Spooky Stuff

Okay, I said I'd try to do a better job of maintaining my blog, and I blew it. Look, there's weeds all over the place and the mums are a lovely shade of rust brown. This time, I won't promise anything, but I'll really really try, okay?

I went to the ACFW conference in Nashville this weekend. For those of you who attended, you know what's coming. The first thing I learned is "It's ALL Good." The second thing I learned is that a southerner can say "bless your heart" and apply about a hundred different meanings to it. It's kind of like when a New Yorker says "with all do respect." You can follow that with ANYTHING and get away with it (ie. "With all do respect, you're a moron." The southern equivalent: "Bless your heart, you've got less brains than a squirrel on Botox.")

Okay, enough of that. The best thing that I got out of the conference was the confirmation, from editors and agents alike, that spooky Christian fiction is the "in" thing now. It's about time. Not that I'm opposed to a nice romantic novel, but you gotta throw a corpse in there every now and then to shake things up a bit. I was thinking even a nice horror/chik lit subgrene, "Buffy the Vampire." (The audience groans)

Seriously, though, I met all these odd people I've only known through the internet and, guess what? They really are odd. But loveable. I also met a few folk who posessed my inclination toward the "darker" side of the craft. Let's face it, the Bible contains a lot of scary stuff--demons, fallen angels, weddings. There are more of us out there, so beware. The "Christian Fiction" shelf at Border's isn't all that safe anymore.

Keep the lights on, folks, it's getting interesting.

Why I write

Like I said in my first post, I gave this up for about a year and a half. I convinced myself that it wasn't worth the work and heartbreak. Of course, that can be said of love as well, and most of don't mind taking that leap at some point in our lives. I don't know if I'd say writing is God's call on my life. And I'd feel pretentious to say it was a gift. But there's a gray area in between. I'd say all gifts, of the talent variety, are from God. Some choose to use their gift wisely, some foolishly, and some not at all. I'll shoot for wisely and pray I don't blow it.

Being a writer is tough. First of all, you have to be able to lay down every thought or inclination of the human soul (specifically, yours) on paper. Let's put it this way: every thought, every feeling, every temptation that has ever crossed my mind, I have to be willing to put it out there for the world to see. You up for that? If you go about exposing your every thought, people will think you're a nut. If just the thought was enough, we'd all be nuts. The difference between the normal people and the nuts is that the normal people know to keep their mouths shut. If they're especially good at it, they go into politics.

Now consider being a Christian writer. Heavens! We can't go around saying all that stuff that floats around in our sinwashed little minds. Then everyone will know that we have the same problems and tempations as the rest of the world. I kinda think that's the point. What do I want to see come out of my writing. Well, honestly, good entertainment for a lot of people--people with cash. But I'd like to see someone say, "Hey, this moron's just like me, but he's got this little something extra, what can it be?" Maybe that will never happen, but I'll give it a shot.

I'm hoping to get to the blog more often. Somebody guilted me into it today. Gosh, I didn't know anyone cared. This is a great place to lay it all out, though. Random thoughts of a closet romantic who just happens to like a corpse or three in his stories. There really isn't much difference between a romance and suspense, after all. You just take the sissy boy with the flaming hair and strapping pecs and kill him by page three. Nothin' to it.