A Declaration Of Faith

For months I've blogged here and there on the journey my wife and I have been walking out, a journey that God set us on what feels like forever ago. Using a wrongful firing as an open doorway for me to make writing my full time career, God called us both out of our comfort zones and led us in the direction we've been walking now for almost a year. The lessons we are learning about God and faith are invaluable and will serve as markers for our children someday, not to mention the changes they have sparked in my me and my wife.

That's not to say this path has been easy or even enjoyable all the time. I think my wife and I are so close to the the fulfillment of the promises that God made us that it's easy for me to forget what the promises were to begin with. The end is so very far from the beginning. At the start of this path, God sat down and spoke to us about what the end of the path would hold for us - a living off my writing and widespread influence from my fictional stories. That was a promise. It was a promise that we have been holding onto for so long now, that sometimes I wonder what I'm even doing. Sandstorms come by and blind me to the directions I'm supposed to go in. The storms rage on and try to lure me into worry, doubt and constant anxiety, most of which concerns our finances.

I wrote in another blog that we are living off $1080 a month and we have over $1700 in expenses. But for ten and a half months now God continues to cover all of our bills. My eyes widen each month when I see miracle money come through and take care of things. We always have food in the cupboard, are always able to pay our $840 rent - every month. There is always gas in our tanks and minutes on our phones. This is living by faith.

There are those around us that tell me to get a 'real' job. There are those that tell my wife to get a better paying job. There are those who tell me I'm crazy, and that's fine. Maybe I am. But maybe I am just that someone God is looking for - someone crazy enough to look past the natural and rely on the supernatural to get by. I'm not living this life for kicks. I'm not living it because I love to struggle and strain. I'm not masochistic in any sense of the word. I live this life to obtain the promises of God. I live this life to prove to others that God is capable of miraculous things, if we would only just look for them and believe that they can happen. I live this life to be an example.

Yes, it's been uncomfortable not having extra money to go to a movie or eat out, even at a fast food restaurant. Yes, I doubt sometimes and I even wonder where we're going. I lose focus of the promises, I lose focus of the goal and the purpose God set forth in the beginning. When we are hours from a bill being due, I find myself questioning if God will come through. He does. He always has. There is nothing He hasn't taken care of for us.

Living a life based on necessity for a while instead of living a life based on want is the most challenging path I have ever walked. And it's okay. Because I know that the night is darkest before dawn. I know that whatever I sow into this journey I will reap either along the way or at the very end. And when I am on my knees, my will broken, my carnal self struggling with questions of the Heavenly realms, I feel God's presence and it makes it all worthwhile.

So close, He whispers. You are so close. Don't give up. Be strong, be courageous. Even though the fog is thickest now, even though parts of me want to quit, I won't. I can't. The fulfillment of these promises are right around the corner. So I will hang on, I will hold tightly to the anchor God has set up, stand on the solid foundation while all the storm rages around us. Beyond the pounding rain, beyond the hazy fog, beyond the dark waters, I know the fulfillment of the promise is there. In these last hours though, I will have to put all of my doubts aside and walk by faith to obtain those promises. It will take everything of me but I know at the end, I will be who God always planned me to be at that moment.

I will be a person changed by faith.

Birthday Goodies

With tomorrow being my - gasp! - 31st birthday, I plan on doing what I do every year on my birthday and travel around town to nab all my freebies. Yes, there are loads of birthday freebies out there for the taking, you just have to know where to look. And when I say freebie, I'm not talking about a scoop of ice cream with a candle in it and a half dozen restraunt staff singing 'Happy Birthday' out of tune.

The last I checked, I know here in Gilbert, Arizona, the following are goodies you can snag on your birthday. I'm sure there are others out there, but these are the main ones I am going to be heading for on my special day:

Free Grand Slam breakfast from Denny's - walk in and show your ID

Free dozen donuts from Krispy Kreme - walk in and show your ID

Free ice cream Creation from Coldstone Creamery - register online to become a member of the Birthday Club and you can access a coupon near your birthday to get your free ice cream.

Free $10 credit at Joe's Real BBQ - walk in and show your ID

Free item at Sonic Drive In - register online to become a member. You'll get a coupon emailed to you close to your birthday (I have yet to receive mine this year though...hmmm). I believe last year I got a choice between a free slushy, ice cream or tater tots. I don't really remember though.

Free ice cream at Baskin-Robbins - register online to become a member and you'll receive a coupon in your email for a free ice cream.

Free medium beverage at Dunkin Donuts - register online for their DD Perks club and you'll get a coupon mailed to you the month of your birthday. Mine's on its way!

