Brett Armstrong's Blog, page 12

Where Do You Get This Stuff?

 

Recently I was looking over the blog posts I’ve done so far and realized I never explained how Destitutio Quod Remissio came to be. Since this is often a question people ask, particularly how it got its title, I thought I would finally give the book’s background.

First of all, I have to say, DQR would never have come into being were it not for the guiding of the Lord. If you open the book to the dedication page it says: “This book is dedicated to the glory of God, Whose forgiveness brings light into the darkness of man’s destitution and without Whom there would be no words worth writing. Throughout the entire process I felt very much guided by the Lord and more than any other story I’ve worked on, this one seemed to write itself. That may sound strange to a non-writer, but I’ve often said the best way to describe writing a novel is, it’s like getting an advance copy of a book you would want to read.

                The literal timeline for the book began in January of 2009 when I was in my second fiction writing course at WVU. We were given two short story writing assignments that semester and for the first one I had a very clear image in my mind’s eye of a home on fire and a man, the homeowner, coming upon it unawares. I knew I wanted to deal with the themes of forgiveness and reversal of fortune, because I feel like the latter can really highlight the first and make it all the more beautiful. Also, growing up as a Christian, I was touched deeply and early on by the stories of martyrs. Out of those strands, DQR, as a short story, was woven together. The title was even present at that time, which I must admit was initially chosen in an artful fit intended to lend the right feel to the story from the opening (you can read more about the title, and its significance and meaning I later realized, in this post: ).

When it came time to get the story critiqued by the class I was shocked to find out it resonated very well, even with non-Christian students. A number of my classmates offered that night to help me transform the short story (about 10 or so pages long) into a novel, if I so desired. Hearing that really stunned me, because I had never given thought to transforming my course work short stories into novels. Particularly DQR, because I felt at the time it was finished. At some point I may share the original story on here, but it is sufficient for now to say the story was a bittersweet one and had a number of similarities and differences from the novel in print.

After that semester I actually ended up doing the novelization of the second short story I wrote for the class, The Fire and the Fount. Doing so took almost two years, and after if I finished another novel, The Journey. So by the final semester of my undergraduate time at WVU, I was in need of a project to do my creative writing capstone on. Remembering peer comments from three years prior, DQR seemed the ideal fit. Over the course of January to May 2012 I wrote about 22,000 words of DQR. The cap stone project portions are chapters 1-4, 13-14, with some modifications, of course. You might notice I had a pretty big gap inserted in the final chapter layout, which was intentional. I did the first four chapters and then jumped ahead in the planned storyline to do some important scenes in the book that I wanted feedback on. The nice thing about WVU’s creative writing capstone is they let you do occasional peer critiques with small groups of classmates, but you get to have regular reviews and feedback from a MFA student. The MFA student who helped me was Rebecca Thomas, and I should mention my professor was James Harms. Both of them really helped guide me at the start and encourage me in my work. As did the professor of my short story class, Emily Mitchell.

After I graduated, I kept working on DQR in spare time, while starting a new job at the state of West Virginia’s Division of Infectious Disease Epidemiology. I do their web programming for them and data mining from the infectious disease tracking system. On top of that my fiancée at the time, Shelly, and I began planning for a February wedding. In April of 2013 I started a masters program with SNHU, all the while working away on DQR. By the end of 2013 it was finished and I found out about a contest being held by CrossBooks, which was an imprint of LifeWay/B & H Publishers. I entered the newly finished DQR.

I tried my best not to look at any contest announcements leading up to their selection of the winner in April of 2014. I also tried to pray with sincere heart, asking the Lord to let the book win only if it would bring glory and honor to Him and though it would be hard for me to accept, if He willed for someone else’s entry to win, to help me with that as well.

On the 14th, I got a phone call while at work that I wasn’t able to answer. I didn’t see the number or bother listening until I got home that evening. I might not have checked the voicemail even then had my wife not gotten a phone call from her brother in Florida, which left me idle for a while. There are not words for how excited I felt and how blessed and absolutely erupting with thanks to the Lord when I heard the message say DQR had won the contest. I’ve been writing original stories since I was nine, and finding out this one, this novel which was so dear to my heart, would be published had me jumping up and down!

