I've just finished my final book in the Restoration Series, DAWN'S LIGHT. At least, I've mostly finished it. The process goes on and on, and I'm never actually finished with a book until it goes to the printer. I only give it up then because I have no choice.
Whenever I write a book, I begin with a very sloppy first draft which I write as fast as I can. "Fast" to me is still two or three months, and when I'm finished, it's not even publishable. But it takes that first draft for me to get to know the characters and figure out the entire plot. Then I get creative as I begin to rewrite. The second draft bears little resemblance to the first, and the fifth or sixth drafts are drastically different. In each draft, I add more texture and more details. I flesh out my characters and give them their quirks, and add all the things that I hope will keep my characters reading. By the time I submit the book to the publisher in its first "finished" form, I'm exhausted and keyed up, and in much need of brain rest after nine months to a year of living in this fantasy world.
My editor reads the book and writes me a lengthy review of the book, telling me all its weak points and suggesting changes to take it to the next level. I love these letters. When I turn the book in initially, I think it's the best I've got. But when I get his letter, I see my book with new eyes. I dig in again, twisting and turning the plot, squeezing into the heads of my characters, creating more depth and adding new insights into the theme and story that I didn't have before. I take about a month to do that, usually. It's a very intense month in which my house looks like a tornado swept through, my refrigerator has nothing but half a bell pepper, some wilted lettuce and a bottle of cranberry juice. My poor neglected husband brings me food and water and watches for a break so he can speak to me. But around ten o'clock on the night before my deadline, I save that last copy of my manuscript, attach it to an email, and hit "send." Then I wait.
I usually decompress while I wait to hear back, staying away from my computer and basically trying my best not to think. This is not the time to do my taxes or balance my checkbook. But after another month or so, the book comes back edited. I usually get the manuscript in a Word document with "track changes" activated, so I can see where changes are made. The editor imbeds his/her questions and comments, so I go back through, making necessary corrections and changes. I only have a few days to do this, and usually I have a last-minute melt-down wanting to change everything from the villain to the lead character. Forcing myself back to rationality and making only the changes that are feasible at that point, I send it back in and ... you guessed it. I get it back again. This time it's been copy-edited by another editor who formats it and puts in all the codes for the printer, and checks yet again to make sure there are no mistakes. I proof-read it for the final time. This time I usually write the changes on a hard copy and send them back to the copy editor. He makes the changes and finally sends it to the printer.
I know this is probably more than you've ever wanted to know about the making of a novel, but maybe it interests some of you. The bottom line is that it's not an easy process. There are some very fast, very gifted writers who make it look easy. But it's a difficult process for me. You should know that the editors are my heroes. I appreciate them more than I can say, because they always push me to my limits, encouraging me to make my book the best it can be. Since I've been in the Christian market I've only worked with editors who are top-notch. Behind every good writer is a great editor. And behind every bad writer is a frustrated editor.
Because DAWN'S LIGHT is the fourth and final book in my Restoration series, I also hired an outside editor to read all four books in the series back to back, to check for consistency. Hopefully, when the book comes out in May 2008, and the series is wrapped up, my readers will feel they've had a seamless journey with characters that have become like family members.
At the moment, I'm waiting for that edited document to come back. As I wait I'm working on my next novel, a stand-alone suspense novel set in Nashville. It's a little difficult pulling myself out of Oak Hollow and a massive power failure, and emersing myself in the music business and a new murder mystery, but in a way it's like cleansing my palate. And starting all over again.
Thank you for being loyal readers. You're the ones who make it possible for me to keep doing what I love!
I've been waiting so long for this, and now the time has finally come. My new book TRUE LIGHT is finally on the bookstore shelves. And I'm putting the finishing touches on DAWN'S LIGHT, which will be out in the spring of 2008.
