will you know them?

I found out that if I put parts of myself into my characters, they took to the page in a way that none of my characters have ever done before.

Into the main character of Tornado C I poured the guilt I had before I had become a Christian, before I had discovered the wondrous theme of justification; into his companion, I put bitterness (which everyone knows to some extent), and the struggle with sin we all have; in another character, I put loneliness and, in some ways, embodied my adaption to a new culture and the differences I have with my own; in all of these, the frustration we have when God doesn't seem to hear when we speak to Him; in The Prophecy of Einarr, I have a character who realizes how dangerous surrender to God may be and the pride that holds them back, which I have taken from my own conversion; and in The Voice of God my main character will struggle with the ever-present question of why God does what He does, and why innocents often suffer more than the wicked.

As a result of this, my writing has come alive in new ways. I have often taken something that I wrestle with in my own life and embody it in the written word. If I write about struggles I have never had, will I help those who have them? Yet if I write about the things of life I know, won't the reader understand it better?

If I read a book about a missionary kid adapting in a new culture, I would deeply emphasize with them and their story. In America, I read about missionaries and their trials; now I understand them so much better. In the same way, if the characters of a novel have the same struggles that other people do, they will come alive to your reader.

Thus, writing what you know becomes pouring yourself into your novel. Bits and pieces of myself are found in all of my characters. Why? Because that is the only way I will truly know them, and know how to write them. My stories become my way of articulating my life and my faith.

So my advice to you is this: don't shirk back from becoming your characters and their stories. Pour yourself into them: your struggles, your faith, your experiences, your life, and your blood. Once your readers see your blood on paper, they'll recognize that the same blood flows in their own veins. And regardless of the number of sales you have or the amount of people that read your book, your readers will connect with your story in a way that they can't with the average penny-dreadful.

And that's a very good thing.

Read "The Reality Ring" for FREE!

Today, I at last finished my revisions for “The Reality Ring”, the short story sequel to “In Stasis”. It continues the adventures of Will Vullerman, the elite ASP agent.

And guess what? For those of you who have already finished “In Stasis” (or even those who haven't), I'm repeating the pattern: you blog-followers get to read it...for free!

Here are your mission instructions:

First, you must be a follower or “chronic reader” of this blog at the time of this post to be eligible for a free copy of “The Reality Ring”. That just means that you have to be one of the current 130+ Google followers, or that you're someone who has been reading this blog for a while. (If you're someone who followed my blog after I posted about “In Stasis” but before I published this post, email me and I'll see what I can do to get you both stories.)

Second, I need to receive an email from you in order for you to get your free copy. Send me an email at jtbdude [at] gmail [dot] com requesting a copy of “The Reality Ring”, letting me know for verification purposes that you're a follower or a reader of this blog.

Lastly, make sure and tell me the format in which you'd like to read the story. I can supply three versions: .odt, PDF, and .doc. Since I haven't formatted the story for Kindle, I won't be able to give out .prc files. If you don't specify what file type you want, I'll send it in .doc.

Once I get an email from you, please be patient. It may take up to a week or longer for me to reply. African internet is less than stellar when it comes to uploads.

There are no strings attached. While I'd value your opinions and critiques, they are not required for you to receive the story.

Remember, folks, this isn't an indefinite offer. This is only available to blog followers from now up until the time the story is published. After the story is published, this post no longer valid. So make sure and hurry if you want to read the story!

(A note: as of right now, there are two more Will Vullerman stories waiting to be revised. However, those two stories require a lot more work than the others did. Combine that with the upcoming contest of NaNoWriMo, it means I probably won't get around to revising them until December at the soonest. My apologies!)

Well? What are you waiting for? Email away.

And happy reading. :)

Tornado C is way too long.

While Tornado C has been going slowly, I prefer to think that it's marinating, like a good steak. The longer it marinates (within reason) the better it will be when completely cooked.

Yesterday I cooked 25,000 words worth of steak. (The current count is actually somewhere past 26,000 now.) Yes, sir, Tornado C finally (after an arduous struggle) hit the big 100 pages mark! Unfortunately, the length problem has continued...I'm still not finished with Chapter Six. In fact, that (and Chapter Five) are ending up so long that I'll probably split them in half during my revisions and lengthen my novel by two chapters.