There was a lot of aspects of preparing a book for publication I hadn’t ever considered. I thought the book was finished, but ended up doing three or so rounds of edits, throughout the book (not major changes, but ones I felt were significant), many of them adding layers of historical authenticity to even minute elements of the story (i.e. what seasoning, furniture and building materials would the Romans have used, etc.). It was a good experience and really tightened up the book. By the end of the process, I had to decide to keep the title in Latin as it was, or choose an English title. I agonized over it quite a bit, before I really started considering what the title means (again see that previous blog post to get those details). In the end, the title was tied too significantly to the book’s core theme and I couldn’t do away with it.

This might have been the long winded way to say DQR began as a short story with a very clear opening scene and basic themes, and with the hands of the Lord guiding me like a master painter does a brush, it was made into what it is today. As much as I thought I knew of writing, my experience with this novel in particular has instructed me on so much more.

Shake It Off

 

“And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate… I shake it off, I shake it off.”

– “Shake It Off”, Taylor Swift

I tend to read a fair number of articles from AnswersInGenesis.com each week. For those unfamiliar with the site, it is a Creationist apologetics ministry. Regardless of what one thinks about the age of the earth debate, AIG does an excellent job of presenting research in a variety of scientific fields and examining the data from a biblical perspective. Often they will point out biases that lead to researchers in secular science not presenting an accurate picture of reality. Again, this is not to start a creationism vs scientism debate, but it does lead to a point I think the American church is missing in our modern era. In historical fiction, and writing about history in general, context is important. It gives clarity and understanding of events and actions of the long past. Without it, it can be easy to misinterpret things and as a writer, it can really throw the audience/reader off. Perhaps it is due to my reading the AIG articles, but I’m acutely aware there is a perception pervading popular culture that the Bible and Christianity are in opposition to science and vice versa. That is unfortunate, because it really does a disservice to the presentation of the Gospel, and leaves some without a wonderful insight into the intricacies of God’s creative work. However, there are a couple things we must understand. Science itself is not in opposition to the Bible, science is merely a discipline representative of an approach to gleaning knowledge in what should be an orderly and rationale manner. Science is not against the Bible, but a number of scientists are.

It is at this point where the distinction between science and a scientist’s suppositions are most important, because, as in the study of history, one’s interpretation and biases invariably arrive in the final outcome. One would not expect a writer’s voice and inner ethos to be absent from his or her writing or even a given paint brush to not add an ever so slight nuance to the strokes on a canvas. Likewise, scientists can, intentionally or not, carry their predilections into their findings. Case in point: Archaeology is a fascinating scientific field and one I’ve studied a bit. It’s akin to being a detective for the past. It’s not as glamorous as Indiana Jones makes it out to be, but still enjoyable to a certain degree. After the painstaking parts, and an archaeologist makes and reports a finding, typically historians will then pick up that kernel of insight into the past and adjust their discourse on the related culture, period, etc. However, the interpretation of artifacts found by archaeologist and historian can become an exercise in subjectivity.

I had a history course in college, the material was centered on ancient Mediterranean civilizations (at the time I took it hoping to get insights for DQR) of which ancient Israel was covered. You can probably guess where this is going. Besides dragging out the tired and utterly refuted document hypothesis theory for the Old Testament and the absurd, but persistent, contention that the Gospels were written in the 2nd Century AD (also long since refuted); on particular point in the course vexed me. The instructor drew particular attention to archaeological discoveries of artifacts that seem to refer to the LORD by the term Baal or associate Him with Ashtoreth. Baal and Ashtoreth were false Canaanite deities, but as the term baal also meant “lord” the Canaanites tended to refer to false deities they worshipped as baals. This finding, the professor asserted, proved Israel was polytheistic and implied that the anomalous notion of Israel as the sole major monotheistic religion of early history was a later construct. A fabrication, though he wouldn’t outright say that. Such a fact would be devastating to the Judeo-Christian worldview. But wait, is it? Consider these verses form the book of Hosea, written around the 8th Century BC by a minor prophet God sent to the northern kingdom of Israel (which corresponds to the archaeological find both temporally and geographically): “In that day—this is the Lord’s declaration—you will call Me, ‘My husband,’ and no longer call Me, ‘My Baal.’  For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth; they will no longer be remembered by their names.” (Hosea 2:16-17). See how the Bible minces no words here? The same facts are corroborated in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. Israel was apostate and worshipping other gods and relegating the LORD to the same level as the false Canaanite baals. So, it makes sense to find an inscription from roughly that timeframe referring to the LORD in such a blasphemous way. The evidence really serves to highlight the reliability, integrity, and utility of the Bible for understanding history, but the archaeological finding, interpreted by those predisposed to distrusting the Bible use it as a weapon against Scripture.

