January 25, 2008 @ 8:29 am | Filed under: The Writing Life

As a Christian writer, what do you write about?

This was the recent question posed to a group of writers, all writing under the banner of “Christian” fiction. The responses were varied and it was obvious that some had a clear understanding of what, and why, they wrote while, still others, floundered while searching for their answer.

For me, this became a question that I really wanted the answer to during the writing of Waking Emma. I’d had two previously published novels and had experienced a near perfect relationship with editors and the publishing staff. But those stories, while I’ll always love and treasure these first efforts, were following the “recipe” that had been carefully layed out for me. A step-by-step guide to what the apostolic fiction reader will accept. It was okay for the stories to have some conflict, but the responses of the characters had to follow carefully dictated roadmaps.

During those days, I was eager to please and eager to be published. But, at the same time, I had to wonder about the fact that I (and many more like me) were putting out stories that implied that if we, as Christians, lived each day always knowing the right thing to say and when and where to say it. If, God forbid, a human emotion crept its way in and influenced one of our decisions, well…

That’s just it. I wasn’t supposed to explore that.

I couldn’t escape from the fact, though, that life is just not that simple. It’s not a cookie cutter process where you always have the right ingredients, in the right increments, with the perfect heat and the perfect wrappings. Life is beautiful and messy and delightful and sorrowful. It’s a journey – and there are all kinds of stops along that journey. We appreciate joy because we’ve tasted sorrow. We appreciate light because we’ve huddled in darkness.

I wanted to write about the real things in life.

I don’t write about the light bulb, I write about what I see because of the light.

The result is that I now have stories that resonate deep inside of me. Stories that speak to me, that teach me, that inspire and convict and motivate me. I think we can reflect Christian (or Apostolic) values in the same way by what we talk about, what we focus on, what we leave in and especially by what we leave out.

For me, I have an almost desperate desire to convey the message of a relationship with God more than I’m called to impart one certain message or lay out the plan of salvation or point fingers or preach a sermon. What I want more than anything is to somehow be able to bring the message through on a level that speaks to the heart, where the same old words are bouncing off an increasingly hard-hearted and hostile world. I want to convey my own experience and what amazing, heart-changing things can happen as a real woman (or real man) develops a relationship with God.

There are some days, and even some weeks, when the writing process is lonely and tedious. There are often times when I wonder just how many more of my stories will see the light of day, because I don’t write old-fashioned “Apostolic” fiction and I also don’t write straight “secular fiction.” I am in the mix somewhere in between, still believing that people want the truth. Sure, fiction is entertainment. But if God uses my characters to teach me important life truths, I must have faith that He has a plan for them to teach others as well.

Like I always say though – if I am the only one who learns a little more about faith and hope and about real life at the end of a very messy day through one of my stories, then…

it’s still a story I’m honored to have been a part of.