This also means that, if my other chapters follow the same pattern, the projected word count of Tornado C has increased to 100,000 words. (My longest novel to date is a little more than half that much.) That's four hundred pages. Insane. Especially since I'm only writing the novel from two point-of-views, and I haven't even introduced the second POV yet.

My sister keeps telling me that she “respects long novels” (and long chapters) but they sure take an awful long time to write.

On the flip side though, I'm enjoying the novel, and especially the characters. For instance:

--

“Daren, you blasted Celamarian, I'll kill you if you don't talk to me!”

A hoarse voice drifted up from the dark, gaping hole in the floor. “That's a sorry excuse for murdering [me].”

Elijah breathed a sigh of relief. “At least you're alive, you breadhead.”

“Breadhead? Where did you get that one?” Daren coughed, somewhere in the darkness. “And where are you?”

“I'm still where I was standing before. Is it possible to climb up?”

“Why don't you find out?” Though hoarse, Elijah reflected, Daren's voice hadn't lost any of its sardonic tone. “I can't move. I've got a big mirg blegn plank on my bremmed leg, mishkar helbrein ven negi—”

“I can speak Celamarian,” Elijah said dryly. “Your mother wouldn't be impressed with what you just said.”

–

^That above example was just written five minutes ago, so, like many of my excerpts, it needs quite a bit of editing. I did edit one thing though: a spoiler. Thus, the brackets. ;)

What about you all? Are you any of you doing some writing? Or are you feverishly preparing for NaNoWriMo and/or being eaten alive by carnivorous schoolwork?

I'm doing all three. ^_^

Can God Use Fiction Writing?

Some time ago I laid in silence and stared up at the ceiling, which I could hardly make out through my white, sheet-like mosquito net.

Temporarily sleepless nights are no strangers to me. More than once I've laid awake past midnight while wrestling over some question, whether it be spiritual, theological, or having to do with some hitch in my writing. This time it was the latter.

And I was asking the question, “Can God really use my fiction writing?”

Honestly, I had hit something of a rut with Tornado C. I saw where I was, and where I needed to be, but I couldn't seem to get up the inspiration and drive to get there. Instead, I found myself working on my Will Vullerman edits, or doing nothing at all. (When unable to write, I find it much easier to revise – and procrastination is easier than both.) I didn't want to work on Tornado C.

These thoughts are common to me, and probably to you too. Usually I can plow through this problem. However, there was another factor contributing to my sleepless state of mind.

That day I had started re-reading one of my favorite books, one I hadn't picked up for some time; it had been over a year, in fact, since I had last read it.

And there was a problem. I recognized some of the same elements in that story that were in my current novel. Little things here and there were almost identical to some of the themes and concepts in my own novel. While there was nothing blatantly plagiaristic – much of my novel was as original as a your run-of-the-mill swords-and-battles fantasy tale – there were parts of the novel, especially in theme, that sounded eerily similar to my own.

This is a problem I've struggled with since my very first novel. How can I write with originality? I've read killer plots before, and loved incredible characters; why couldn't I write the same?

Mentally, this discovery was rather crushing. If this novel – which has been one of my best ideas yet – wasn't totally original, how could I ever write something truly good?

Thus, midnight found me awake again, my hands folded behind my head and my elbows splayed out over my pillow, my legs crossed, my eyes staring blankly into the darkness above the circular plastic rods that held up my net. Inside, I was wrestling with this problem, looking at it from every angle and trying to make sense of the mess.

Finally, as what usually happens, I brought it before God. I laid out all of my frustration, both at the story and at my own negligence and procrastination. I let Him have it. Here's what I said, in short:

“Okay, God, I know you gave me this novel. And this concept. And especially this theme. But I don't know what to do anymore. The novel is flawed. I can't convey what I want to – it's not even original. I want to write this novel for Your glory, but how can I do that? How can you even use this novel? I'm not even a hundred pages into it, and it's riddled with problems and holes and characters that don't do what I want them to. At times, I don't even want to write the story anymore. Do you really want me to do this? Should I give it up altogether and work on something that actually seems to work – like my Will Vullerman stories? How can you even work with such a flawed story?”

I don't claim to hear from God. I didn't hear an audible voice; but to my spirit, I heard Him say, “If I want to use this novel for My glory, what is it to you? Don't you believe that I can use the most flawed vessel?”

