Grant Warren will have me as his guest on By the Fireplace Wednesday at 10 p.m. Central time, which will be 11 p.m. for me. Look for By the Fireplace on blogtalkradio.com . I think. You can listen on your computer.
We will be talking about my Bell Mountain novels. I’ve done a number of interviews, but this will be the first time I talk with anyone who has actually read any of my work.
Be prepared to laugh pityingly as I unlimber my slow, creaky, rapidly-aging voice, and pray I don’t say anything better left unsaid.
My editor, Susan, wanted me to see this: first a poem, Watches of the Night, and then a song, Jesus, Draw Me Nearer, performed by Keith and Kristin Getty.
It’s beautiful, and full of echoes of the Book of Psalms. But to Susan it also brought to mind a character in my Bell Mountain books–Ryons, the slave boy who is rescued from human sacrifice to become, by God’s grace, the King of Obann.
Ryons doesn’t want to be a king. What does he know about such things? He has hardly had a proper childhood. He hates sending men who love him into battle, and they might not return. He’s terrified of some of the things he has to do, some of the places he has to go. But what he learns is faith and obedience, and going on when you’re too scared to go, and following God’s angel when you don’t know where he’s taking you.
I am very humbly glad that anything I could write might be linked to such beautiful and prayerful music as this.
But I tell you right up front, it wasn’t any literary genius of mine, but only writing what God gave me. To Him be the glory!
Okay, I understand: people in your home town see you in the flesh and conclude you can’t be of any importance. It’s hard to impress people who know you.
My books used to occupy a nice place on the shelves at my local library. But since the arrival of a new library director, my books have been banished to a “Local Authors” ghetto in the most remote region of the building, along with Mrs. Gesundheit’s genealogical researches and Grandpa Fongo’s reflections on the best local parade of 1956. One more step, and these books would be under the floorboards.
When I asked the new library director to please restore my books to their former place, she looked at me quizzically, the way Godzilla looks at a power plant before he kicks it to smithereens, and said, “Well, you are self-published, aren’t you?” Like any Local Author couldn’t possibly be good enough to be paid for his work.
For the sake of those among you who do publish your own writing, I will limit the description of my reply to the word “no.”
Anyhow, I looked again today and my books are still in the Local Authors ghetto where no one in this town will ever discover them and read them.
No, I’m not talking baseball here–I mean 3,000 hits on this blog for the month of September.
I’ve never reached 3,000 hits in a month, but I’m sooooo close! Another 200 will do it.
So if you like this blog, and wish to support it, please turn out in force, tonight and during the next two days. Tell your friends about it! Browse the Archives for articles you’ve missed. Click “Books” and enjoy the artwork and the blurbs.