It is clear, some scientists, not all scientists and certainly not science itself, are at odds with the Bible. Remember I mentioned context is important, well Christianity’s beginnings have a contextual basis that is increasingly not so different from our current world. Consider what the Apostle Paul said, “Where is the philosopher? Where is the scholar? Where is the debater of this age? Hasn’t God made the world’s wisdom foolish?  For since, in God’s wisdom, the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of the message preached.  For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.  Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom, because God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength… Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong.” (1 Corinthians 1:20-25, 27 HCSB).

Many people would be surprised to know atheism and belief in a “self-existent” universe are not new, but rather tired philosophical positions espoused by ancient Greek philosophers and others. These notions existed in the Roman Empire at the same time Paul made the above statements. Paul goes on to say, “…people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them.  For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse.  For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened.” (Romans 1:18-21 HCSB) I would argue Paul’s advice to: “…pay attention to Jewish myths and the commands of men who reject the truth… But avoid foolish debates, genealogies, quarrels, and disputes about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. ” (Titus 1:14, 3:9 HCSB) is also equally relevant today and applies to the Gnostic and Coptic mystery gospels (like the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Mary Magdalene, etc.) that seem to enthrall many (which I most note were without doubt written so late in the second and third centuries as to be of doubtful veracity and content, but more on that another time).

So, what do all of these verses teach us? Essentially, the so called wise and intelligent people of Paul’s day, the so-called religious experts, and the sensationalist fabrications out there all looked on Christianity with disdain and accused it of being nonsensical and foolish. Yet, Paul went toe-to-toe with these very people time and again: “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, since it is written: He catches the wise in their craftiness; and again, The Lord knows that the reasonings of the wise are meaningless.” (1 Corinthians 3:19-20 HCSB) He did not back down and compromise the Gospel’s message because some people, even influential people, found it questionable. Paul never wavered on the truth of the Christ’s resurrection or the Scriptures. We act today as though we must apologize for what the Bible says, as if some knowledge or wisdom or opinion displaces it. Hardly. From the beginning, those who “claiming to be wise…” have “…exchanged the glory of the immortal God…” and “…worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator.” (Romans 1:23, 25 HCSB) If millennia later men do the exact same thing, why should we be discouraged or surprised? Again, a primary reason for composing DQR was to give believers today some context. As it was in days past, so it is becoming today. “Evil people and impostors will become worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed.” (2 Timothy 3:13-14 HCSB)

If Paul believed men would get worse, even as he lived in Rome of the first century AD, imagine what lies ahead for believers of the not so distant future to face. I say all of this to encourage those reading to not let the words of unbelieving scoffers deter you from faith in Christ and the Bible. “Always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” (1 Peter 3:15b HCSB) That’s the root of apologetics. Not an apology as we know it, but a reasoned defense of what we believe. What is it the Taylor Swift song says? “Haters gonna hate, hate, hate…” Unbelievers are going to doubt and the subversive will seek to mask the truth and the wicked will do evil and hate us. “If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me before it hated you.” (John 15:18 HCSB) Don’t let it discourage you from trusting the Scriptures. “Shake it off,” and keep standing firm.

Real Change, Real Belief

“Change you can believe in.” That was on the bumper of a car that passed me on the interstate the other day; President Obama’s platform during his first campaign. Obviously the slogan resonates differently with me than a political promise. In fact, I think viewing it from the vantage point of the image at left really helps put things in perspective.