And that answer left me speechless.

Well?

Did I believe that God could use Tornado C, despite how flawed it was, despite how flawed I was? Didn't I believe in a God who can do anything and everything He wanted? And if He wanted to use Tornado C...was I, a fallible mortal, going to stand in His way?

And eventually, I answered. And the answer was yes, I did believe that God could use anyone and anything.

What logically follows from this, then, is the question: “Then why aren't I writing my novel like I believe God can use it?”

To disobey His call to write my novel – to even procrastinate and do nothing when I know I should be writing – that is a sin. We are to do everything to His glory; so if we have dedicated something like a novel to His glory and we don't continue in it, we are keeping for ourselves the glory that rightfully belongs to God.

I'm writing this to encourage you, blog reader. If you're writing, and you're stuck, and you don't know if you can continue on writing this story...just remember.

Remember this: that if you have dedicated your novel to God, unless you hear otherwise from Him, you are to write in that novel and make it the best it can be. And He who has started this work will finish it. To do otherwise is to keep from giving God the glory.

And write with the knowledge that God is behind it, directing it, fueling it, and writing it. And guess what? When God is in charge of things, He can do it so much better than we can on our own.

Isn't that incredible? That the God of the universe – He who is infinitely creative – can create through us? That He can illustrate His own attributes and give Himself glory through our flawed writings?

That's a good God! And that's a good thought, is it not?

Soli Deo gloria. Glory to God alone!

Music and Writing

Music is something that has always fascinated the human race. Countries and peoples all across the globe have their own way of creating music, whether it be the “modern” sound of American pop, the animal-skin drum of Africa, or the dirge-like Islamic prayers of the Middle-East; it is unlikely, if not impossible, that there is a culture in this world that has no form of music.

Music, in a way, affects what we do, and writing is no exception. Many writers, especially the ones I know, use music as a method to increase creativity and renew their energy. Soundtrack is one very common genre. For much of my writing career, I've used soundtracks from epic films such as The Lord of the Rings to fuel my writing.

Since moving to Africa, however, my tastes have changed in some ways. When I was a little kid, I stuck my fingers in my ears whenever Dad (a former headbanger) played rock music in the car. I practically swore off rock forever when he listened to P.O.D. in my tween years. I've since renounced that informal vow and taken up rock again. (As an after-effect of that period, however, I still don't like P.O.D.)

Originally, music with lyrics bothered me while I was writing; after all, I was writing down words, and music with words interfered with my flow of thought. Gradually, however, I became accustomed to listening to the music rather than the lyrics. As a result of my renewed interest in rock, my standard writing playlist has eighty Christian rock songs on it, from bands such as Thousand Foot Krutch, 12 Stones, Skillet, and a scattering of songs from Pillar, Echoes The Fall, and Manafest.

In the last couple of months, however, I discovered that the lyrics themselves can actually help me write. My youngest sister, who recently finished her first novel at 50,000+ words and years of hard work, loves making theme songs for her characters and novels. I've never cared for the idea, but today I came to the conclusion that Tornado C has a theme song.

The theme song is by 12 Stones, off their newest album, Beneath the Scars. (It's an excellent album, by the way, if you love Christian rock. A friend gave it to me while I was in the States. The first song on the disc, “Infected”, has been holding my #1 favorite spot for about three weeks now.)

The song is called “Worlds Collide” and accurately describes much of the character conflict and plot in my novel. I was listening to it today and found it rather eerie how closely the lyrics resembled some of the themes in my novel. Here's a couple snippets from it:

“I never meant to be your favorite enemy

I didn't want it this way

Face-to-face we'll finally find a remedy

As our worlds collide tonight

You'll never take the heart that beats inside of me

You don't have what it takes

It's safe to say there's gonna be a price to pay

When our worlds collide

The disguise you hide behind

Won't save you now

So let's fuel the fire

And burn it to the ground

As our worlds collide

Trip the wire

The sky comes crashing down

When our worlds collide.”

One of the main conflicts of my novel is between my main character and his companion, who are from two different worlds (figuratively speaking) and are pretty much at each others' throats. This song, then, is quite relevant.

Oh, and in a non-spoilerific way, the novel also has something to do with other lyrics in the song, such as fire, a powerful remedy, “you don't have what it takes”, and other little things that tie it in with my novel. Interesting, isn't it?

