Possibilities

For a fairly optimistic person, it's not too surprising that I admit I am excited about the possibilities.

But I am. I feel something rising. I see a big hill coming and though I know it means some hard climbing, I'm feeling the rush of what the ride down will be like.

I'm taking some steps of faith that have been eight years in the making. There's an amazing wonder that comes right alongside of finding out whom you were always meant to be. Or at least taking another step toward the top.

My stomach is in knots. My heart is beating fast. But when I think of not taking the chance, not setting my sail to catch the wind... I know I have to. I would rather fail than wonder one day what might have been if I had only tried.

And so I try. And I can't say "here goes nothing." It wouldn't be true. Rather I tell you with all the conviction of my soul "here goes everything I have been through, every rabbit trail I was sidetracked on, all that has come into focus to be me in order that I might come to this inevitable conclusion."

Finding Balance

I'm going through an adolescent phase in my writing. Literally and figuratively.

I've just written this book. The other six books I have written were easier. They were the type of writing I'm most familiar with and very comfortable with. They fall safely in the Christian Fic genre.

Not so with my new baby. Earlier this year my mind got a hold of this idea and wouldn't let it go. Believe me, I argued about this with God. I said he was going to need to get this idea out of my head or I'd end up writing it. I said that I'd have to be true to the story and make it the kind of epic I love to read, and I said to do that I might have to put things in it that some people in my circles find objectionable. But the idea didn't go away, it just kept evolving. So I decided that I should try to write the kind of story that I love the most.

There was plenty of inspiration. I played off of a few of my favorites. Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Fringe, Firefly. I took general aspects of each that I loved and weaved them into a story. A story based loosely on a Bible story, but not a story that would fall neatly into the category of Christian fiction.

Science Fiction. Young adult science fiction with a healthy smattering of historical.

I know that if you just happened on this blog and don't know me from Adam... or Eve... you'd probably wonder why I'm making such a big deal about writing a science fiction book. But if you grew up with me, you might be nodding in understanding, or possibly judgment.

There's this weird unwritten rule that says that Christians should only read safe, holy Christian books. Even though the Bible is full of stories of people doing awful things. Still, Christians got this idea that they shouldn't ever consider evil.

This was the atmosphere I grew up in. It wasn't my parents, who are fairly free-thinkers for their generation and who enjoy the same sort of stories I do. I can't really say it was even a specific group of people - it was just this attitude that we all needed to put on our very best face, never admit to sin, and stay away from sinners and sinful entertainment and places. And the "sin" part was highly subjective. Quite a few rules made their way into my mind that I've yet to find a biblical basis for. So when you grow up like that, and you manage to look past it and know it's not truth, you find yourself on this swinging pendulum. You feel like you swing wildly either way and never find that balance in the middle between legalism and true wrong.

And so I find myself with the best story I've ever written. Doesn't mean it's ready, I have a lot of work to do now that I've written "The End." But is the thought of the editing what keeps me from sending out that query letter to the first ten agents on my list? Nope. It's the thought of people that I love reading it and thinking that I must not really be a Christian for writing such trash. I know there will inevitably be people that will think it's trash and say so, because they've already said it about a lot of the inspiration I used to write it.

I didn't write trash. I promise. But I let my characters be themselves. I let them do things that I wouldn't necessarily do if it furthered the story. And I threw a few things in there that Christians generally accept as sinful that I don't see in the Bible. My thinking was that if I could meet young adults where they are - try to capture their thinking and put it down on paper - maybe that would give them a place to wander back into the truth, if they aren't sure what the truth is. Maybe I could quietly and honestly give them a way to think about spiritual things without throwing a bunch of confusing and questionable rules in their faces.

I don't know if I've managed any of these things. Like I said, I need to get to work. But finding that balance is one of the struggles of people that have grown up in a pseudo-legalistic environment. The little voice in the back of your head that helps you know right from wrong isn't always God's voice. And the trick is learning to tell the difference.

Anyway, my ramblings for today. If anyone stuck with it this far, thanks. :)