DQR is certainly about persecution in the past, but additionally, it is aimed to remind us that even in the US there is a day looming on the horizon when Christians will have to stand or fall in their faith. When the Apostle Paul said, “… all those who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,” (2 Timothy 3:12, HCSB) it was not for shock value. To an extent, we all face rejection and suffering for displaying sincerity in serving Jesus Christ. What the story of DQR taught me was we must live out our faith independent of the societal context we are living in. For more than two centuries, Christians in the US enjoyed incredible freedom and potential to act as leaven (an influence on) the culture around them. But as many wise speakers in recent years, notably Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis, have pointed out quite succinctly, that time is passing. It is sufficient to say the causes behind the decline of the church in America may primarily stem from the distracted way we in the Church lived our lives. We cannot, however, equate America with our faith and certainly not as God’s chosen people. He calls everyone, but an affirmative response is required. As heartbreaking as it may be, we have to recognize that “… many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.” (Philippians 3:18, HCSB). Society is forgetting what positive moral influences Christianity had on it and moving towards something more akin to the world during Christianity’s birthing.

That is not to say we shouldn’t plead and petition to try and steer our nation from sin. But we have to start focusing on our own idolatry, complacency, and numbness to the message Christ has imparted to us. We are His ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20) and we need to live every moment in the light of that truth. Men won’t always endure sound teaching (2 Timothy 4:3), in the early days of the Church, many thought the message of the cross was foolishness. Believers faced social exile, beatings, and even death for their faith, but they still believed and persevered. (It’s also worth noting that Paul instructed believers to pray for the leaders of their day, even though many wanted to kill Christians or at least had a healthy distaste for them). We have to be sincere and live out our faith daily before others, forsaking all this world’s charms in favor of our Savior, Jesus Christ, the Lord of all. Only then will we be able to stand fast in our faith and shine like stars in the night (Philippians 2:15) as we were meant to.

In DQR, Marcus starts off having lost everything of worldly value. Yet it was these very things that imprisoned him and kept him from pursuing God and His will as he always should have. Similarly, we often allow what we have to keep us from following after God with full sincerity and zeal. That’s not to say that having possessions is bad or that we must all drop everything and rush to apply to be missionaries. Even in the early church, some believers never left Jerusalem when sharing the Gospel. But there is a fine line between having possessions and being had by them. I do not claim to have mastered that balance, only to have become acutely aware during the writing of DQR that as Marcus delved more and more deeply into seeking God’s purpose for his life, the things of this world he had lost, and even those that he had gained back, ceased to be of consequence. Against all intuition, we are asked to place more value on those things that we cannot see and will not see till standing before our Savior at our earthly life’s end, than what we can experience with our senses. It is an issue, I feel, stems back to the fall of man in Eden. There, man did not follow God and love Him properly when he had everything and had perfect perception of God, thus we now pursue God by faith. God proves us to be true for eternity in His presence by living out lives of faith (Faith being,”… the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” – Hebrews 11:1, ESV) in His Son’s atoning work. I’m not suggesting that we maintain our salvation through works. God must carry us even in our faith, but our reliance on Him to do so serves us better than our feeble attempts to manage our souls ever could.

So, to summarize, the things of this world have distracted us for too long and we have chosen to pursue too much of this life’s contents, good and bad. We are commanded to make a change, to turn and follow God with all our hearts, and when we do we are transformed, just as Marcus was in DQR. There is one source from which the change can and must originate, in Jesus Christ Himself, and that is truly a change you can believe in.

Before and Beyond the Grave

 

The other day I was thinking about how short life is, particularly compared to the incomprehensible stretch of eternity. James the half-brother of the Lord said, “…yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” (James 4:14) That seems like a fairly accurate description of how brief our time in this world can be. It doesn’t help we too often are flippant about our use of time. We bide it, kill it, and wait things out. None of that is to say we shouldn’t be still, meditative, wait on the Lord (Psalm 27:14), what I’m getting at is our regard for the seconds and minutes and hours of our lives is very poor and subject to waste. They sieve through our fingers and it isn’t until we see the mound of sand adding up to months and years and even decades that we take notice. There is no moment guaranteed to us, yet we regard life in such a way as if it were, we presume so much. But our lives are not our own when we belong to Christ and we have to be careful to redeem the time we have on this earth (Ephesians 5:16).