A New Writing Desk!

Recently, my dad decided to get himself an apartment. In the process, he realized he didn't have room for a desk he's had for over twelve years and so I, seeing an opportunity, requested to have said desk. My dad, as stubborn as he is, said I could 'borrow' it maybe for a year or two until he's able to get back into a house. Borrow has so many interpretations though. ;)

The desk....

is what I would consider to be an upgrade to what I already had...

It took three of us to haul that beast up the stairs to my second floor apartment. Maneuvering it through the hallway and into my office should have required us to have passed a Mensa exam. When we finally got the desk settled in, my wife and I realized how many scrapes and dents had occurred in the walls - nothing some good ol' putty can't fix.

Now the desk is mine - not to borrow, because I'm not sure anyone could get the desk out of the office. Besides, a bit of stain and it will be good as new, and will hopefully be able to be passed down to my future children.

A Declaration Of Genre

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. I know, I know, it's a dangerous thing, but I couldn't help myself. I've really been pondering this fence I've been sitting on lately - the fence of what niche and/or genre my writing falls into.

For a very long while, I had the great idea that I would market my work as science fiction/fantasy, even though my writing has Christian themes in it. I figured I would skip trying to market in the Christian fiction category because it seems so small, so rare - aside of course from big names like Frank Peretti, Ted Dekker or Tosca Lee.

Well, lately I've felt led to the thought process that maybe that plan isn't really God's will for my career. I recently joined a group called the Lost Genre Guild - a group of authors who specialize in the genres that my writing falls into. And seeing this group of people made me realize that there is a dire need for great Christian fiction. And I'm not really talking about regular Christian fiction either. I'm really referring to edgy Christian fiction - edgy, in my opinion, being more than just your regular PG or PG-13 rated novel.

Most of my work as of late could be classified under the R rating. Mixed in with a heaping of science fiction and fantasy are themes of redemption in the midst of real characters who deal with death, demons, rape, time travel and apocalyptic plots. My own mother has voiced her disappointment in my writing, but that's not saying much considering she raised me to believe that Stephen King was evil. I am nowadays a huge fan of his and am thoroughly enjoying his Dark Tower series.

I don't write about questionable topics to shock, I write to be real, to bring to life characters that everyone can relate to in some shape or form, and to bring to light the evil that we are all facing everyday - the seen and the unseen. I do respect the Christian authors who write science fiction and fantasy and can keep their subject matter appropriate for all ages, but I am definitely not led down that same path. And I think that's a great thing, because everyone has different preferences.

I write what I would like to read - edgy Christian fiction. Not every other line in my manuscripts have a sermon to preach, but the overall themes I try to convey in my fiction is redemption, and good overcoming evil. Pure and simple. I mix in some horror (because writing about demons wouldn't be the same if they weren't tearing things to shreds or scaring the heck out of humans) and add a dash of romance to finish things off. All in all, those who read my work get a healthy dose of something I believe has taken me years to compile and create - something that isn't seen a lot of out there.

And that's where my work comes in. A lost genre? Maybe. Probably just one that has fallen through the cracks and needs to be pointed out to a world that is searching for answers, a world that wants something to relate to. For the longest time I hid my work in the general sci fi/fantasy genre because I only really wanted non-Christians to pick it up. But I've come to realize that it isn't just non-Christians who need to hear stories of hope in a dark world. Everyone needs to hear of hope. And I as a Christian have always kept an eye out for edgy Christian novels. Ted Dekker comes to mind as the closest example I can think of. I love Tosca Lee's unique approach to stories as well.

So from here on out I'm an edgy Christian fiction author. Edgy in the strictest sense of the word. And I will help to bring focus to this beautiful genre because I think it is one that can benefit so many people - both with entertainment value and with themes of the straight and narrow path.

Black Earth Finally Available In Ebook Format!

Whew. That was a mess. I've been struggling for months now trying to get Black Earth: End of the Innocence into ebook format and have been failing miserably. I remember in the good ol' days when you simply had to convert your Word document into a PDF in order to distribute it as an ebook that people could read on their computers. That's still the case of course, but now there are reading devices like the Nook, the Kindle and other various types that use different formats like Epub, Mobi and LRF. I was ready to pull my hair out trying to find tutorials online to instruct me on how to format my manuscript for these devices.

