Getting something off my chest.

So, I've been thinking about that last blog entry I wrote.

I was angry, and I had no reason to be angry.

The Bible talks about patience and love and faithfulness, and all that other stuff. Yet, the Bible also contains what I believe to be a profound truth, probably the only truth out there. With this truth comes a hope so certain and all-encompassing, I cannot help but want others to share in this hope that I have.

As a writer, I know and understand a lot of the basic principles to writing material that keeps readers interested. Regardless of whether said ability to write is represented here, I believe God has blessed me with the ability to write. Mostly, I write fiction; I've got a 300 page novel in the early stages of publication because God has blessed me.

Personally, I expected the story to flop after I'd written the first six or seven chapters but to my amazement, it continues getting praise for hooking readers and building suspense. I suspect my readers enjoy reading Space Tail because of the fundamental principles I was taught.

The first writing technique I learned came from my mother, who also taught me while I was still homeschooled. Her red Papermate circled so many redundancies and repetitive statements, I learned to abhor them. Mum taught me never to repeat a word or phrase while it remained in the readers' minds. For me, that meant, if I remembered writing something, I absolutely could not write another sentence that way in the rest of the paper, or in the case of Space Tail, chapter.

Then came the figurative language. From that shocking October day when I rushed to pregnant Mrs. Wiley's English class, I got lectured on metaphors, similes, and their assorted relatives. I don't remember exactly when I first started trying them on for size--perhaps in eighth grade--but I learned how to make them. By the time I got to college, I'd learned to calm them before their ADHD-inspired connections confused everyone.

After taking English 300 Intro to Creative Writing last semester, I learned another rock-solid way to convince readers what was in front of them was worth their time. Professor Smith told the class we needed concrete examples for our writing to blossom like the orchid we hoped it would be. In addition, she explained concrete details alone could not elevate what we wrote noticably higher than all the other stuff out there for publishers to rifle through.

What we needed was right underneath our noses, or rather, in them. Sensory detail is the one aspect of a person's writing that propels their work beyond mediocre and amateur. Readers don't just want to see and hear it, they want to squeel over the bitter tang of the fly-infested trashbag as it bursts on the scalding driveway.

Being a Christian works the same way.

Many of my friends who enjoy writing don't like the rules by which I write because you've got to work at each of them individually. I choose to apply them to my writing because I know the final product will come out better than I could ever have imagined it would.

If the same story I started writing only to get me through summer school managed to astonish me with its quality when I went back to revise it, then I know in my heart God--who happens to have a reputation for being all powerful--will do something amazing.