FIRST Day Tour: Squat by Taylor Field

It is September 1st, time for the FIRST Day Blog Tour! (Join our alliance! Click the button!) The FIRST day of every month we will feature an author and their latest book's FIRST chapter!

This month's feature author is:

Taylor Field

"We live in a squat. We don't know squat. We don't have squat. We don't do squat. We don't give a squat. People say we're not worth squat."

Taylor Field has worked since 1986 in the inner city of New York where he is pastor of East Seventh Baptist Church/Graffiti Community Ministries. He holds a M.Div. from Princeton and Ph.D. from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. Among his previous books is the award-winning Mercy Streets. Field and his family live in New York, New York.

If you want to know more, please visit The SQUAT Website!

To order Squat, click HERE.

Author interview contact is Andrea Irwin at Broadman & Holman.

Please Note:

All author proceeds from Squat will go to Graffiti Community Ministries, Inc., a service arm of the East Seventh Street Baptist Church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan where Field preaches.

Back Cover Copy:

In the shadow of Wall Street's wealth, homeless citizens with names like Squid, Saw, and Bonehead live in abandoned buildings known as "squats" where life is hand to mouth, where fear and violence fester. The light in lovable Squid's obsessive-compulsive mind's eye is Rachel, a loving soup kitchen missionary who tells him about faith and unfaith, hypocrisy and justice, the character of God and finding identity in Him.

But among the squats and so many other abandoned lives, will such talk be enough to make Squid believe that his life may actually amount to something?

CHAPTER 1



CALMLY, THE GIRL on the sofa reached out and pulled up a flap of skin on the little boy's thin arm. It could have been a gesture of affection. But then she pinched the skin and twisted it. Hard.

"Ouch!" He whipped his pencil in front of her face once, like a club, and then cracked it on her forehead. He pulled the pencil back, ready to strike her again, crouching against the back of the couch like a cornered weasel.

The little girl wrinkled up her round freckled face but did not cry out. She looked toward her mom, who was talking to the receptionist. The boy's mom, seated across the room, didn't look up. She continued to look through the pages of her magazine, snapping each page like a whip.

"You could have put my eye out!" the freckled girl hissed.

The boy rubbed the two blue marks on his arm. He looked her steadily in the eyes and growled.

His mom called him over. "Come sit by me, honey, and stop making so much noise." She patted his hair down in the back and smiled at him. She wore lots of eyeliner and widened her eyes to make even sitting in a waiting room seem like an adventure. "You're such a big man, now," she had said this morning as she combed his hair and helped him put on his best shirt. She was humming "Getting to Know You" even though her voice quivered just a little. She had put a lot of extra perfume and sprays on this morning. She smelled like the women's aisle in a drugstore.

Once the little girl's mom finished with the receptionist and returned to the sofa, the little girl started crying with one soft, unending whine.

The boy rolled his eyes and looked for a book to bury his head in.

"What's wrong, honey?" the mom asked as she swept her little girl up.

"That boy hit me."


You can read the rest of the first chapter here.

Star Trek gets the 'Lucas' treatment

I'm not sure how I feel about this: The original Star Trek episodes have been digitally remastered, with updated CGI effects not available 40 years ago. (I'm one who still loves the original of Star Wars, warts and all.) I'm not sure if Gene Roddenberry will be rolling over in his grave or not. The good side of this is that the series is being released in syndication again. (via)

Reading Relentless

Last night I started reading Relentless, by Infuze founder and editor-in-chief Robin Parrish. Oh my goodness -- the title says it all. From the opening sentence you're pulled into the story and it doesn't let up (at least it hasn't yet and I'm a third of the way through the book). One of the reasons I don't read a lot of thrillers is that they've become so formulaic and unsatisfying. But Relentless has a lot going for it that lifts it out of the genre's typical rut. There's a sense of the epic here, a sense of forces larger than life at work. Like a good comic book, the action is sharply drawn. The hero (Grant Borrows) is an ordinary guy who is suddenly thrown into a circumstance he can't understand. While this has been done a lot, the character is fleshed out well, as are most of the other characters. And the story is propelled non-stop from the start. Again, this could be a weakness, but so far the pace works for me. I'll have more to say when I finish the book -- for now I'll just say I'm liking this a lot.

On another subject: A couple of days ago I posted about being honest Christians. Then, yesterday I read this great interview with Dan Haseltine (Jars of Clay frontman) at Christian Music Today. He talks about the band's new album and his efforts to be more honest about who he is and about his struggles and temptations. This is excellent. And here's a related thought. One of Haseltine's points is that being honest with those around you allows for accountability. And I realized that maybe one reason we aren't really honest with each other about how our faith life is going is that we don't really want to be held accountable. We're really encouraging people at church to be involved with small groups, which I believe in. As our church grows (we're running close to 400 every Sunday, split between two services) it becomes harder for the pastoral staff to really minister to everybody. The body needs to take care of itself and small groups can be an effective way to nurture and disciple people. But there are always people who don't want to be involved in small groups and I wonder if this avoidance of accountability is part of it. I don't have any hard evidence for this, it's just a thought.

Tuesday ramblings, mini-rant

Here's some things of interest:

The guitar wizard that millions have watched on You Tube playing a rocked out arrangement of Pachelbel's Canon has been revealed.

Here's another pretty nifty bit of guitar playing. (via)

How's your U.S. geography? This nifty little flash game will test it. You even get praise for getting it right. (also via)

Scot McKnight has been writing about the rise of neo-fundamentalism here and here.

My brother asks what causes people to turn away from their faith. Last week this post at the Thinklings also generated a lot of discussion about 'dark nights of the soul.' Be sure to read the comments. I think the church has erred in not encouraging honesty and transparency when it comes to difficult times in the Christian walk. For too long we've taught that being a Christian is a happy, peaceful life. Well, guess what. It's not. But it can be full of joy and the 'peace that passes all understanding.' But Jesus says he gives his peace, which is not the world's idea of peace. And probably not the modern church's idea of peace, either. We set our brothers and sisters in Christ up for failure if we teach them any differently. OK, rant over. We now return to your regularly scheduled blog.

(edited 8/30/06 to fix Scot McKnight's name)

A new column and thoughts on our awesome God

I've posted my new Notes from the Windowsill column: A Garden of Righteousness.

Here's the introduction:

In recent weeks, the pastors of our church have preached some sermons about living for God's glory and being instruments of renewal in our community. One of Pastor David McCowan's jumping off points for his sermons based on Joel 2 and Ezekiel 37 was the book Red Moon Rising, about the 24-7 prayer movement. So I wanted to write a column that was relevant to those messages. The Sunday after I turned this in, Pastor David preached from Isaiah 61 -- I didn't know he was going to do that, and he already had his message planned before I wrote my column. God is cool.

By the way, I've started reading Red Moon Rising -- this is an amazing book and one everyone should read. I haven't gotten very far, but the story of what God is doing in unexpected places is amazing. But then, that's our God.

Sidebar updates

If you look closely, you'll see that I took a little time this afternoon to reorganize my blogroll and update some links in the sidebar. I've added the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance, since Bonnie Calhoun has set up a nifty new Web site. I've added links to my most recent stories, Confessions of a Christian Mom and The Man Who Kept a Dragon in the Basement. I've also added links to Dick Staub's blog and Relief Journal. Dick Staub writes regularly about faith and the arts and Relief is a new journal for Christian expression.

I've also rearranged the blogroll. Bloglines lets you do a lot more manipulation than it used to (either that, or I just finally figured it out), so it was easy to group things into categories. I think it's pretty self-explanatory. Daily Rounds are the blogs I read every day, almost without fail. Friends are, well, friends. Strange, Wonderful, Whatever are the ones I'm not exactly sure how to classify. Let me add just a note about the Faith, Art, Writing category. Some of these are indeed about the intersection of faith and art or faith and writing, but some are just more about faith and some are more about writing. Just in case you're wondering why Storyteller's Unplugged, for example, is in the same category as the Charis Connection.

Why we write

This is from an entry by horror writer Richard Steinberg at Storytellers Unplugged, Aug. 18, 2006. He tells the story of his mother, who died one year ago on that date, and how she encouraged his writing, even in his darkest hours; and how he encouraged her to begin writing late in life. It's a wonderful, heart-rending story of love and loss. And here is what he says about what he did late the night she died, and why:

... And then, without knowing why, I went into my office and continued working on what would become my nineteenth novel.