What about you? Have you ever found a song that seems to be made for your novel? What sort of music (if any) do you listen to while writing?

Revision Isn't Just For Novels

...it's for plans, too.

So my late but great summer writing plan didn't exactly go as planned, so I've revised my goals to adjust to the onset of school.

First things first: Tornado C. Since I'm doing it with One Year Adventure Novel (albeit with a few adjustments), my mom and I are counting it as part of my language arts. Thus, I have a daily assignment – to write in Tornado C.

Since we were gone most of August, this week was my first week of the official school year. To balance out my pre-calc (insert shudder here) I've been working on Tornado C. I've hit 18,000 words just today and I hope to write more tonight.

And yes, my brevity is still feeling under the weather. I'm probably two thirds or three fifths of the way through chapter five (out of twenty-five outlined chapters). Chapter six is shaping up to be long, since it's the one-fourth milestone and contains a crucial turning point. The farther I get into the book, the longer it seems to get. It may even get as long as 100,000 words – by far the most massive thing I'll have ever written.

After school I'll have some spare time. I typically finish my homework somewhere between two and four in the afternoon, depending on how long I snoozed my alarm in the morning. The rainy season is still in full force here, so I'm spending a lot of my time indoors. That means I have plenty of times for writing; in the coming month, I'm hoping to work a lot on Tornado C and other projects.

However, there's two big problems here. First, since we do a lot of schoolwork on the computers, their batteries are usually dead by mid-afternoon. Why not recharge? Well, we don't turn on our generator until seven o'clock PM on most days, which means that we have no electricity during the day.

The second problem is that I arrived back from America to discover that my computer is pretty much fried. The keys don't work properly, probably because of the constant rain and humidity provided by the rainy season. Thus, that computer is as good as scrap now. (The day we left for America, however, I backed everything important up on an external hard drive, so I've lost nothing but some random pictures.)

These two elements are a big handicap to my writing, but I've been utilizing my mom's computer for the time being, and the arrangement is working well.

Further plans? Right now, I'm beginning to turn my attention to my Will Vullerman stories again. I hope that, after some rigorous rewriting and revision, I'll have those published as ebooks sometime in the next two months. (At LEAST before 2013. I hope. But sometimes these things take longer than you want them to.)

Before I publish them, however, I plan on offering these stories for free to all of my blog followers. I don't really like milking my blog followers for money, honestly. I'm aiming these stories more at the average Joe who happens to scroll by it while browsing Amazon, rather than making money off of family and friends.

When I publish my Will Vullerman stories, I'm planning on utilizing KDP Select. It's an Amazon program that lets my stories be available to borrow in the Kindle Lending Library, and also allows me to put my stories up for free for up to five days a month. Sounds good, right? It's free, but it does require one thing: exclusivity. That means these stories won't be available for Nook, iBooks, etc. (This means that I won't be able to give the file to anyone, since that would violate the KDP Select agreement. That's why I'll be offering my stories to you guys BEFORE I publish them.)

I didn't use the KDP Select route for The War Horn, though. Why do it now?

Well, honestly, my TWH sales through Smashwords (which distributes to Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, and others) have been next to nothing. Trading those meager sales for the opportunity to advertise my stories for free seems to be a good trade – for now. It's an experiment. If I do well with Will Vullerman, I may pull it off KDP Select and load it to Smashwords.

Depending on when I get my WV stories published, I've got more Will Vullerman stories brewing in my head that I want to write. One in particular has caught my attention: the tentative title is “Zero”. I'm having trouble keeping my self-control, though. I'm trying really hard not to write them before I get the others published. ;)

Oh, and by the way, I finally figured out, totally on accident, why I nicknamed my novel Tornado C. Today, I wrote this sentence: “A titanic beam of fire, wider than a man, hurtled down from the sky like a cyclone, and struck the ground with a thunderous crackle-BOOM.”

Trick word in that sentence is “cyclone”, or tornado. ;)

(And yes, that sentence needs lots of polishing, but you get my point.)

So what about you? How's school coming along? Have you written anything of note? Read anything good? Let me know. I always read your comments, even if I don't reply.

Good Grief - More Tornado C!

Hullo, hullo! Time for another update. How's your writing coming along, folks?