Luckily, I came across a website called Smashwords. Smashwords takes my manuscript and pushes it through their Meatgrinder technology and out comes my ebook in all of the formats mentioned above (and more). They provide a manual for you to follow that explains step by step how to strip your Microsoft Word document of all formatting anomalies, and then they assist you in obtaining an ISBN# for your Epub editions and even allow you to create your own coupon codes to promote sales. Smashwords was indeed a lifesaver.

So now Black Earth: End of the Innocence is available in ebook. So if you own a Nook, a Kindle, or one of the other popular devices, head on over to my page on Smashwords and grab yourself a copy. If you use coupon code LD49R during checkout anytime between now and my birthday (June 12th) you can get it for only $4 instead of the retail price of $7. :)

The Waiting Game

I did it! I finally handed in my manuscript for Black Earth: The Broken Daisy to my editor at the end of last week. This freed me up to continue work on formatting Black Earth: End of the Innocence for ebook editions on Smashwords. I was having some major problems formatting my Word doc and thought I might end up having to 'nuke' my manuscript - essentially strip it of all its formatting and then go back in and put it all back in - but God willing I was able to get it to work right today. Now I'm just waiting for approval from Smashwords so I can get my ISBN #'s and finalize the ebooks.

*Big sigh of relief* Finishing BE: TBD was a challenge - it is the largest novel I have ever written and/or tried to publish - and I actually came across points where I didn't even know if the book would get finished because the story kept expanding. Now that it is done, I just have to wait for my editor to finish her work on it before I can move forward in self-publishing it. I'm stuck in a waiting period with the ebook too, as the people at Smashwords look my manuscript over to make sure I did everything right with the ebook.

With all of this waiting, I'm left questioning what direction to go now. I do need to work on the cover design for BE: TBD, but my wife needs to help me with that and she works the first half of this week. I need to market my novels more, find some creative ways to get more people to purchase and/or read BE: EOTI so I can get some reader reviews/blurbs to post on my website. I also have the Expired Reality series to overhaul which is guaranteed to be a pretty big project in itself - 2 novels to be re-edited, 1 novel to be rewritten, and a novella that I need to find a place for. There's The LZR Project (which is an extension of the Expired Reality series), which I wanted to release months ago, but the drafts aren't even finished for that yet. I have dozens of books staring at me, books that have been waiting to be read, to be explored, to be perused - Tosca Lee's Demon: A Memoir, Brent Weeks' Way of Shadows and even Koushun Takami's Battle Royale are among the masses.

On top of all that, I have another special project I have been wanting to work on for quite a while now regarding another character in my Expired Reality series. Alas, that one will have to wait a bit until all of the forementioned is finished. No rest for a creator of worlds.

Magna Carta: Tears of Blood

For the last year or so I've been keeping my eyes open for a deal on this game. Even though it got average to low reviews for its gameplay and innovation, I love RPGs and I'm in love with the character art in Magna Carta (done by Hyung-tae Kim). So when I found it at Bookmans used book store last week, I grabbed it with the trade credit I had on hand. The disc is in good condition and the strategy guide, instruction manual, poster and case - all which come with this deluxe box set - are in mint condition.

I've managed to play a few hours of it already and although I like the graphics (which are pretty good considering I'm playing it on my PS2) and the storyline, I'm not certain how I feel about the gameplay yet. The game claims to have over 50+ hours of play, so we'll see how I feel after some more hours are put into it.

Update On Black Earth 2

So the time has come to where I have to hand Black Earth: The Broken Daisy over to my editor. Next Friday morning is when I am giving her the manuscript and I am still a fair distance from being finished. I am already a month or so over the point in time I wanted to give her the book. The novel novel's original word count was somewhere around 120,000 and now it hovers around 180,000. I started with over 600 side notes in the Microsoft Word document and I'm below 200 now. I have messed with the time/space continuum and introduced a whole cast of characters before the end of the first book that now I have a lot more than I'd like to keep an eye on.

I've realized that this is the biggest challenge I have ever undertaken when it comes to writing. I probably could have split this book into two and had book two and  three done at the same time, but I'm going to keep it all together as the second book in the series. It will give readers more to embrace while they wait for the third.

Most of the edits that I have left to do are consistency issues - dates, times, character wardrobes - all the little details that not all readers really pay attention to. This is an even bigger project because everything also has to tie in with my Expired Reality series that takes place 100 years from the events of Black Earth.

I'll have the novel done by next week. I think my editor is going to take a month to get her edits done and I should be able to release it to the public in August. Then it's back to the Expired Reality series. I should also have some cover art for everyone to look at in the next month and maybe an excerpt or two.