These are the first words I wrote that night:

"Some looked for proof of God in a cloudless starry night. Others in the flashing eyes of small children at play. Maybe a majority of people in the world saw God in the fact that, despite everything the world could and did throw at them, they still woke up in the morning and carried on despite the odds."

Because, in the end, I am a writer. A fictioneer prowling the high seas of apostasy, doubt, and inhumanity. A night rider marauding through the literary stacks shouting in a rage, whispering in a prayer, using all the tools, all the technique, whatever talents or natural instincts I possess to tell you a tale that will make your world a little, well . . . if nothing else, a little different than it was.

And I am all of that, because of a potentially brilliant writer who died a year ago today . . . my mother, Gloria Steinberg.

I apologize if I've gone on too long here, and if this essay isn't exactly what you're used to here at STORYTELLERS. I hope that some of you can find at least some lessons within it to help you as a writer.

Having lived it, I can promise you that there were lessons within it that I learned.

"There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are simple things, and because it takes a man's life to know them, the little new that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave," Ernest Hemingway

And so I share with you all, gentle readers, the rich heritage my mother left to me:
BELIEVE!

There's nothing I can add to that, except Amen.

Artists and creativity

Last week, Mick Silva posted a provocative essay about being original. Now he's done a follow-up. And Suz has posted a response at The Master's Artist. There's a lot of food for thought here, whether you agree with Mick or not. It seems to me he gets to the heart of what it means to be creative for God. And, actually, it seems to me that Suz says much the same thing, only in a different way. Who we are and what we do comes from God.

In a similar vein, Infuze has posted an interview with a man named Erik Lokkesmoe, who (to quote the Infuze intro): "[is the] founder of Brewing Culture, a non-profit organization that is leading the front lines of bridging the cultural gap between the church and culture." This is a must-read for anyone interested in art and culture.

One of the things Lokkesmoe talks about in the interview is how art can be descriptive -- can show the condition of the world even while showing the hope we have, too. But one of the problems with much of Christian culture is that we have a hard time doing that honestly. And when an artist does show the world honestly, we feel compelled to warn people to proceed with caution. Christian Music Today gives 4-star review to new albums by Bruce Cockburn and The Lost Dogs, but throws in caveats about the language these artists use in some of their songs. I suppose the reviewers feel responsible for making sure that someone easily offended should know up front that there might be some gritty-ness in these albums, but I wonder what would be so bad about someone unsuspectingly listening to Cockburn or The Lost Dogs and discovering some truth about the world and how we are to live in it. Should we always steer people away from challenging art because we're afraid they'll be offended? Just a thought.

Monday news & views

The nest is getting emptier. I spent Friday moving child No. 5 (Tim) into his dorm at K-State. I think it went pretty well. Joel and I came back down Sunday to bring him a few things he forgot or decided he wanted after all, so I met his roommate (who wasn't there yet Friday). Tim's first class was at 7:30 this morning -- I'm assuming he made it, but I will not call him to ask him. I didn't do that with the others, but they were all farther away. It may be a little harder with him on the same campus as me. The pic at left is from graduation Sunday.

I've also been reading. I went to the library Sunday afternoon while I was in town and checked out some good books, including Relentless by Robin Parrish. I also saw Waking Lazarus, by T.L. Hines on the new books shelf. It's neat to see books by authors I know a little (or at least know something about). But the book I started reading is called The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, by Lewis Buzbee. It's subtitled "a memoir, a history," and that aptly describes this little book. He describes his path to being a book lover (as well as bookseller and writer) along with some of the history of bookmaking and bookselling. It's fascinating and highly readable.

One of the subjects Buzbee talks about is how important it is for children to have books. He's not a literary snob -- in fact I suspect he's around my age because he, too, has fond memories of My Weekly Reader and the Weekly Reader book orders. He makes it clear that children should be encouraged to read, even if it's Nancy Drew or the Babysitter's Club. But he also makes it clear that for many kids, probably around the time they enter their teens, they have a transformative reading experience. For Buzbee, it was The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. This was the book that completely pulled him in and opened his eyes to the larger world. For me, I think it was Jane Eyre. I read it when I was 13 and was enthralled. I'd always been a voracious reader, but Jane Eyre captured my imagination in a new way. But here's the point I want to make, and I think Buzbee implies this: If I hadn't already been a reader, I never would have read Jane Eyre. I think my daughter Julia went from The Babysitter's Club one year to Great Expectations the next. At least it seemed that way. What was your formative book?

A (reading) spree

I finished Nick Hornby's The Polysyllabic Spree this week. (Actually, I started it this week, too.) I saw it on Julia's bookshelf when we were there Sunday and started reading it then. It's a very funny and good little book about books, and reading books, and not reading books; and somewhat indirectly, about the life of a writer. These essays first appeared in the Believer magazine. Nick Hornby buys a lot of books and reads a lot of them, but not all. That's somewhat comforting.

Knowing what kind of books a person reads tells you something about that person, but not too much. More important, Hornby's lists of books read illustrate the value of eclectic tastes. He praises a biography of the poet Robert Lowell, David Copperfield (the novel, not the illusionist), a nonfiction book about baseball and one about raising autistic children, and Mystic River, among others. And he freely admits to giving up on boring books, no matter how well-recommended. The result is a series of essays that are fun to read and are the proof that a good writer needs to be a reader.

Weird Google blogging

By the way, you will notice that these posts have no titles (except for this little color title I put on, but it's not in the regular title bar). That's because Goggle is working out bugs with their new Blogger Beta and I can't seem to get to the Dashboard for normal posting. So I'm posting from Journaler, which works fine, but doesn't post titles. I looked at the info this morning for Blogger Beta and it looks pretty nice, but they're still working out some bugs so I thought I'd wait, but I can't seem to log in correctly on my old Blogger account. Apparently, that's a bug, too. There is a part of me that resists switching right now because you can't undo it and I don't want to be forced to.

Update: OK, I finally got to my dashboard in a sort of roundabout way -- through the Google homepage (the one that lists all the google services) and then clicking on Blogger. So I added the title to this post. Very strange. Definitely waiting to switch.

Mark Bertrand has posted his review of the new ESV Journaling Bible. I still want one. My birthday is one month from today and any family members reading this (and I know you are) can find it for less than $20 on Amazon.

Overcome the alienation

I listen to the Kindlings Muse podcast and yesterday, in part 3 of an interview with Paul Elie about his book about Walker Percy, Flannery O'Connor, Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton, Elie said an interesting thing. He was talking about an approach to the world that all these writers have in common:

The tradition these writers belong to constantly urges us out of ourselves, to
rotate out of ourselves, and thereby overcome the alienation.

This struck me as elemental to what I'd like to do with some of my stories. I'm working with a main character who is an outsider in many ways, but he's fighting that sense of alienation he often feels. I hadn't really found a way to articulate that until now.

There's more to the interview -- it's a good one.

Friday news and views

A few things to ponder this weekend:

Athol Dickson, author of River Rising, posted some good thoughts about spending time on one's craft at the Charis Connection.

In a similar vein, Dick Staub wrote about serving with excellence.

Hughes is back and he's talking about inspiration. And Mark writes about how we convey a sense of place at The Master's Artist.

You can still win free stuff when your order Deliver Us from Evelyn.

Brad Boydston leaves for Guam tomorrow, where he'll be teaching at Pacific Islands Bible College. I'm sure he'll appreciate prayers as he travels.

It's somewhat cooler, here. Yay! Have a good weekend.

Celebrating Well

Chris Well, that is. To be more specific, Deliver Us From Evelyn hit No. 1 on the Technorati most talked about books list. Very cool. Just in case things change by the time you read this, and because I am less than adept at the screen shot business, here's a screenshot Chris Mikesell posted. Congratulations Mr. Well (I know too many guys named Chris) -- and happy birthday.

I've been reviewed!

Tangent Online reviews short fiction, of the speculative variety. Among the publications they regularly include is Dragons, Knights and Angels. Recently they reviewed Chris' award-winning story so I was curious to see if they would look at the issue where The Man Who Kept a Dragon in the Basement appeared. Well, they did. The reviewer said, and I quote:

“The Man Who Kept a Dragon in the Basement” by Linda Gilmore was a delight to read. Flawless presentation and a tastefully comedic style make this story my favorite in this issue.

