How I Write

I am a reluctant public speaker, but I enjoy telling stories through the printed page; and have published three novels, plus non-fiction biography and memoirs. I write for enjoyment, both mine and the reader's (I hope.) If there is such a genre as "faith-based fiction founded on fact", that describes what I try to do. My target audience is not "religious" people, but the reader who has minimal or no interest in religion because he/she has never thought about it much. Some people term the genre "inspirational".

My writing falls into a gap between "Christian" publishers (for not being evangelistic enough) and many mainstream publishers (for even suggesting that God might be relevant to ethics or human behavior.)

Another Idaho author, Carrie Stuart Parks ("A Cry from the Dust") reports that publishers have strict boundaries on Christian writing: "No profanity, no sex, but you may kill as many people as you like." I hadn't crystallized it so concisely myself, but realized that's exactly the kind of block I have met in my own writing. Secular publishers reject my work for not being lurid enough to hold the reader; Christian publishers red-pencil some of my best lines. I respect God's name; I even omit the thoughtless abbreviation of surprise, OMG. But when ordinary people are insulted, assaulted, or otherwise given cause to express anger or distress, they often employ language that might not be appropriate in Sunday school, and it is unrealistic to portray them otherwise.

When searching for like-minded writers, there is, of course C. S. Lewis, whose "Out of the Silent Planet" trilogy, his "Screwtape Letters", and "The Great Divorce", among others, are classics far beyond my amateur talents. There is also Kimberla Lawson Roby, whose well-written novels about an immoral clergyman, she describes as faith based, but which I found overly explicit (in the one I read.)

I have tried to solve this conundrum by writing the way I hear the English language being used. If the result has social or ethical merit I will still offer my work to Christian bookstores, successfully in some cases. But I may loan a review copy for them to read first. ("But if you spill coffee on it, you've bought it.") I respect the manager who doesn't think it will be accepted by her clients, but some will see the story as a worthwhile contribution to understanding the world's conflicts.
There are other values besides financial.