This series has been the most difficult I've ever written, as you can imagine. So much research has gone into each book. I always do research for my books--things like asking a surgeon how I could shoot someone in the head without killing him, and make sure he's up again in two weeks. What velocity gun would I use? How far away would I have to be? (I wouldn't be surprised if I'm on an FBI "Most Dangerous" list somewhere.) That kind of research is always fun. But in this series, I've had to research things that haven't happened, and while much in my Restoration Series is speculation, I've had to base it in science and reality. I've had to put myself in the skin of people who are completely unprepared for what has happened to them. I've had to imagine where I would go to get water, what I'd do for money, where I might plant food...
I'm looking so forward to ending this series and getting back to novels in which my characters can take turning on the lights for granted, use telephones, drive cars, and pull through a drive-thru for dinner!
But the Restoration Series has been a real labor of love. I started with the question in my mind: "What might God do to get our attention?" We live in a society of extravagance and self-indulgence. Americans are some of the richest people in the world. We're dazed and jaded by our wealth and our comfort. If God really wanted to purge us and make us into people of substance, who bore fruit for His kingdom, what might He do to us? This was a situation that came to my mind as I contemplated that. And whether He chooses to use this scenario or another one, I believe God will do His refining work in Christendom, and it might hurt a lot. The Restoration Series is not just about restoring power. It's about spiritual restoration, the kind that makes us depend more on Christ and less on our comforts.
I hope you'll find TRUE LIGHT worth waiting for! God bless you, and have a wonderful summer!
I know I rarely post here. I wish I could be like those authors who keep up a daily blog, but I have to put all my creativity and writing energy into writing my books and getting them out on time. I wish I were as prolific as some of my writer friends.
But I wanted to write a note to tell you about the passing of my friend, Jane Orcutt. You may have read her wonderful books. Her most recent was called DEAR BABY GIRL. It was the story of a fifteen-year-old pregnant girl who plans to give her child up for adoption, and wishing the best for her child, she records her anguished decision with letters to her child. I hope the words in that book might serve to comfort her two sons now about how much they meant to her.
Jane was a terrific writer and also edited some of your favorite books. Jane was diagnosed with Leukemia last fall, and spent the last few months in the hospital. She was due to have a bone marrow transplant soon, and her sister was a perfect match. We all expected her to recover fully. But it seems her work was finished, and God took her home.
I'll miss her very much. She was so funny, and so passionate about conservative values and her Christian walk. She had struggled with health issues her whole life, but she never complained and never let it slow her down. Her Christian romances have a special depth, and I know that if you look for her books you'll be blessed by them. In June, her next book is scheduled to release. She won't be here to see ALL THE TEA IN CHINA on the shelves, but I want to make sure that all of you do. I'll remind you when the time comes.
Please pray for her husband and two sons, who I'm sure miss her terribly. But Jane is walking with Jesus now, fully healed, her work complete.
People often ask me what kind of routine I have for studying my Bible. For those of you who are interested, I take and teach Precept Bible studies. At the moment I'm teaching 1 & 2 Thessalonians in my church. Often, whatever I'm studying finds its way into the books I'm writing. Often, God is dealing with me through passages in that course, so naturally I want to pass those lessons on to my readers.
If you're interested in Precept courses, go to www.precept.org and find a church near you that teaches these courses. I've been doing Precept studies for over ten years, and I've learned more about the Bible that way than ever before.
My routine while I'm in a Precept course is to do 30-40 minutes of homework each day. That usually primes my heart for prayer. Then I have a prayer time. When I'm not involved in a Precept course, I will read several chapters of the Bible each morning. Sometimes I'll read a whole book in one sitting. I want to read it like a letter to me, and I wouldn't read a few sentences of a letter, or just one page. I want to know everything the Lord wants me to know.
The Bible is so rich with things God wants us to know, and if we read it through 1,000 times we wouldn't ever finish discovering the riches buried there.
I confess I do have mornings when my schedule is different and I rush out the door before I've done any of this. But this is what I try to do each day.
I hope you have a plan, and that you accomplish it every day!