Whoo-hoo! There's a little more, so go check it out yourself.

Help Chris Well celebrate his 40th birthday ...

by buying his book. As I mentioned last week, tomorrow is Chris Well's 40th birthday and he's got presents to give away. Just go to Amazon between 6 p.m. today and noon Aug. 10 (extended shopping hours -- how about that!) and order Deliver Us From Evelyn. Then e-mail your confirmation code to birthday06@studiowell.com for some nifty free stuff.

But wait, there's more. Chris has two (that's right two) prize packages -- $144 worth of books from his publisher, Harvest House -- to give away. When you send the e-mail with the confirmation code to Chris, mention that I sent you and we'll both be entered in the drawing for the books. If you win, I win. If I win, you win. Pretty cool, huh.

Even if you have read the book, Evelyn makes a good gift. You could even make it a pair by buying Forgiving Solomon Long. And if you haven't read either of these, why not?

Monday news and views

I watched V for Vendetta this weekend. It's a very good movie and I am in awe of Hugo Weaving's ability as an actor. He brought the character of V to life, even though he played behind a mask the whole movie. Amazing. This is a thought-provoking story, maybe a little heavy-handed, but still good. It's the kind of movie that stays with you. And if you think it's just another comic book adventure story full of fights and gore, think again. There is surprisingly little gore, though there are a couple of nifty explosions, and the action is as much psychological as physical. Definitely worth renting.

I've read some interesting things today that relate to my continuing effort to figure out what it means to be a Christian writer. This discussion at Faith in Fiction is relevant, as is this column by Dick Staub. I think that being a Christian writer (or artist of any sort) means different things to different people. But I think, for me, being a Christian writer is more about using the gifts God has given me to be the best writer I can be than about writing with a specific evangelical agenda, or ministry. While you're out and about the blogosphere, read the iMonk's commentary on Christians and the culture war. It's relevant (at least for me) to this whole issue.

Friday news and views

We had a brief respite from the heat, but it's coming back. I'm reminded of a few days I spent out in Phillipsburg (in Western Kansas) a few years ago, also in early August -- it was about 107 every day.

I would like to point you to The Master's Artist today: Mark has good thoughts about Questions You Can't Answer Yet.

Mick Silva posted some very good suggestions about how to pitch a novel at a writer's conference: ACFW Dos and Don'ts. I really wish I could go to that conference, but it is not to be -- at least not this year. I'll hang onto these tips for future reference, though.

I'm listening to some good music -- a singer/songwriter named Josh Woodward. He releases his music with a Creative Commons license and it's free to download (though I'm sure he'd appreciate your support). He's got some good songs. (I found the link via The Best Media is Free, which I found via BoingBoing.)

OK, here's one more thing. Chip Scanlon, of the Poynter Institute, is blogging. He calls it The Mechanic & the Muse: an owner's manual for writers -- and it's just that. He's posted a good entry about narrative brevity. As he says, we can learn a lot from songwriters.

Heat wave, shmeat wave

Allow me a moment to whine (and yes, I'll have a little cheese). Why is it that it's only a heat wave to the national media when it's in California or the east coast? Is there nothing in between? Has it not been 100 and more pretty consistently for the last two weeks in the Midwest? (And by Midwest, I mean places in the actual middle of the country -- Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Missouri. Not Ohio.) OK, I saw coverage of the heat in Chicago. But what about Kansas City? What about Wichita? What about Manhattan, Kansas, and the surrounding towns? I live in one of those surrounding towns. When I called time and temperature at 6:07 a.m. today it was 90 degrees. Yes, that's not a typo. 90 degrees. But, it's Kansas and it's August -- what do you expect? The truth is, hardly anyone in the actual Midwest has died in this heat wave, which is good, but apparently that's not news. Can you see the headline? Two Million Kansans Survive Heat Wave.

I'm not unsympathetic to people who are actually suffering in the heat. I just think news coverage is a little inconsistent. I'll shut up and be nice now.

First Day: Full Tilt

It is August 1st, time for the FIRST Day Blog Tour! (Join our alliance! Click the button!) The FIRST day of every month we will feature an author and their latest book's FIRST chapter!

This month's feature author is:

Creston Mapes

Creston Mapes' first book, Dark Star: Confessions of a Rock Idol, has been selected by the Romance Writers of America (RWA) as a finalist for its 2006 Inspirational Readers Choice awards in the category of long, contemporary novel. Awards will presented this summer in Atlanta at the Marriott Marquis hotel.

Full Tilt, the second book in the Rock Star Chronicles, is racking up a number of fine reviews, many stating that its story/writing has surpassed the quality of that in Dark Star. His third novel, a psychological thriller based in Las Vegas, is due out in 2007.

As he has for 20 years, Creston resides in the Atlanta metropolitan area with his hometown sweetheart and four marvelous children. He loves reading, painting, morning walks with his dog, family outings, watching hockey, going on dates with his wife, meeting friends for coffee, and spending time in God's Word. Read Creston's Complete Bio

Rock Star Chronicles, Book 2

Full Tilt

a novel

by Creston Mapes

1

Black night. Familiar backstreets. Windows down. Cold air. Cruisin’ free.

Top of the world.

This was what it was about, baby. Lit on meth and movin’ at what seemed like the speed of light.

Lords of the night.

Over to Fender’s Body Shop on autopilot. Hands drumming on the dash and seats to the beat of the night and the pulse of the blood pounding through their veins.

Down the slope.

Whoa.

Past the dimly lit customer entrance and around back of the shop the Yukon swung and jerked to a stop. One, two, three of them exited the SUV and glided through the gate that was cracked open.

Wesley Lester was last to pass through the high chain-link fence. He slowed to peer at the snow-covered wreckage way out back of the shop, much of which had sat unchanged, like an eerie sculpture, for months beneath a haze of dim yellow lights. Dozens of mangled cars and pickups, SUVs, a hearse, vans, and an old school bus sat like jagged headstones in a haunted cemetery, some piled one on top of the other.

Several hundred yards away, in the vicinity of the far lamppost, David Lester’s black Camaro lay still and sinister. Wesley’s little brother and two teenage friends had perished in that car with David at the wheel. Seventeen years old. Too dang young to die.

After having rushed to the surreal scene of the wreck in nearby White Plains a year ago, Wesley had never ventured back to reexamine the remnants of his little brother’s car—or the totaled Chrysler that carried an elderly couple from Scarsdale, also pronounced dead at the scene.

On the way toward the huge body shop, Wesley shivered at the chill of the New York winter—a feeling his little brother would never experience again. Grinding his teeth, Wesley ran several yards, bashing the already dented door of a white Beamer. Spinning away, he welcomed the sense of release, thrust his dead brother out of his jumpy mind, and followed the others.

Brubaker led the way through the employee entrance, slamming open the heavy steel door against the outside of the fabricated beige metal building. "Ah, smell that?" he said, not looking back. "Good ol’ Bondo. Be high all day if you worked in here."

Wesley cruised in last, leaving the door wide open and purposefully taking a giant whiff of the pungent air that reeked of metal and plastic dust.

Like mice, the three figures zigzagged through a maze of half-repaired vehicles toward an area that glowed white, back in the far corner of the building.

As they drew closer to the dancing light and long shadows, hard-driving music mixed with the static sound of a welder. A dark blue ’65 Mustang sat up on a hydraulic lift, and beneath it—behind a welding hood—stood Tony Badino.

Brubaker and Wesley came to a standstill, fascinated by the sparks that rained down on Tony’s dirty, charcoal coveralls and scuffed brown work boots; the kid stopped between them, equally entranced.

Tony must have seen them but went on welding like a macho man, his brawny legs braced apart, tool belt hanging low around his lean waist, broad shoulders and triceps locked in place as he hoisted the blazing welder.

Brubaker was like a four-year-old. Constant motion. Bobbing his head, singing unintelligibly, rubbing his face and arms, and repeatedly peering back toward the door and out the dirty windows. His paranoia was enough to make anybody start seeing things. The kid in the middle watched spellbound as Tony melded metal to metal.