First, the bad news. Due to certain circumstances beyond my control, I'm informally dropping my self-imposed challenge to finish Tornado C before August 15. (I'll explain my usage of the word "informally" in a moment.) There are three reasons for this:

1) Tornado C is going to be a significantly longer book than I expected. I've finished five chapters out of twenty-five and my current word count is 15,290. Continuing on this trend, my novel will be, at the least, 70,000 words, if not longer. It may well be over eighty thousand, actually. And after revisions, who knows? This is just the rough draft estimate.

For instance, I just finished writing chapter four. (I have a prologue; thus chapter four is the fifth chapter.) The outline for chapter four was a mere 87 words long, whereas the word count of the actual chapter was over four thousand.. Most of my outlined chapters are at least twice that length (200 words or so), and one or two are three times that much (300+). I'm hoping that the written chapters won't be doubling or tripling in size!

In addition, some longer chapters in my outline may have to be broken up into two or three smaller chapters, such as my story climax.

2) Life is hectic. Besides having my grandparents here (and thus limiting my time on the computer, since I want to spend as much time as possible with them), something unexpected has turned up that will effectively stop my writing at the beginning of August. In order to fully concentrate, I'll have to write little to nothing for most of the month. I'll tell you about it when I can.

3) Also, I really don't want to push myself so hard that I write pure junk. For instance, here's a pre-revision sentence from chapter four: "Then, like a wall, he realized what was different." Needless to say, I stopped writing for the night soon afterward. Junk makes for a lot of revisions, and if I were to enter Tornado C into the OYAN novel contest (granted that I had finished it at all), I'd be entering a little-revised novel.

On the other hand, however, the sour feeling I have with yielding the challenge is somewhat eclipsed with the satisfaction I have in what I've written so far. This is going to be, by far, the longest and most epic fantasy novel I've ever written. With a vibrant story world and a long history combined with one of my best plots and strongest themes, this'll be a novel to remember! :)

And besides, something good did come out of this: I managed to start of the novel with a respectable 15,000 words in nine days.

Also, I have yet to write an "epic". My longest finished novel to date is a mere 55,000 words. (The Prophecy of Einarr is unfinished and just over 50,000.) I'd LOVE to write a 300-400 page novel, but I've never had enough material to write a long one. It seems that Tornado C will be the first!

Since Tornado C is standalone, it will also be an excellent novel with which to test the traditional publishing waters. ^_^

Now, to explain the word "informal": I said that I'm "informally" withdrawing from my challenge. That means that I'll still be participating, but not "in it to win it", so to speak. I'll still be writing at any chance I get, but I'm not going to write with a NaNoWriMo-type drive. I'm setting no daily quota; my only requirement is that I write some. And who knows? Maybe I'll end up finishing it after all. We'll wait and see - my withdrawal is open-ended.

Now, for some good news! To make up for the rather disappointing news of my drop-out, here's an excerpt from chapter four to keep you happy. Keep in mind that this has had very little revision, and let me know what you think.

--

"Good night." Daren gazed at the still figures. "I still liked the fiery death idea better."

"Too late now." Elijah ran his gaze over the fields. There was no sign of Wilker and his wife. He gave a quick prayer that they would have a safe journey to Vanaro and then returned his attention to his conversation. 

"Now that this business is finished, we need to get out of here."

"Good idea. I vote south."

"You would." Elijah smirked. If they headed due south from their current position, they'd be near a ford over the Vandar River and almost to Celamarian soil. "We probably should have interrogated one of the soldiers before knocking them out, but from what I overheard, they're planning on pushing us to the river. They've got a picket line farther north and scout teams scouring the area west to east and south to north."

Daren muttered a curse word under his breath. "That complicates things. How many people do they have out looking for us?"

"The officer talked like an entire half of the army was scouring the countryside, but he didn't say any numbers."

"Wonderful. So they're driving us to the river." Daren stared off into the east, as if trying to see Terrilon itself.  

"Is there any way across?"

"No. The nearest ford is dozens of leagues north."

"Even better. The narrowest point?"

"Geryon's Gorge. It's a bit south of here, but totally impassable. Terrilon passes through it and runs for twenty leagues before emerging."

"A geography fan, are you? Your company gets more and more interesting." Daren's tone was dry and sarcastic.