While thinking on the subject of the brevity of life, something over which I’ve been troubled for some time, the Lord gave me a breakthrough. For a long time I rationalized how short our stay in this world is based on comparisons in the natural world. The length of time we’re in our mother’s womb versus our lifetimes or the time spent on vacation before coming home. Both seem like fitting parallels, but I always felt like I was missing something deeper about it. The starkness of death, the sudden and sweeping feeling of unease it so often evokes in us demanded looking further. The world, after all, is obsessed with death. So often in the stories we read, particularly cherished classics and new favorites, death is the centerpiece. Just look at the popularity of The Hunger Games series or detective dramas on television. I watched the series Psych for years before stopping to recognize it was comedy where someone almost always was killed. The drama of life and death is captivating to us. It’s extremely relatable, as we are assured, “… it is appointed for people to die once—and after this, judgment…” (Hebrews 9:27) As Christians we understand that death is a result of sin and sin entered the world at the Fall when man chose to assert himself as his god rather than serve the LORD. It’s really starting from there that the Lord helped me come to a better place of understanding about life and death.

Much like my previous apologetics post on the reasonableness of the Gospel’s foundations, this too has a kind of cyclic element to it. Not that things are in a continuous cycle as Hindu reincarnation tries to teach, but rather that God is bringing history and man back to a similar place of fellowship and union with Him, which existed before the Fall of man. In that vein of thought, life now on earth wasn’t formed to be a phase preceding eternity, it was to be a continual state for man. It was only after the Fall where the curse of death fell on man’s body and spirit. We often see life before physical death as distinct from thereafter, but really Christ redeems us to give us both new spiritual and physical life at the same time. In other words, eternal life begins at salvation and continues without end, save the mortal body under the curse is destroyed and replaced by a new body prepared for each believer. As in my previous post, it bears mentioning that it was by man’s act of defiance that sin entered the world and condemned him, but it was God’s work at Calvary which demands an act of obedience and submission of us now. The Lord is restoring things to the way they should have been and what we see as transitory is really a facet of our eternity. So, I suppose what I’m getting at is, the Lord helped me see life as a sentence that man’s rebellion required God to insert punctuation into. What comes after the punctuation can be what the Lord always intended to follow unbroken before the Fall or take on the character of rebellion and rejection that resulted in death in the first place.

Death is such a heavy thing to contemplate, and it is no coincidence that God left the authoritative word on what happens after it to His Son, Who after sacrificing Himself for our sins, opened the door to continuing the sentence of life when He rose from the dead. The passage from the instant of death to a new life thereafter is mysterious to us and again is without surprise in its requirement of faith. We have to trust the Lord Jesus to restore us to life eternal, just as He trusted He would be able to raise Himself to life. This isn’t to diminish the harsh reality of death, but to offer some perspective.

Most importantly, in the midst of all the tragedy of death and sin in our world, we have this sure hope: “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered…” (Revelation 5:5, ESV)

There Ain’t No Disguising the Truth

“People think I’m strange, does it make me a stranger, that my best friend was born in a manger.”

-DC Talk, “Jesus Freak”

             The song I quoted above was one of my favorite in high school. Its words are a challenge I was recently reminded of and on which DQR is built. Many Christians are aware that the original twelve apostles, besides John, died horrible deaths as martyrs. Persecutions under Roman Emperors Nero, Domitian, and Diocletian are also fairly well known. To a lesser extent people are aware of the persecutions against Protestants up to and during the reformation era. What many of us fail to realize, or at least recognize in such a way as it spurs us to action, are persecutions of equal violence and vehemence are suffered and endured by believers the world over this very second. From executions to ostracization and social ridicule, Christians are facing increasing opposition and marginalization from the world.