In the scalding flame, Wesley remembered his brother, curly haired and anxious, slapping a twenty-dollar bill into his hand for a teener—one-sixteenth of an ounce of some of the best crank Wesley had ever come across. Then he flashed back to David’s demolished Camaro hours later—what was left of the engine, parts of the car scattered along Post Road, still smoking.

Once again Wesley was slapped in the face by the fact that he was the one who had poisoned his brother’s bloodstream the day he drove to his death.

No. No. No!

It wasn’t the meth that killed his brother. It was the years of Everett Lester’s tainted music that had contaminated David’s mind. It was Everett’s empty promises and repeated letdowns that had sent David longing for the grave and a so-called better life on the Other Side. And Everett would burn for it; uncle or no uncle, he would pay. Because Wesley was hearing the voice again.

Wesley actually jerked when Tony snapped back the flame, lowered the welder in his right hand, and flipped the dark visor up with the other.

"Boys." He eyed the dazed kid in the middle.

"This is the dude we told you about, from Yonkers," Brubaker yelled proudly above the music, rubbing at the insides of his elbows with his wrists. "Needs an ounce."

Tony extinguished the pilot on the welder, lowered it to the concrete floor by its cord, then walked over to the stereo and turned it off.

"Slow down, Brubaker." Tony shook off his big, stiff gloves and removed the hood to reveal a tough face with small, pronounced features and a glistening scalp covered only by what looked like about two weeks’ worth of brown hair.

Reaching inside the front waist pocket of his coveralls, Tony pulled out a silver Zippo and a pack of Marlboros. Tapping one out, he stuffed it in the side of his little mouth and lit it with a grimy hand. As he took a long drag and snatched the cigarette away with his left hand, Wesley noticed a small tattoo of an upside-down cross on the inside of his wrist.

Tony was one creepy dude. Knew what he wanted. Had kind of a fiendish aura about him. People were naturally scared of the guy. Maybe that’s why Wesley liked running with Tony, because it was risky and unpredictable. That gave him a rush. And it didn’t hurt that Tony always had the best jenny crank on the street.

Grabbing a hanger light from the frame of the Mustang, Tony walked beneath his work, inspecting the length of the exhaust system.

"How do you know Lester and Brubaker?" He tapped the muffler, cig in hand.

"Uh…a friend introduced me to Wesley at a party," the middle kid said.

"When?"

"Last week."

"And Brubaker?"

"Met him a couple nights later."

"Been tweekin’?"

"Uh…when do you mean?" The kid’s eyes darted to Bru then Wesley.

"Tonight." Tony stopped and stared at him.

"Earlier today," Wesley interrupted. "Couple teeners."

Tony went back to inspecting his work. "That same stuff from the other day?"

"Yeah. Finished it off." Wesley coughed, feeling somewhat like a raw recruit reporting for duty before some high-ranking officer.

"This new cristy blows that stuff away." Tony glanced at the three visitors, his right eye twitching. "Just in from Pennsylvania. Keep you amped for days. I’ve been workin’ nonstop since yesterday—goin’ on, what? Thirty-five hours?"

Brubaker and the stranger nodded, swayed, and laughed. Wesley simply stared, promising himself he wouldn’t bow down to the grease monkey like everybody else.

"So you need an ounce." Tony held the light up close to the tailpipe.

"Yep," piped up the kid in the middle.

"Good old Wesley Lester. I can always count on him to bring me the finest clientele." Tony nodded toward Wesley. "Do you know who this guy is? Who brought you here tonight?"

The kid stared at Tony with hollowed eyes and shrugged.

"This is the great Everett Lester’s nephew. Bet you didn’t know that."

What the heck?

The kid turned to Wesley. "No way."

"Straight," said Tony. "You’re in the presence of the bloodline of one of rock ’n’ roll’s greatest legends."

"Dude," the kid exclaimed, "I saw one of their very last shows—at The Meadowlands. They played three and a half hours, at least."

"With Aerosmith," Tony chimed in. "I was there. Wesley was supposed to be there backstage, but Uncle Everett stood him up."

"That’s cold," Brubaker mumbled.

Silently, expressionlessly, Wesley agreed.

Tony smirked at Bru, but it went right over the head of the kid in the middle.

"I lived and breathed DeathStroke," the kid said. "Lester was so stoned out of his mind that last show, he could barely stand by the end. But they jammed their hearts out."

"And now he’s a Jesus freak." Tony’s eyes shifted to meet Wesley’s, but his head didn’t move.

Wesley met his glance without flinching. His nostrils flared and his temper cranked up like the flame on the welder. He searched Tony’s face for the reason he would be trying to push Wesley’s buttons.

The kid in the middle picked up on the friction.

Tony smirked, knelt down, and began banging his tools into the drawers of a tall red metal toolbox on wheels.

"What’s he like, anyway?" the kid barged ahead. "Everett Lester, I mean…"

Brubaker looked uneasy, twisting and bouncing slightly on his toes.

"He’s a loser, okay?" Wesley snapped, walking over to a workbench cluttered with jars of nuts and bolts and old tools. "Dude’s a lyin’ hypocrite. Dang waste of breath!"

"Where does he live?" the kid asked. "Does he still have a place in Manhattan?"

Wesley’s back was to the others. He fingered the tools without a word. I wonder if he’d shut up if I heaved this jar of bolts at his head.

Brubaker ran interference. "He has a farm near Bedford and a place in Kansas—where his wife’s from."

"Oh yeah, that chick who converted him," the kid said.

Tony slammed the middle drawer closed.

"That was some story. I heard she wrote to him ever since she was like a teenager—Jesus this and Jesus that. And finally it stuck…can you believe that? The guy went off the deep end!"

Tony stood, banging another drawer shut. "Some people hit you over the head again and again with that Jesus hype till you’re brainwashed. Seen it happen."

"Well, look at the guy," the kid said. "I mean…he’s changed! I saw him and his wife on Larry King Live and he, I mean, it’s like he’s a different person—"

"Let’s do this deal!" With three long strides and a commanding kick, Wesley booted a large piece of scrap metal twenty feet across the dusty white floor.

The corners of Tony’s mouth curved up into a quick smile as he raised an eyebrow at the kid in the middle, stomped out his cigarette, and walked over to an old white sink. Pushing up his sleeves, he rinsed his hands and squeezed a glob of gray goop into his palm from a bright orange bottle.

"You got the cash?" he asked the kid above the running water.

"Yeah, yeah." The kid dug almost frantically into his front pocket and pulled out a clump of folded bills.

"Count it, Wes," Tony ordered, still washing.

Wesley hesitated before snatching the wad and rifling quickly through the bills. "Fifteen hundred. It’s here."

Tony dried his hands with a dirty towel, wiped his face with it, and looked at himself in the smudged mirror above the sink. Then he found the kid’s reflection in the mirror. "You don’t know where this devil dust came from."

"Oh…d-definitely n-not." He smiled anxiously. "I don’t even know you. We never met, as far as I’m concerned. Nope. Never met."

Tony dropped the towel on the edge of the sink and walked to the tool chest. Lifting the top, he pulled out a Tech .22 assault pistol with his right hand and a good-sized bag of off-white, crystal-like powder with the other. Turning, he tossed the bag to the kid, who fumbled it awkwardly but mangled it at the last second before it escaped his hands. Embarrassing.

"You hear about the body that turned up in Canarsie other day? In the scrap yard?" Tony approached the kid, whose forehead was glistening with sweat.

Here we go. Wesley wished Tony hadn’t picked up the gun but, at the same time, found it strangely exciting.

"Uh…no." The kid eyed the piece. "No, I missed that."

"Well, don’t miss what I’m telling you." Tony’s voice grew vicious as he neared the kid’s face. "That guy had it comin’, okay? I know that for a fact."

The kid’s mouth was wide open, big eyes flashing, cheeks red as radishes.

"He was blabbin’ about where he got his rocket fuel."

"Listen, I…"

But before the kid could eke out another word, Tony lifted the modified Tech .22 sideways, shoulder-high, squinted, and blasted six rounds across the base of the metal wall beneath the workbench with one squeeze of the trigger.

Brubaker floundered back four feet as the smell of gunpowder hung in the air and the rattle of gunfire echoed in their ears.

The kid’s red face went ash white, and he looked as if he might lose his dinner.

Wesley kept a stone face, not wanting to show a trace of the fear that was making his hands shake.