"Not really. My teacher drives me hard." Then Elijah added, "Besides having a decent grip on geography in all four countries, I can also quote fifth-century Meldese poetry in the original dialect."

"As much as I want to hear it, we'll have to save it for later."

--

I love dialogue. (:

How's your writing coming along, fellow writers? Give us a word count, perhaps? Maybe some snippets or quotes? I'd love to hear them. :)

Au revior, and happy writing!

--

Jake (because the signature thing was accidentally deleted)

Writing Month, Anyone?

Today I had a problem. A big problem.

For some time, I've needed to start work on Tornado C, my OYAN novel for 2012. Unfortunately, a few plot problems and my general perfectionism have been hindering my outline progress (as you've read in previous posts).

It's been a general idea of mine to enter this novel into the 2012 OYAN Novel Contest once it's finished. Today, I checked the enter-by date on the contest.

August 15.

Gulp.

I have 31 days (exactly a month) to write Tornado C, revise it, and enter it into the contest. (I decided today that I was, in fact, entering....provided the novel's done.) I know for a fact that, under pressure, I can write fast enough - but finding time to revise it, too, will be a big problem. (Especially since my grandparents are visiting here in Liberia until August 1, so I will be spending precious little time on the computer.)

Sure, I've done 45k in nineteen days (my greatest literary accomplishment to-date) but churning out contest-quality work will be a problem. Still, since I have a detailed outline, I'm hoping that the plot problems that often come with hastily written novels will be somewhat diminished.

In the next two days, I'll have started Tornado C. My projected word count is somewhere beyond 40,000 words, so this will be a - ahem - a big project to undertake in just 31 days.

Still, if God is for me, what can stand against? A deadline? Psh.

So here's the deal: I'm planning on finishing this novel before August 15. Unlike NaNoWriMo, however, the only reward I'll have by the end is a finished novel - and my only motivation is the satisfaction of a good word count.

That means I need some good friends to help me along. I challenge you— *cue gauntlet-slapping* —to a WriMo of epic proportions: finish a novel before August 15. The novel can be already-started and unfinished, or it can be a completely new work-in-progress. Your choice. But the race is to the finish line, regardless of where you are on the racetrack.

If you happen to finish before me, you'll get a reward.

Well, in all technicality, it won't be much more than a hearty congratulations in a blog post and the reward of a finished novel. But hey, if Tornado C ever gets published, I'll mention all the contestants in the Acknowledgments, too!

So what say you? Take up the challenge?

Whether you're with me in pen or spirit - it's time to write!

Charge!

EDIT: I've STARTED TORNADO C. Repeat: I've finally started it! The word count is 1085 and it's time for bed. 'Night!

Boring Updates: in which Tornado C's outline is being stubborn, and Will Vullerman is climbing out of my ear.

I have a penchant for creating grab-you-and-never-let-you-go titles, don't I? This one just screams "READ ME" like nothing else.

I'm also horrible at subtle sarcasm.

Guess what? It's update time - a time in which I shall bring you up to speed on what's going on in the writing section of my life.

So I was supposed to start writing in Tornado C. Easier said than done. I've told you guys repeatedly to write first, edit later. Now that I'm getting the hang of outlining, however, this terrible vice has come back to bite me.

How can I do that? you may ask. Well, it sounds more complicated than it is: but in essence, I'm revising the novel before I ever set pen to paper.

But not in a Doctor Who kind of way. I'm actually tweaking the detailed outline I've written for Tornado C. I originally started out with a mildly exciting outline. (My plot always gets better once I write it.) Once I had finished said outline, I had planned on starting the first draft ASAP.

One problem...I didn't think my outline was good enough.

So what did I do? I revised it.

Guess what? After I did the revisions, it was awesome. I tightened the plot and added some theme. I was so pumped to write this novel. Then I went to bed, woke up, and realized something.

It wasn't good enough.

So I revised some more, added a subplot, and generally made things better.

Went to bed, woke up, realized something.

It wasn't good enough.

Do you see the cycle? It's pretty obvious.

Now I'm working on adding another supporting character ("three's a company") and trying to figure out whether or not I actually killed off all of the remaining heirs to the Celamar throne. Gulp. That was a major plot problem. Tell you the truth, I hadn't actually realized that they were all dead until last week, even though I had killed them off (in my head) several months before. (Hey, when you're juggling half a dozen stories in your head at once, sometimes you overlook things!)