Gradually the US is becoming no exception to this trend. Intensifying persecution and a plethora of parallels

               I also must add, while it can be infuriating to read a rant where someone bashes the Bible using arguments so often with little merit, at no point should we believers ever allow ourselves to become bitter and hateful towards unbelievers. Another of DQR’s purposes was to be a meditative reflection on Colossians 3:12-13. If we forgive as Christ forgave and have His heart, then how can we do anything but lament for those who are enemies of the cross: “ For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.” (Philippians 3:18)

Looking for a Sign… or a Symbol

 

 

Recently I was sitting in church listening to a Nigerian missionary my church supports, and his sermon made mention of mathematics. At times my thoughts can begin very far from where they end, but this time it produced a valuable realization about God’s visibility in the natural world. In order to establish my reasoning I should give some background. If you’re familiar with the M. Night Shyamalan film Unbreakable, then forgive my summarizing for others. Essentially, a man born with a disease that makes his bones extremely fragile, Elijah (played by Samuel L. Jackson), takes it upon himself to find his opposite in life. That is someone who has the reverse of his condition and is so durable the person would be “unbreakable.”

Infinity Symbol

 

Now, consider the history of mathematics, many of the Enlightenment pioneers of mathematics began their inquiry into the nature of mathematical infinity, as a way to prove God’s existence. As you might guess there are a great many people who use these mathematician’s work without sharing their theistic convictions. But perhaps they have not considered a fascinating detail or rather collection of them.

 

Everyone wants to be able to see the immortal and invisible God. Skeptics feel that there should be greater evidence of His presence in the natural world. A fingerprint, as it were, because generally we consider fingerprints to be evidence that a person has touched something. Now, bearing all the aforementioned in mind, if Enlightenment mathematician’s exercise, not unlike Elijah’s in Unbreakable, was meant to explore the existence of an infinite being with the notion that He must be if there are such things as discrete, finite beings, then the fingerprint of God is in the infinite. Here’s what I mean. For centuries, millennia, man has been examining the natural world pushing his knowledge to its furthest reaches in mathematics, astronomy, physics – in particular quantum physics; and one concept is integral to these pursuits, indeed is integral to the description of how our universe functions at the greatest macroscopic levels and most minute subatomic levels: infinity.

In a discrete world bounded by the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, everything is laced with the underlying concept of infinity. Yet there is no practical experience of infinity available in the natural world, save one. The infinite, eternal, and blessed Creator, God. In His wondrous work of forming the universe, He left His invisible fingerprints on everything. We can recognize His work and only through it are we able to come closer to fully understanding the universe’s working. If other proofs are ignored it is no surprise this will be either, but God has indeed imbued His divine tool marks on the universe in accordance with Romans 1. So that whether desensitized through intellect to the wonders of the natural world or not, everyone is without excuse for ignoring the evidence of His presence and His power amongst us. I suppose it is akin to the adage of not being able to see the forest for the trees.

 

The thoughts are bit scattered, but hopefully you can come away with the same incredible realization I did. Men want to see proof of God in the natural world. Our universe and everything in it is finite, yet conceptually everything is built around the notion of the infinitesimal and the infinite. If we cannot begin to conceive of our modern world and the knowledge we’ve acquired without depending on the concept of infinity to do it, then perhaps we should step back and realize that in all our searching for God’s mark on our world, we too often neglect to observe the obvious.

My First Novel in Print…Sort of

Since this is my blog’s first post, I guess it only makes sense to start off with something pretty special to commemorate the event.  Recently I had the opportunity to get a proof copy of the novel I finished writing in February of this year.  After two and a half years of work, the 15 page short story for my second WVU creative writing class is now in print… sort of.  I don’t yet have a publisher for the book, or even an agent.  This is my first attempt at publication so I tend to get passed over when I send out query letters.  My lovely fiancee, the crochetting artist, has been doing her best to keep my spirits high and help me through the process to getting my novel into print for real. 

     In the meantime, the proof copy was a lot of fun to make.  It has covers with my own custom made artwork and every chapter has an image above the heading.  Not to mention… cream colored pages.  Ohh yes, I’m very proud of that.  Seriously though, it feels good to hold it, even if it hasn’t yet made it out there like I want.  Just have to have faith that God will help me through that process as well, because He definitely helped me through the penning of each word.

     For those who made the trip to see my new blog I included the “Pitch” for the novel.  I hope you like it, and welcome comments, bad or (even more welcome) good. 

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