"You know how many twenty-twos this mag carries?" Tony grabbed the fat magazine with his free hand.

The kid jerked his head in one rapid no.

"Twenty. And I got it rigged so I pull the trigger once and the thing can unload. You understand?"

The kid opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

"Word on the street is, the dude in Canarsie was a rat-squealing tell-all." Tony lightly tossed the Tech .22 in his right hand. "He got himself whacked for blabbing."

"Oh…don’t worry—"

"And the same will happen to you if you tell one soul where you got that cristy, you read?"

"Oh, hey, I read, I read. I’m not about to—"

"Now beat it!" Tony hoisted the weapon up to his shoulder and the kid scrambled an about-face, practically sprinting for the door with a blubbering Brubaker right on his heels.

Badino’s dark eyes locked in on Wesley, followed by the cock of his head and a smirk. "He ain’t gonna do no talkin’, now is he, Wes?"

Wesley watched the two figures scurry into the darkness. "No, I don’t believe so."

As Tony banged the Tech .22 back into the toolbox, two things occurred to Wesley: 1) He would love to see the bullets from that weapon rip through Everett Lester’s sickening, superspiritual flesh, and 2) if you ever wanted to commit a murder, Tony Badino was probably a very good person to know.

************************************

Excerpted from Full Tilt © 2006 by Creston Mapes, Inc. Used by permission of Multnomah Publishers, Inc. Excerpt may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of Multnomah Publishers, Inc.

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

FULL TILT

published by Multnomah Publishers, Inc.

Published in association with the literary agency of Mark Sweeney & Associates, 28540 Altessa Way, Bonita Springs, Florida 34135

© 2006 by Creston Mapes, Inc.

International Standard Book Number: 1-59052-506-X

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from:

New American Standard BibleÒ Ó 1960, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Other Scripture quotations are from:

The Living Bible (tlb)Ó 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.All rights reserved.

Multnomah is a trademark of Multnomah Publishers, Inc., and is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The colophon is a trademark of Multnomah Publishers, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission.

For information:

MULTNOMAH PUBLISHERS, INC.601 N. LARCH STREETSISTERS, OREGON 97759

06 07 08 09 10—10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Tomorrow is ...

August 1. And that means a bunch of bloggers (including me) will be posting the first chapter of a new novel by Creston Mapes: Full Tilt. It's the second in his Dark Star chronicles. I suspect after you read it, you're going to want to read the rest of the book. It certainly piqued my interest. More tomorrow.

And, I've posted my Notes from the Windowsill column for August: Single-minded Pursuit.

Coming up later this month: Chris Well is turning 40 and I think he must be a hobbit because he wants to give presents to all and sundry (or something like that). But instead of having a party in a large field, he wants everyone to go to Amazon and buy a copy of Deliver Us from Evelyn. OK, he'll get a present, too -- he's hoping that enough sales in a short period of time will push his book up to the No. 1 spot on Amazon. But in return, you'll get some cool stuff that isn't available to just anybody, including stories, his famous lists, and a sneak preview of Kingdom Come (the next in the Kansas City series). He's got more details here.

Friday news and views

It's odd (or maybe not) how I'll find several somewhat related things all on the same day. I don't go looking for them, I just come across them in the normal course of reading blogs. So today, for your reading pleasure, I'll direct you to some items related to Christians and their messed up relationship with art.

Mark Bertrand has got a discussion going at The Master's Artist about Questions that keep coming up.

Along a similar vein is Dick Staub's musings on Jeff Foxworthy and Larry, the Cable Guy and … go read it.

Have a nice weekend.

I need a new Bible (Warning: blatant birthday hint)

I definitely want a new Bible. I write in my Bible a lot and my gigantic NIV study Bible is falling apart. It has fairly wide margins, which I've filled up on many pages, so I've been reluctant to replace it. But I think I've found what I want. The new ESV Journaling Bible, from Crossway. Another blogger has reviewed it here. (Link found on Mark's blog.) After reading the review and seeing pictures, I'm even more impressed. It's got wide, wide margins -- with lines! Yep, this is what I need to bring some order to my chaotic note-taking that sprawls all down the page. So family members, consider this a very earnest and sincere birthday hint.

Hallelujah, brother

Two things:

My youngest brother is online! He's a worship minister in Wisconsin and a pretty neat guy, if I do say so myself. Go, Jim.

As is often the case, I'm several years behind in discovering great music. I checked Jeff Buckley's cd Grace out of the library a few days ago because I'd always heard he was a great musician. And yet I was never quite sure if he sounded like someone I would like. Well now I know -- I do. And I wish he hadn't died young, because this is pretty amazing music. And Hallelujah is an incredible song (it's actually by Leonard Cohen), and I like the way Buckley sings it. It's mesmerizing. There's a lot of truth in that song, and it's not just in the words -- it's in the way he sings it. I'm trying to find words to describe it. It's a complete performance -- the perfect meld of lyrics, voice, instrument, mood. If I could write a story that does that -- well, then I could call myself a writer. If you've never listened to this cd, go find it and give it a listen. It's hard to categorize and some of it is pretty strange, but it's worth it.

Reading list

Here's what I've been reading the last couple of days:

Red and Blue God, Black and Blue America, by Becky Garrison.
and
Body Piercing Saved My Life, by Andrew Beaujon.

Garrison is the senior contributing editor of The Wittenburg Door, and she brings her sharp wit to bear on the politicization of the church on both left and right. She's an equal-opportunity satirist. And she makes some good points about the message of the Gospel getting lost in political powerplays. But the book has a tone that started to wear on me -- kind of a sarcastic, smart-alecky turn of phrase that works well in the short form of a magazine, but maybe is less well-suited to a book. But it's still worth reading and since the chapters function well as stand-alone essays, it's easy to skip ahead.

Last night I started reading Body Piercing Saved My Life and stayed up way too late because I really enjoyed it. Beaujon is looking at Christian music as an outsider -- he's a music journalist and describes himself as non-religious and not ever likely to be. But he comes at his subject with an open mind and a willingness to accept the people he interviews as they are. (A lesson most Christians would do well to learn.) He picks up quickly on some common traits of the evangelical subculture -- individualism and an emphasis on a personal relationship with Jesus, in particular -- and offers some sharp observations. He doesn't gloss over the dreck that has been Christian music over the years, but he also finds some gems to highlight. And I really enjoyed his capsule history of Christian music, as well as his interviews with industry "lifers."
While the story he tells is engaging and he's certainly part of the story, it's also well-researched and objective. This is a fascinating look at Christian music from a fresh viewpoint.

Monday music

I've been listening to the CD I won in the contest at Infuze: Uncommon Days by Circleslide. This is good stuff -- kind of modern rock, I guess. The band's name is a tribute to their favorite group -- The Choir. And Steve Hindalong, Derri Daugherty and Mark Byrd help out on some of the songs. Very cool, indeed. My favorite track? The hidden one, called Light of the Morning Star -- good solid blues rock. I'm impressed with the things Gabe Martinez (lead singer and chief songwriter) can do with his voice. If you want to check out some new music, find this CD.

Maybe I'm in a blues mood or something, but I checked a CD out of the library the other day: New Shade of Blue by Kelley Hunt. She's from Kansas City! I heard her a while back on Prairie Home Companion and liked her style so when I saw the CD at the library, I checked it out. I like it. Hunt has a full, rich voice and she uses it well. This is another one worth checking out, folks.

Amazon review

So I actually have finally written my first Amazon review: for Deliver Us from Evelyn. That was so easy. And if you haven't checked Chris Well's latest novel, why not? It's a fun read.

Characters and plots

I've been thinking about what I want to write next. It's not for a lack of ideas, though. It's because I have several ideas and I just don't know which to work on.

All tied up with this dilemma is the feeling that I should pick a type of story, or genre, and stick with it. Except I'm not sure what I'm really best at, or where it would be most worthwhile spending my time. Much of the writing advice I've read recommends that new authors need to write within one genre or literary type. Well, if you look just at the stories I've had published in the last year, I've obviously broken that rule. Some are crime stories, but there's a fantasy story and one that is probably some sort of mom lit. And there's one that doesn't seem to fit in any genre at all -- it's in the class of stories I've written that I think of as parables. (The parables are, by and far, the most rejected of my stories, too. It probably has to do as much with the writing quality, though, as the fact they don't fit comfortably into one category. But they're some of my favorites, too. Go figure.)