And also, the first three chapters of the novel (aside from the epic prologue) are pretty much run away, almost get caught, run away, almost get caught, and then we finally come to our senses and run away to a place that actually has to do with the plot. *headdesk* I still need to find a suitable subplot for that section. It's pretty much "butter scraped over too much bread" right now. It's trying to be more important than it is.

But that's one of the things I have found that I actually like about outlining: I can fix plot problems before I get to them. I don't have to go through the weary process of plot revision after the novel is finished; I can do it beforehand, in my head.

Except, outlining is still a major pain. If I write an idea down, I have to write down specifics, and that's something that my brain hates doing before it's time to actually write that idea into prose. Eurgh.

Aside from my fair-weather friendship with outlining, I've also been working on other writing-related things. Lately I've been shaping out the next four or five Will Vullerman short stories in my head. Included in this is the groundwork for an earth-shaking conclusion to Will Vullerman's saga, which I can't wait to write. I have no idea how many stories I'll write before I finish them off with the conclusion, but once I do, it'll be blow-your-socks-off epic.

But the next five WV stories are a 25k+ project, so I'm painfully abstaining from writing them until I actually get some prose work done in Tornado C. Gah! So much to do, so little time in which to do it!

Speaking of Will Vullerman, however, I've also been hammering out concept cover art with my sister, who does photography. We've got the cover for one of my stories (The Thirteenth Call) already finished and the rest are coming - I can't wait to show them all to you!

But cover art and, more importantly, publication, will have to wait. I have to do some extensive revisions on the stories first. And those edits come after I work on Tornado C. Blech. I've got my hands full this summer, no mistake.

But don't worry, I've gotten some solid writing done. My pen gets restless when I do nothing but brainstorming. So what did I do?

I've written and revised a 5,000 word short story titled The Flame That Does Not Burn, and yes, it tries to be as mysterious as the title implies. It's a fantasy-allegory chock full of little theme tidbits - and I tried out a new experiment. The story's narrator - and many of the other characters - use their native language pretty extensively, in little bits and pieces. If my style worked, then it'll add quite a bit of depth to the story; if not, it'll make the reader confused. Time will tell.

I sound busy, I know. But hey, it's the rainy season. Rain, rain, rain, 24/7. And it's cold. (By West African standards.) I actually have an excuse to stay inside and get some writing done!

How's your writing coming along? If you're not doing much writing (or even if you are), how is life coming along in general? I hear that it's hot! Y'know, right now, it's actually cooler here than it is in most parts of the States...

Oh, and do you have any writing topics that have been bothering you lately? I've been stumped about what sort of articles to write. I've exhausted quite a few topics and I'm looking for more.

Gotta go. Until next time!

What Is This Theme Stuff, Anyway?

What exactly is theme? Why does it matter? How do you even write it?

This is yet another of those rehashing-stuff-I've-mentioned-or-written-about-before posts. Yet every time you look at something, you get a new insight. An apple appears red at first; but then you can tell it's darker in some places and lighter in others. Then you get past the simple look and find that the inside isn't really red at all. And it tastes good, too.

My point is, theme is one of the most important parts of fiction for the Christian fiction writer, and must be studied, therefore, more than once. You get new stuff out of it with each fresh look.

What is theme?

Theme is simply the meaning in the story you write. This is not to be confused with the subcategory of theme, which I've nicknamed story-with-a-theme, partners to story-with-a-message and story-with-a-faith. (Rather confusing on my part, sorry.) In this post, however, theme simply means the meaning in a story and encompasses all three categories.

Now, theme is an essential part of every story. Without theme, a story is meaningless. It's fluff. It has no impact on your life. It's escapism. Not bad in itself, but why waste your time on a meaningless story when you could be doing something that's actually constructive?

Theme, however, is a big subject. There's a multitude of different ideas about how to do theme. I divide it into three aforementioned categories: theme (a "moral of the story"), message (a more concealed Christian theme, such as in allegories and Narnia), and faith (the kind of story in which faith in God is an integral part: Bryan Davis and Christopher Hopper's books are examples of this).

