Resources by Topic: Writing

I seek to read and think and use my imagination, and improve my writing skills. I ask God for ideas and help, and I sense Him answering those prayers. Whether we build or draw or fix things or make a home for our families, God wants us to yield our gifts to Him, and depend on Him for the next step, even the next breath. I don't always succeed, but that's what I seek to do in my writing.

I like both Lewis and Tolkien, but I do think that the more explicit approach—if not over the top—is more effective in terms of touching people with the gospel.

I like Chris Tomlin and others, but I often listen to classical music while writing as it fuels the imagination and inspires, while not distracting me with words. When you are writing words you don't want to be hearing them! (I don't, anyway, though some writers are different.)

I think it's to probe beneath the surface into the deep longings of people, then to open a door into the invisible spiritual realm so people can see ultimate realities (including God, angels, demons, heaven and hell) with the eyes of faith and imagination.

Related to writing, my friend Justin Taylor posted this a few months ago on his excellent blog. Loving Lewis as I do, I've heard it before, but part of it not for years.

Question from a reader: I really enjoyed reading your Deadline/Dominion/Deception series. Have you ever considered writing another book from the perspective of Manny?

I heard one author say, “Writing is like giving birth to barbed wire.” Others say writing is 5 percent inspiration and 95 percent perspiration.

In my last blog, I wrote about one of my three pilgrimages to Oxford. Each visit I’ve pondered what Lewis wrote: “You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen…I gave in and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England.”

Those who have read my books know that all of them have been touched in one way or another by C.S. Lewis, because ultimately the books we write are the overflow of the books we’ve read.

The cliché answer is probably the best one—if you want to write, write.

First of all, go to any Christian bookstore and look in the front of books related to the subject you’re writing on and gather names and addresses of the publishers you want to pursue. I suggest you send two or three sample chapters, not the whole book.

I spent a lot of time with black men and women in the background research for Dominion, relying heavily on their personal accounts and paying particular attention to the recurring stories.

It’s true that those with gang and other criminal backgrounds who wish to become cops go through a lot of screening and probation and often outright rejection, but in fact a number of ex-gang members do become cops, including gang specialists.

As long as people know that fiction is fiction, we shouldn’t apologize for using our God-given imaginations to create worlds for characters to inhabit, and for readers to enjoy and learn from.