My current story ideas seem to be all over the place, too. I have ideas for stories or a novel about Adam Caldwell (the main character of In Transit, which has been published, and April Showers, which hasn't). But I also have ideas for a novel about Troy and his dragon, Cedric. Maybe this seems a silly thing to stress over, but I think I need to figure out what kind of writer I am.

One thing is becoming clear, though. I'm a character writer more than a plot writer. What I mean by that is I have the characters first, then I have to come up with a reason to tell a story about them. Sometimes it takes me a while to come up with a plot structure. I don't think one approach is inherently better than the other -- a good writer of either type will play close attention to both character development and plot structure. But I know the stories that resonate the most with me are character driven and that's how I think.

Two examples come to mind: 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Left Hand of Darkness. Both are classics of science fiction, and were written around the same time. But 2001 is very much a plot-centered story. I first read it in high school and enjoyed it, but it wasn't because of Arthur C. Clarke's skill in writing characters. I could say the same about The Andromeda Strain. But those books have very strong plots that keep the reader engaged. While I was in college I read The Left Hand of Darkness, though, and it has been near the top of my favorite-books-of-all-time list ever since. Ursula LeGuin did such a masterful job of world-building -- and character-building -- that I became completely immersed in the story. I cared deeply about what happened to Genly Ai and Estraven. It's for similar reasons that To Kill a Mockingbird is another of my all-time favorites. Harper Lee even brought Boo Radley to life, even though he doesn't appear in the flesh until the end of the book.

If you're more visually oriented, think about the difference between George Lucas and Joss Whedon. As much as I loved Star Wars (the original movie, especially), I have to admit George Lucas didn't do as good a job with characters as he could have. The characters came to life because of the actors. Joss Whedon is a great storyteller, but he's especially good at coming up with original, engaging characters. Whereas I suspect that George Lucas had a plot idea for Star Wars (what if there was this band of rebels fighting an evil galactic empire ...), I'll bet Joss Whedon had an idea more like this: What if this suburban California girl discovers she's actually a vampire slayer? And what if she falls in love with an actual vampire, who has a soul!? See what I mean? Star Wars does some things brilliantly, and don't misunderstand me, it has great characters. But they're stereotypes who were fleshed out by the actors who played them. Buffy, the Vampire Slayer starts out with great characters and lets them interact and grow up in an environment that is bizarre and recognizable at the same time. Sunnydale, Calif., is Everytown, with the exception that it's also the mouth of Hell. I don't even like vampire stories, but Buffy is, at times, brilliant.

I received feedback this week from a critique partner who read April Showers. It was very encouraging and confirms for me that whatever type of story I write, it will be character-driven. I just need to decide which characters.

Monday news and views

The Man Who Kept a Dragon in the Basement is up at DKA. Yay!

Novel Journey has an excellent interview with Chip MacGregor, Associate Publisher with the Hachette Book Group USA. Here's a man who minces no words and suffers no fools -- an excellent interview and worth going back for part 2 tomorrow!

It's 105 degrees today. Ah, Kansas in July. I know that when January comes, I'll look back on this week -- predicted to be over 100 all week -- with wistfulness. But for now, maybe I should go read a story set in winter.

Two amigos, circa 1968

Rebecca sent me a picture of the two of us taken in September 1968. That means we were 11. Rebecca is the cute one on the right. I, on the other hand ... well, gotta love those pink peddle-pushers.

Friday news and views

Yesterday I got fun news -- I won a cd from Infuze. This week they've been giving away copies of a CD by a group called Circleslide and it sounds neat. So I'm looking forward to receiving my own copy. (Tim is usually the lucky winner in our family -- he has won two TVs in drawings!)

And tomorrow be sure and visit Dragons, Knights and Angels. There should be a new story posted: The Man Who Kept a Dragon in the Basement. Even though it wasn't a contest winner, they bought the story -- the first story I've ever actually been paid for. Very fun.

Impressions: Waking Lazarus

One of the things I did while on vacation was finish Waking Lazarus, by T.L. Hines (Tony from here on out). In a word -- very good. (OK, that's two words.) I enjoyed the book very much. I had expected it to be creepier, but it's really more psychological suspense than horror. (Good for my low heebie-jeebie threshold.)

But what's it about? Here's what the press release says about the book:

Waking Lazarus revolves around Jude Allman—a man
who has died (and come back to life) three times.
Frustrated and frightened by a life in the public eye and
a past he doesn’t understand, he retreats into hiding,
escaping into the vastness of Montana. But like Jude, the
past won’t stay buried.

At the same time, prowling evil circles his adopted
hometown of Red Lodge, Montana, as children are
mysteriously disappearing. And the key to solving these
missing-children crimes may lie within the mysteries of
Jude’s deaths. Now he has to face his past to save his own
life—and the lives of those he loves.

Tony describes his work as 'slipstream' fiction, a phrase I like very much. It seems apt to describe Waking Lazarus. Because there are a lot of things about Jude Allman's life that set him apart, things that may not be what they seem, not to mention the whole died-three-times issue. Tony does a good job of raising questions, but not answering them too soon.

One of the aspects of the story I found intriguing was Jude's struggle with paranoia and his desire to connect with his young son. It would have been so easy for Jude to become a stereotype, but he's not. He's unique and surprisingly likeable.

The suspenseful elements of the story work well. I think the story lost a little momentum for me in the middle because I read it spread out over a week or so. If I'd been able to read it in a shorter time span, that probably wouldn't have happened. And the last few chapters pulled it all together, and built momentum. When I got to the end, I said to myself, "I liked this story."

It has a satisfying ending. A lot of questions are answered at the end, but it's not tied up too neatly. There's room for more than one possible future for Jude and the other characters.

While most of us haven't had near-death experiences, there's a lot about Jude that the average person can relate to. We've all wondered why we're here, what's our purpose in life, where's God when bad things happen. Waking Lazarus talks to all of these -- not in a preachy, hit-you-over-the-head-with-the-brick-of-truth way, but through Jude's questions and struggles and unexpected glimpses of grace. I highly recommend it.

Wednesday news and views

Here's a bit of Web serendipity. I was googling for post-it glue, because I was pretty sure I'd seen it but I didn't remember where and then I wondered if I'd just imagined it. Because it's a neat concept and maybe it was just something I was wishing for. But it is real, because I found the safety data sheet for it. But also in the results I happened upon this interesting discussion at a blog called Crooked Timber. I never knew that sticky notes could be bad for books, but I suppose it makes sense. And a link in the comments led me to a nifty how-to for foldable paper corner bookmarks (I've seen stuff like this before, but I never remember how to make them). The Internet is a wonderful thing. But I still want some post-it glue.

Two amigos

I'm back from vacation -- it's always good to go away, but then it's good to come home. It was a good 10 days and I enjoyed visiting with my parents, my brother and his family, Megan, and my friend Rebecca and her family.

One of the great things about knowing someone since you were both 6 years old is how easy it is to pick up with each other again. That's how it was for me and Rebecca. We stayed up too late talking and spent a glorious afternoon at Hyde Bros. Booksellers in Ft. Wayne (the most amazing used book store -- if you're ever in Ft. Wayne, you have to go there). I wish I could have stayed with Rebecca longer -- I definitely have to go back, and it won't be another 20 years before I do!

True to form, we had a bit of adventure (involving lost keys, a pot of chili and our parents rolling their eyes) -- it's good know some things never change. It was surprising, though it shouldn't have been, how much alike we still are.

I wish I had a picture of us as kids, but this is the two of us last week in Ft. Wayne. (Rebecca's on the left.) We're a little older and, hopefully, somewhat wiser (and I'm a lot grayer). And we're still friends for life.

Going, going ....

I'm going on vacation tomorrow to visit my parents and my friend Rebecca and probably Megan and my brother Jim and his family -- I'm going to spend a lot of time in the car with my parents. Someone suggested that there was a time when they had to spend a lot of time in the car with me and my brothers, so maybe it all evens out. Anyway, it's going to be a good time, I think. You might say a prayer for me as I drive a rental car tomorrow -- not just for me on the road but for Bob at home trying to figure out what to do about our car that is making awful noises under the hood. We need reliable transportation.