I had a very pleasant surprise recently when I got my copy of I SAW HIM IN YOUR EYES, a new book by Ace Collins. Ace interviewed me for this book, and I was intrigued by the concept, because it gave me the opportunity to tell about my dear friends, Dick and Nicki Benz, whose Christ-like lives have inspired me more than anyone I know. I wrote about their Ministry, Buried Treasures, in the acknowledgment of my novel, CAPE REFUGE. In fact, I modeled Thelma and Wade Owens, in the Cape Refuge series, after this couple. (They weren't too thrilled that I killed them off in the first chapter of the first book, but that's the way it goes.)
Anyway, back to Ace Collins' book. Other chapters in I SAW HIM IN YOUR EYES are about the mentors or inspirational figures in the lives of people like Pat Boone, Charlie Daniels, Karen Kingsbury, Bobby Bowden, and S. Truitt Cathy. I promise each chapter will bless and inspire you. It's published by Zondervan, and should be available in stores now. (If your bookstore doesn't have it, ask them to order it!)
Okay, I have a confession to make. I don't usually read my reviews. Call it neurosis, or burying my head in the sand, or just plain denial. But who needs the discouragement when the reviews are bad? And if they're good, I sure don't need to get all puffed up and start believing that I'm better than I am.
However, I was recently given the "keys" to my web site, and now I'm able to read all the reviews that my readers are leaving for each book. I finally took the plunge, and with one eye closed, peaked at them. And I was blown away. I found them to be so refreshing and encouraging, not at all the stuff that keeps me awake at night.
So thank you so much for taking your time to come on my web site and post a review. I'll try to make sure they're posted very quickly after you leave them. I may be forced to edit them down to clips in the interest of getting them all in. And if you leave a bad one or give part of the plot away, I reserve the right not to include them. But I thank you for those, too, because every one of them lifts me up, reminding me that the work I do in isolation is worth something, after all. That at the end of it all is a crowd of people who are reading it and actually enjoying it. Isn't God good to raise up people to remind me of that?
God bless you, my dear friends. And keep those reviews coming!
Because I live in mid-Mississippi, I’ve been encouraged to write a blog about what we’re seeing here. I have to say first that we’re very fortunate. We did receive hurricane winds here in the Jackson area, but other than trees falling on houses, most of us came out okay. My family has been without power since Monday, but our inconveniences are so minor compared to the poor residents of the coastal area. Please know that these are not complaints, just my observations about the drama unfolding in my part of the state.
My new book coming out in a few weeks is about a massive global power outage even worse than this one, and I'm wishing I could snatch it back and rewrite it in light of the things I'm experiencing. Did you know kerosene lamps create soot on the ceilings? That you should never allow yourself to be without at least one corded phone in your house, since cordless ones don't work in power outages? That stubborn children will not eat anything they don't like, even if they're starving to death? That power company employees, tree removal services, and men who drive gas and ice trucks are the most valuable human beings during a crisis?
I live about 157 miles inland, yet we’ve been without power since Monday, and some of the neighborhoods near me are being told it will be six weeks or more before they get power. Gasoline is a huge problem here. Lines at gas stations are miles long. My daughter sat in line for three hours in the heat to get gas this morning. People were running out of gas in line and had to push their cars every time the line moved. The generators people are using are depleting the gas. My family doesn’t have a generator, but I don't think it would help a lot, since gas is so short. We were able to buy more batteries today, which was a real blessing, and we bought an inverter that runs off our car battery, so we can power a lamp and a small television. It’s horrible seeing what’s going on farther south.
We have thousands and thousands of refugees here. A nursing home from New Orleans evacuated to Jackson last Sunday, and a church offered them shelter. However, that church lost their power Monday during the hurricane, and since so many were without power, they had no place to take them. They couldn’t power the equipment they needed, and those elderly people were suffering in upper ninety degree heat. Yesterday, one died.
My church had power and took them yesterday. Some of the doctors and nurses from our church are taking care of them. Some needed feeding tubes and had none. Others needed oxygen. They had no meds. Fortunately, they're well cared for now. Our church is also about to take some evacuees from another shelter that lost power during the storm, and they’ve housed lots of the electrical workers coming in from other states. Let me just say here how thankful we are for those workers coming in from other parts of the country to help. They are our heroes.
