A while back, I told my readers what I’d prefer to be doing and it’s this: writing a new novel. Since I believe in asking for what one wants, I created a Give Send Go campaign to that end.
I realize that I haven’t always been consistent about offering content. As you know, there have been two recent departures in my family, but if I blamed my silence on that, I’d be lying.
My silence is entirely my fault and my problem. The reason I try to instill faith in others is because it’s my constant battle: to shake off the old notion of who God is and of my old misconceptions about His personality.
I think we all have to fight that battle and if you walk too long in unbelief - like I did even after I started calling myself a Christian - it becomes more difficult to shake off because you become accustomed to the Enemy telling you “he doesn’t care about you” or “he doesn’t exist” or “nobody cares about your work.” And, remember, the Enemy relies on you being silent and being stagnant. But God rewards action.
Additionally, the Enemy uses shame and division. In the comments of my post, A Question, one of the Enemy’s servants continues to spew racial insults at me. But, in reality, those types of attacks are easy to deal with because how miserable does one have to be to act like that? One ends up feeling sorry for such a creature - at least I do. (I’ll block him at some point; meanwhile, I’ll just let him keep providing me with content.)
My inner battles are much more, shall we say, kinetic.
Here’s my plan for the second novel. It will feature one or more characters from my first novel, Tale of the Tigers. It won’t be one of the main characters, and the plot will be vastly different from my first offering.
I started writing ToTT in the early 90s. Sensing that I needed a little more life experience, I set it aside for a bit, then picked it up again around 2007, but it stalled again. Then when my great-aunt Alma got sick, I took care of her for a while at home, and that’s when I got it completed.
I self-published and I learned a lot during the process, the main lesson being: don’t trust your editor. I ended up having to re-edit the entire thing myself and I’m sure that there are still some mistakes in the final product. It is what it is.
I plan to be a lot more disciplined and methodical this time around. I will have a daily schedule. Content for my Substack newsletter comes first and 1-2 hours for the new project.
Why am I doing this? Because I don’t want to have to do anything else other than serve the Lord and exercise. My military retirement is exactly the same amount as my rent and, sometimes I or my landlord go without. I don’t want that anymore.
So here I am stepping out in faith once again.
Many of you have read ToTT and I hope that you are excited to see what I can come up with next.
J.