And I've posted my most recent Notes from the Windowsill column: Badge of Distinction.

And if you're in the mood to read some good stuff, visit Dragons, Knights and Angels for Chris Mikesell's first place story in their fiction contest -- The Fortunate Purgatory of Arthur MacArthur. Trust me, you won't see where this one is going. The runner up and honorable mentions are posted, too.

My blogging will probably be very light for the next week or so. Have a nice holiday.

Blog Tour: Waking Lazarus

Any book that starts out "The first time Jude Allman died he was eight years old," promises a thrill ride. By all accounts, Waking Lazarus, the first novel (but by no means the last) by T.L. Hines is that. And what, you ask, is my take on the book? Well, I'll tell you when I get back from vacation. I have looked forward to reading this book for a long time and meant to have it finished before blog tour time, but I've been short of reading time. I did get to read a sneak preview a while back and I liked it -- a lot. (And I have started the book and I still like it -- a lot. I just want to save my evaluation for when I've finished it.)

But don't just take my word for it. Hop on over to the blog tour site and follow the links for more about Waking Lazarus. And then, while you're at it, check out Tony's excellent blog. And, if you want even more about the novel and Tony's path to publication, visit his very cool experiment in non-traditional book publicity -- The Other Side. He's got lots of goodies there and chances to win prizes.

Friday news and views

My "Confessions" seem to have struck a chord (and not just with women), which is cool, and a little disconcerting. Jules even put a link to the story at The Master's Artist. I never thought I'd see myself on the page between Bertrand and Snyder. And I got an e-mail this morning from a Christian radio host in North Carolina -- Tami Rumfelt at WBFJ.FM -- who wants to use it in a devotion (with appropriate credit, of course). But I'm not complaining.

Thanks to the aforementioned Tami, I found another blog to read: Dave Burchett's "Confessions of a Bad Christian." I browsed a bit today and I'm adding it to my already long list of places to visit regularly. Burchett's written a couple of books I need to find, too: When Bad Christians Happen to Good People and Bring 'em Back Alive. Both seem to be about the damage we do to each other and look pretty interesting.

I read a good interview yesterday on ChristianMusic.com with Michael Card, The Wounded Worshiper. Excellent and thought-provoking. He makes some good points about sorrow and lamenting in Christian life. I think more and more people are rejecting the mistaken notion that the Christian life is always supposed to be happy and easy. It's not. But it can be joyful. There's a difference.

I'm listening to Jeff Healey, Live at Montreaux 1999. The guy can even break a string (on Roadhouse Blues) and carry on. Very cool.

Some encouraging words

David O. Taylor, whose Diary of an Arts Pastor is one of my regular stops on the blogosphere, is posting (in parts) a talk he gave recently about The Art of Encouragement: Part 1 and Part 2. This is really good. I know from my own experience how powerful a few words of encouragement can be. More than 10 years ago, while I was in grad school, I met a professor whose name really should have been Barnabas, because he has the gift of encouragement. His real name is John Neibergall. For one thing, it was so neat to study under a Christian professor, but he was also an excellent teacher. I was in his Newspaper Management class and he gave us an opportunity to write some profiles for a project he was working on with the National Newspaper Association. He made it clear our stories would be held to a high standard and wouldn't be used if they didn't measure up. So I did the interviews and wrote my stories (about a weekly newspaper in Minnesota) and waited to see what Mr. Neibergall would say.

Not only did I get a good grade on the project, but he wanted to use my stories in the Showcase of Excellence (the project with NNA). But what mattered the most to me was what he told me when he returned my stories to me with the good news. He told me he had been a little skeptical about what I could do with the assignment since I had very limited journalism experience -- he had nothing really to go on. But he was very pleased with the job I had done and said he might be interested in hiring me as a graduate assistant at a later time. (I did get to work for him that summer, and later got to edit future issues of the Showcase of Excellence.) I think I floated for several days on that encouragement. It really boosted my confidence in my ability to tackle a writing assignment and produce something worth reading.

My experience with Mr. Neibergall was not unusual -- many of his students can tell similar stories. And I believe his words had a lasting effect on me because it reinforced for me how important encouragement can be. Have you been encouraged by someone? Have you been an encouragement? You may never know what kind of difference it can make in a person's life.

Always read your comments ...

Because sometimes they know something you don't. In the comments from my post about getting paid by DKA, Chris congratulated me on having a story at Infuze, too. I hadn't seen it yet, so I checked and sure enough, a little humorous piece I sent in a few weeks ago was up. Yay! So go read Confessions of a Christian Mom and, I hope, laugh.

"We are one in the Spirit ..."

The body of Christ is a wonderfully diverse entity. I was reminded of this Saturday at a Christian music festival in my town. They called it the Little Festival on the Prairie and it had a very hippie flavor. The organizer is a young man who comes to our church now and the main set of performers is touring together this summer.

But back to Saturday in the park. Clay Center hasn't seen anything like this in -- well maybe ever. The music tended toward folk and rock, but there was country singer and hip-hop act. The performers included a fellow with the longest dreads I've ever seen on a white guy. There was a drum circle. There were long, free-form praise jams. There was an older guy with the tour who reminded a bit of Jerry Garcia.

But what was cool -- at least to me -- was that all the very normal conventional townsfolk listening and all the hippie freaks on stage (and I mean that in a nice way) were brothers and sisters in Christ. We worshiped together, we rejoiced together at the testimonies of lives changed by God's grace, we prayed together for this town. It was beautiful. Little kids and old folks and everyone in between seemed to enjoy it.

It's easy to be suspicious of people who are different, especially when all you rely on are first impressions. You have to spend time with people to see how much you have in common. I hope that two very different groups of people left the park Saturday evening with a sense of their common bond in Christ. I know I did.

Writing news

Something nice happened this weekend that has never happened before: I got paid for a short story. Though I was not a winner in the Dragon, Knights and Angels contest, the editor contacted me the week the winners were announced and said they wanted to use my story. So I said yes and filled out the contract and sent it in and Saturday they returned my copy of the contract with a check -- not a large check, I'll admit, but a check nonetheless. So sometime in the future The Man Who Kept a Dragon in the Basement will appear at Dragons, Knights and Angels. I'll keep you posted.

Are we asking the wrong questions?

Are we asking the wrong questions? Let me back up. Lately my reading and learning has been pointing me toward the idea that I've been going about the Christian walk all wrong. I hear people asking hard questions about faith -- about the Bible and about how God answers (and doesn't answer) prayer, among other questions. And while I feel pretty certain about my faith, I don't have any answers. I'm pretty comfortable with uncertainty -- I don't have to know all the answers or have all the inconsistencies resolved to be confident that God knows what he's doing and I need to just let him be God. Because, after all, where was I when the foundations of the earth were laid? But this approach is also pretty lazy, intellectually and spiritually. And it's not real helpful when talking to people aren't comfortable with uncertainty.

Two things I've been learning in the last few weeks suggest a way of dealing with this dilemma.
Much of what Eugene Peterson is saying in Eat this Book points toward reading God's word formationally. Too much of the time we read for information, or to back up our own pet theological concepts. But Peterson argues that the point of reading the Bible -- and it's been the point of reading the Bible through all the centuries of the church -- is to find out what God is doing and come into alignment with that, instead of trying to get God to line up with what we're doing. So if we read the Bible so we can come into a fuller relationship with God, if we understand the Bible as a coherent narrative, then it should have a profound affect on the kinds of questions we're asking.

The second thing I'm chewing over is a broadcast I watched at church of Larry Crabb teaching about prayer. (Our church subscribes to a service that provides access to a large variety of Christian simulcasts and video presentations. So the members of the women's ministry leadership team decided to watch this session about prayer to see if it was something we wanted to use later.) This was excellent teaching -- some of the best teaching about prayer I've heard in a long time. Dr. Crabb talked about the issues he's struggled with in prayer and shared a bit of his journey to a fuller understanding. His main point (and I'm simplifying here) revolved around the idea that we need to be praying to align ourselves with God, instead of trying to get God to align himself with us. Which is not to say that God doesn't answer prayer, but we must first be in relationship with God.