Because we had a freezer that needed defrosting and had thick ice inside it, we were able to keep our food frozen until today. But realizing our power is likely to be out for a while and we can't save that food much longer, we cleaned out our freezer and took all the food to our church so they could feed the refugees. My husband was able to get slightly north of town and found a Fred's Dollar Store open, and was able to buy Depends for the elderly, lots of paper products, shampoo and soap and deodorant and baby diapers, etc. We were able to take all that to the shelter. We've wanted to help more, but there are lots of people standing around in the way right now. Everyone wants to help.
We have a nine o’clock curfew here. Businesses that have power are forced to close at eight or eight-thirty so that people will get off the street. I can’t confirm this, but I’ve heard that this is to let the emergency vehicles and power trucks get to the gas pumps to fill up for the next day’s work. I’ve heard people on the radio who’ve said that they waited in line for hours for gas, got up to the front, and had the gas station close for curfew. They literally slept in their car until the next morning when the station opened and could sell gas again. Others are waiting in line for hours, only to have the station run out of gas, so they’ve moved from station to station until they could finally fill up. Survival, even in this city where a lot is still operational, is very hard work.
Ripples are far-reaching. My friend’s father died yesterday as he was bringing her a generator. He had a flat tire and got out to change it, and died in the heat of a massive heart attack. Not directly related to the hurricane, but still so tragic.
So that's where we are. I'm taking lots of mental notes for my Restoration Series. Funny how God so often lets me experience the things I’m writing about. When I originally wrote Broken Wings, about an airline crash, I was in a plane that had serious problems and had to make an emergency landing. When I was writing Season of Blessing, about breast cancer, I had my own breast cancer scare. Now I’m writing about a global power outage, and I’m living through one of my own. It's a real adventure. But in all of this I can tell you that God is everywhere, working in so many ways. And He’s strengthening my faith and the faith of so many others, showing us how spoiled we are, and teaching us to be dependent on him. His provision is amazing. I know we’re seeing terrible things on television, but there are millions of stories of God’s miracles that aren’t being told, just like they were in the Twin Towers.
Please keep praying for those poor people watching footage on television of their devastated lives. We have much to be thankful for, and are not praying for our power to return. It’s all in God’s timing and within His sovereignty, and whatever He chooses for us is fine. Instead, we pray that we’ll be faithful through it all.
I hope you had a wonderful Christmas season, and are enjoying a happy New Year. What a year 2004 has been for me! For my family, this year has been a time of refinement in the Lord, a time when He has turned the heat up to burn out the dross in our lives through various trials, to make us look more like Him. Two family members have been hit with debilitating illnesses that have turned us upside down. My traveling schedule this year was extremely heavy, which made it difficult to get my books written. In the midst of that, we planned the wedding for one of our daughters, which happened just this past weekend. It was beautiful, and marked a happy ending to this season of stress.
For that reason, I’ve been very lax in answering my reader mail over the last year. But please know that I do read every single letter sent to me. They encourage me and fuel me when I need them most. This year, I’m going to try to do better and answer them more promptly.
In March, my fourth Cape Refuge book will be in stores. Don’t miss BREAKER’S REEF, and see the conclusion of Cade and Blair’s story. In BREAKER’S REEF, teenaged girls are turning up murdered. What do these deaths have to do with Sadie, the eighteen-year-old resident of Hanover House, or with her mother, an ex-con and recovering drug addict? Will Sadie survive the new dangers entering her life, or will her own disappearance provide the catalyst to change her mother’s life?
At the moment, I’m working on the first book in my new “Restoration Series.” The first book is called LAST LIGHT, and will release this fall. I’m very excited about it, and will tell you more about it in coming months.
Thank you so much for all you mean to me. May the Lord bless you richly in myriad ways this year, and may the Light in you shine on everyone you see, chasing away the darkness, and bringing life to those without it.