In this post, however, I'll address the action and abandon the analytics. (Alliteration. Hah!) Before you read much further, however, make sure you're in the right place. Your writing isn't yours, remember. It's God's. If you're trying to manufacture a theme without Him, and all truth is in Him, then are you really making a theme?

Now, there are many different opinions about writing theme. Writing genius Jeff Gerke, whom I respect quite a bit, suggests that story is king; you'll write a story and discover that you'll get a theme on the way. I disagree.

I am of the opinion that you need to find your theme to write it. I manage to work pretty well off the seat of my pants, but before I ever touch pen to paper, I know my theme.

How do you find your theme, then? What do you find in a theme? How does a theme work?

List time!

1) A theme must come integrally from the plot and characters. They all work together.

In my Will Vullerman short story, The Reality Ring, my character gets into a mess because he rather recklessly traps himself in an alternate reality. Why? Because he was a little bored with life. Running missions for the ASP was his life, and when that was taken away, he didn't have much left. The theme of the story was about Will rediscovering his purpose in life, and having a pretty rollicking adventure along the way. The story was tied to the theme, and vice versa.

This is why theme is often hard; because you're trying too hard. If you look closely, you'll find the theme was in there in the plot all along. All you need to do is find it and show the reader what it is. In battles, you'll find courage, heroism; in the quest, you'll discover perseverance, fortitude; in the long journey, friendship, fellowship, camaraderie; in the characters, redemption, love, and sacrifice. The themes are there, but like a diamond in the rock, you need to dig them out and make them shine.

2) A theme often involves character change.

As we saw in the above example, the theme is often found in a character change. In other words, my character learned something.

In The War Horn, my main character embarks on a quest, and the quest changes him. In the end, he can't be who he was anymore. He gives up himself and becomes a better person as a result, learning what freedom truly is. The theme drove the plot, so to speak. As Daniel Schwabauer puts it, a character changes when the cost of not changing becomes too high.

The theme quite often revolves around the character. Because in the character, we see ourselves. If we truly empathize with a character, it's because we understand him. When the character changes, we find that we can change too.

3) To show theme, thread it through the story.

Once you've discovered your theme, to make it most effective, you need to thread it through the story. Another of my Will Vullerman stories, In Stasis, had the theme of God's mercy woven throughout it. The ending was meaningful because I had foreshadowed it, so to speak, by introducing the theme in the beginning of the story. Again, in The Reality Ring, the theme was introduced from the very first page and tied up in the ending.

In The War Horn, my character repeatedly was given opportunities to truly see freedom as it must be, and not as he saw it. He failed each time, and each time the stakes grew higher. But by the end, the cost of not changing became too high, and he finally chose correctly. In that way, the theme was continued throughout the story, and finally resolved in the end. In fact, the last word of the book is free.

4) To help in showing theme, embody it in a symbol.

I first came up with the concept of a war horn after listening to an inspirational One Year Adventure Novel lecture called Symbols. In that lecture, Daniel Schwabauer explained that a theme or an ideal can be embodied in a symbol.

In The War Horn, the horn is the symbol of freedom, and also a reminder of my main character's lost father. At the climax of the story, rather than saying that my character chose freedom, I used the war horn to show my character's choice. (But for the full details of that theme, you'll have to read the book yourself!)

Symbols often make the reader dig for meaning. They create a feeling of satisfaction deep within the readers' souls that a simple statement can never do.

5) Reach out of the story and into real life.

The thing that makes a theme a theme is that it matters to us. The characters we love are the ones that spur us on. In a way, we say, "If he did it, so can I."

Thus, a theme shows us something that matters in actual life. In The Thirteenth Call, yet another Will Vullerman short story, Will comes to the conclusion that he can't do his mission alone. Time has run out and he has a slim chance of saving his friends' lives; and all the time he is haunted by the failure from his past. That's relevant to all of us, because we all have failures in our past that haunt our present, and we all need to know that there is Someone who is sovereign over it all.

Ultimately, our job is to point to the greatest Author of all. We reach out of our tale and show our reader that the God of this story is the God of their story. He's the Author of the saga of this world, and His gospel can be traced throughout the world's bloody history, the light in this otherwise dark tale. And He can take the darkness in each of us and transform us in His light.

So what do you think about theme? Are there any other ways you can think of to write theme? Can you think of any great themes in books you've read? Theme's one of my favorite subjects, after all. Let's talk.