See a theme developing here? (God doesn't always have to hit me over the head with a brick, but sometimes it helps.) I think that instead of asking why God didn't give me what I want, or why he healed that person but not this other person, or why he acted one way in the Old Testament but not in the New Testament -- instead of always asking God to explain himself -- I need to be asking how I can be more in line with his will, how I can participate in what he's doing in the world.

One of my favorite books is The Left Hand of Darkness -- which I'm sure you'll point out is not a Christian book. Still, it contains a lot of truth. One of the plot points of the book is that practitioners of a certain mystical religion seem able to predict the future with remarkable accuracy. It's an arduous process, though, and not one to be undertaken lightly or for casual reasons. At one point, the narrator points out to one of these practitioners that they have a skill that would be highly desirable -- it could be worth millions to the right people. And the practitioner replies something like "Don't you get it? We've perfected the art of foretelling to prove the utter uselessness of knowing the answer to the wrong question."

Sometimes I think we're like that -- we want to know the answers to all the wrong questions, instead of the only one that is answerable -- we can know God.

Nursery songs rock

OK, this is pretty darn hilarious: Mono and ME2. Megan sent me the link. I'll never think of Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes the same way again.

Tuesday news and views

When I wrote my post about happy endings last night and posted it this morning, I had not yet seen Mark Bertrand's excellent essay at Novel Journey. He talks about some things in The Perpatetic Novel that I've only begun to wrestle with, and I'm not nearly so articulate. This is worth bookmarking and printing out and studying for a long time.

Chris had an exciting Monday. Not only did he get a role in Brandilyn Collins' Kanner Lake blog (to go with her new series of novels), he published another story at Flashing in the Gutters. Good work!

I, on the other hand, did not have an exciting Monday. But in a couple of weeks I'm going to see Rebecca, which will be fun and possibly exciting (or at least as exciting as two middle-aged women hanging out together and talking can be).

Happy endings ... or not

I've been thinking about the issue of happy endings. I have nothing against happy endings -- in fact I'm a sucker for a happy ending. Look at my list of favorite movies and there's nary an ambiguous ending in the lot. (The list includes Tootsie -- I love Jessica Lange asking Dustin Hoffman if she can wear his little yellow outfit ; While You Were Sleeping -- my goodness she's wearing a wedding dress at the end!; The Goodbye Girl -- nothing pluckier than Marsha Mason hugging a guitar in the rain; and About a Boy -- that whole island chains bit gets me every time.)

But I'm comfortable with a fair degree of ambiguity -- especially when it comes to fiction. One of my favorite novels is The Left Hand of Darkness, which has a most bittersweet ending. But it's satisfying all the same. In The Lord of the Rings victory is won, but at a price. The joy at the end is mingled with tears.

Sometimes the stories I write have happy endings. But not all of them. I've written a story recently (it's called April Showers) that has the most downer of an ending I've ever done. It's dark enough that my mother was disappointed in it; my critique buddies have mostly been silent on the subject, which tends to worry me (though, to be fair, it's long enough that they probably haven't had time to mess with it yet). I don't know if it's any good or just a bunch of derivative, depressing dreck.

And if it's really no good, I can deal with that. I know it needs work, which I'm willing to do. I wanted to write a story where everything wasn't wrapped up all pretty at the end. I wanted to let my main character live with the consequences of his actions. I didn't give him an easy out, no miracles or life-changing epiphanies. Maybe I should have left the door open a little wider for hope to shine in. But he doesn't really believe in hope yet, so I don't know where it would have come from. So maybe I accomplished what I set out to do.

When I was a kid in Sunday School, I always knew the answer. And I know the answer now -- at least the ultimate answer. But if I write a character who doesn't yet understand that the answer to the questions he's asking -- can I be forgiven? is there redemption? -- is Jesus, how can I jump in and force the answer into the story? This is a guy who won't be preached to. There has to be some internal consistency; I don't agree with everything he does, but he is who he is and I'm trying to keep my manipulative paws off him.

People (who don't write much) say you can make your characters do what you want them to do, but that's not entirely true. I have these characters I've thought of and I've given them a setting and a certain amount of personal history. Then I turn them loose to interact with each other and respond to incidents and crimes. They have to be consistent with themselves. There's a certain amount of me in there, but hopefully I'm far below the surface and out of sight. So I can't manipulate the story to wrap up in a tidier way.

I intend to write more stories about this character, to give him a chance at redemption. (I'm really not a nihilist. Maybe I'm a little warped, but I'm a pretty nice person overall.) But it has to be at the right time, under the right circumstances so it's believable. It can't be because I've just gotten too uncomfortable with messy endings.

I guess the point I'm meandering around to is that this world is imperfect. If I want to write honest stories, that imperfect world is going to show up. There is hope -- but we live in a state of "already, but not yet." The Word has been spoken, but not all hear it. I believe that the light of God's grace will shine brightly in the darkness, but that means I have to show both dark and light in my stories. I don't do it very well yet.

Which saint am I?

This is how I started out my work week -- taking another wacky quiz. (Thanks Megan) By the way, if you're wondering who Julian is, here's the Wikipedia article.

Which Saint Are You?

You are Julian of Norwich! It's all about God, to you. You're convinced that the world has a happy ending. Everyone else is convinced that you're a closet hippie, but you love them anyway.
Take this quiz!








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Reading notes -- honest stories

I've been reading a couple of good books this week: Deliver Us from Evelyn, by Chris Well, and Eat This Book, by Eugene Peterson. I know, pretty big contrast there, but I have eclectic tastes.

I enjoyed Evelyn -- it's a pretty snappy story, with some good plot twists. I really enjoy seeing how some of the characters from Forgiving Solomon Long are developing. Chris does a good job of making Charlie Pasch and and Tom Griggs distinctive characters that engage the reader's interest. What's more, most of the secondary characters come to life, especially "failed thug Nelson Pistek," and the religious con man with the ever-evolving set of aliases. And the end of the book gives a promise of more to come. I think I would have enjoyed one less subplot to keep track of, but that's a small criticism. I have to recommend this book to anyone who enjoys crime fiction, and not just because I'm part of the "street team." I know Chris is working on the next book in the series, at least tentatively titled Kingdom Come, and I'm already looking forward to it.

My other reading is going slower, but that's OK. Eat This Book isn't designed to be devoured. It's a book to savor, to study, to highlight in many places. Peterson has been immersed in the Word for a long time and his wisdom and experience come through clearly. He has a lot to say about how we "use" the Bible instead of allowing it to form us, and I could quote passage after passage that has so much to teach us. But I want to highlight one passage today. He talks about how the Bible is a narrative -- a long and complete story, not simply a compilation of rules and precepts and information to make us better human beings. He says story brings us into God's word, it allows us to participate with the characters; story can act on our souls. And here's what he said that really jumped out at me, as a Christian and as a writer: "Honest stories respect our freedom; they don't manipulate us, don't force us, don't distract us from life. They bring us into the spacious world in which God creates and saves and blesses." Wow.

I'm still wrestling with this. He links imagination and faith in reading the Bible, which is not something you hear about much these days. But I think he's right. We've been told for too long that our imaginations are somehow wrong, or at least trivial, when in fact they are part of how God created us. An imagination in God's service is an amazing thing. (C.S. Lewis, for example.) The imagination can be misused, as has much of creation, but it can be what God meant it to be: a door to experiencing God in intimate relationship.

And I keep wondering: Am I writing honest stories?

Monday news and views

While I was eagerly looking forward to finding out how I did in the Dragons, Knights and Angels fiction contest, I can't say that I was surprised with the results. The winning story was "The Fortunate Purgatory of Arthur MacArthur" by Chris Mikesell. It's an excellent, and delightfully twisted, story and it'll appear on the DKA Web site June 27. (I got to read it before it was submitted, so I knew what I was up against.) I didn't place, but I'm OK. According to the editors at DKA, they got a lot of good entries and they'll be publishing more of the stories. So I guess I'll see if The Man Who Kept a Dragon in His Basement still has a chance of publication.

It was not an exciting weekend at my house, which was nice. I did score a couple of bargains from the library's book sale table: The Reader's Digest Family Word Finder and an anthology of American literature (19th and 20th century) from Macmillan (not the famed Norton anthology). The Word Finder is a thesaurus kind of book, but with more information; the anthology has lots of good stuff, especially poetry. Oh, and the books cost me a whole 25 cents. Yep, one quarter. I love my library book sale.