No rest for a creator of worlds. *sigh* :p

The Stand - (Book Review)

When I first picked up a copy of Stephen King’s, The Stand - The Complete and Uncut Edition, in my local Borders Book Store, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was in for. The book is more than an inch and a half thick and over 1100 pages long. I am still in the middle of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series and those books themselves are pretty long, especially Wizard and Glass. But those seem to pale in comparison to the scope that this one novel tries to cover.

The story was great despite its minor shortcomings. A super virus destroys most of mankind and what’s left are various survivors trying to pull themselves together in a world of emptiness and destruction. The apocalyptic terrain that King created in this book is absolutely amazing. The loneliness the characters felt was loneliness that I felt right along with them. Death is around every corner, the corpses of people hit by the virus hiding in dark houses, along littered highways wrought with steel coffins. They are everywhere, a continuous reminder that life is so incredibly fragile.

The book is separated into three parts. The first part seems to be completely designed to introduce most if not all of the characters and their dreams - either of ‘the Dark Man,’ Randall Flagg, who is calling those with an impure heart to Las Vegas - or of Mother Abigail, a 108 year old black woman, who is calling those of a good heart to an old shack in Nebraska. The second part of the book describes the set up of Vegas and of Boulder, Colorado - the location that Mother Abigail moves her people to. Most of this section is about Mother Abigail’s group and how they enforce law and set up a committee and various other establishments that fell during the apocalyptic outbreak. The third part is the final stand off between good and evil, between the main characters from Mother Abigail’s group and Randall Flagg’s group.

There are so many characters in the story that I’m not going to bother listing them. My favorite was Nick Andros, the deaf mute. The characters were real, they were creative, and they were brilliantly brought forth on the pages of the book. Even when a character was only in the book for a page or two, they felt so incredibly dynamic. The reactions that each character has to the world that is falling apart around them was right on and I could tell that King put some time and energy into making sure of that.

What I love about Stephen King’s writing as I read more of his books is the way he ties in characters from one series into another. Randall Flagg is also the main protagonist in the Dark Tower series and I think he is one of the best villains I have read. He is the embodiment of pure evil, the very core of what is wrong with the world. That being said, I was a bit disappointed with the ending of the book. It felt very anticlimactic. When I expected a final showdown between the characters and one of the darkest beings the world has ever seen, I was bummed at how Randall Flagg was actually taken out of the picture. On top of that, some of the epilogue-style ending chapters seemed to serve no real purpose. I do agree that King should have had the basis of those chapters in the novel in some capacity, seeing how the reader ends up investing so much time into the book, but I think he could have done without some of the long, drawn out scenes he used.

This leads me to the biggest complaint I have about the novel: King has too much exposition in some parts of the book. I understand that uncut means uncut, but I’ve noticed the same thing about King in some of the Dark Tower books as well. There’s just too much description about things that don’t really progress the novel or carry the storyline further ahead.

Another complaint I have about the book is the uneven scenes. I would read very long chapters about one particular character only to get to the next chapter about another character and find the story has backtracked to run parallel with the chapter before it. This made me have to stop and figure out where I was exactly - chronologically speaking - in the book. I think the chapters could have been leveled out a little more evenly and the pace tuned up a bit.

All in all, The Stand is phenomenal and a definite must-read before dying. Put it on your bucket list. Just don’t purchase the uncut edition in paperback if you get headaches easily. The version I purchased from my local Borders had an extremely small font which only allowed me to read it in intervals. I probably would have been better off buying the eBook version and reading it on my computer.

I give the book four and a half stars out of five.

The Destiny Project?

I've never really been interested in writing non-fiction, aside from the ten volume memoir I plan to start working on someday. Speaking with a friend last night though left me with the realization that maybe it would benefit many others if I did write a book about the experiences that my wife and I have been through on this journey from me being fired to becoming a known author worldwide.

When God promised my wife and I that He would take care of our rent and all of the rest of our provisions on this adventure, He meant it. And month after month I see miracles that leave me speechless. And month after month, as my human nature comes out, my faith struggles to trust in Him for the next monthly dose of finances. It is life. It is life being lived out in faith.

I'm not sure when I'll start this project. First I have to finish the sequel to Black Earth: End of the Innocence. It's due to my editor 3/4 of the way through May and I'm not even in my final draft yet. Then I have the overhaul of the Expired Reality series I have to work on. Maybe once all of that is cleared from my list of things that should have been done last year, I'll have time to work on it.

I've been wondering what to name it. The Destiny Project, maybe? In hindsight, it would have benefited me to be keeping a journal the last nine months to record everything so I don't have to pull it all from memory, but now I'll know better for next time...