TODAY: S-Man--The S-Man Posteth

Shnakvorum, rikoyoch. (Welcome, friends) I apologize for the long silence from me, but I've been buried up to my tail in editing Starfire to get it ready for submission to agents.

I must admit I wasn't ready for just how much work there was to be done after writing Starfire. I really do feel like I've re-written almost the entire thing...

BHCC Prez Victorious

A couple weeks ago in this post I told you all that Big Honkin Chickens Club President Deb Raney had responded to my challenge to read Web of Lies (which I dedicated to her and BHCC VP Robin Lee Hatcher). If she did that, I’d send her five pounds of DeBrand chocolate. Of course I expected a "No Way!" Web of Lies happens to be one of the creepiest (literally) books I’ve written. But sometimes those BHCC people can fool you. Deb replied:

Okay, I’ve responded to your challenge, Brandilyn, and to prove my intentions, I’ve just finished the prologue and Chapter 1. Okay...I gotta admit it: you’re good and I’m hooked. (Even though that first scene is WAY too much like the murder I witnessed in a grocery store 13 years ago!) I’m also home alone right now, so may hold off on chapter 2 until Ken and Tavia get home...

Not until it was too late did I learn that one Debrand chocolate truffle costs $2.50.

Hey, no sweat. Chicken Deb would never finish.

Later I received this email:

I’m on page 185, and here’s where I read yesterday. SCARY! I went with Ken on a rock hunt in his 97-year-old grandpa’s pastureland in the Smoky Hills. We were out here on this windswept Kansas hill by an old abandoned stone house with the rattlesnakes and jackrabbits and centipedes. Didn’t see ONE spider (or a snake for that matter), but unearthed a centipede that CREEPED me OUT! If you don’t have a nasty creature for your next HORROR novel, this would be a GREAT choice.

Okay, now I started to sweat.

Yesterday—another email from Deb:

I FINISHED I!! And you won’t believe this: Friday I was 35 pages from the end and things were really heating up. I was bitin’ my fingernails and forgetting to breath. But I was scheduled to speak at a women’s retreat at a campground near Kansas City this weekend. I couldn’t wait until Sunday night to find out how things end! No way! I’ll take the book with me, I thought. If I have some free time, there’ll be a whole cabin of women there to hold my hand while I finish.

But no! This lovely group puts their speaker up in a PRIVATE cabin all by herself. There goes that, I thought. But the program wound down by 9:30 Friday night and the women gathered in groups with their own churches, so I was free until my sessions the following day. I went back to my cabin (which was LOVELY with a full, modern bath.) I kept glancing at my book, thought about the stories I’d heard of more rustic cabins in this campground, where a group of boys had actually seen a SNAKE crawl out of a hole in a mattress. I shrugged. “What’s a little spider?” So I sat up in bed with the covers pulled tightly around me and read to the very end!

I did it!! I’m so proud of myself! It was a GOOD book! I came to care for all the characters and loved the romantic thread. Okay...I left the bathroom light on all night, but I actually slept like a baby! Woke up feeling refreshed and ready for the day. Not a hint of a nightmare.

Um...until... just before leaving to come home from the retreat yesterday, I went back to my cabin to pack. I pulled back the covers to strip the sheets off my bed... and a creepy black spider scurried out from under the quilts!! I couldn’t even scream! I was laughing too hard. ; )You may have the chocolates delivered to (her address). Now why do I think I’M the BIG winner all the way around in this deal?!! : )

P.S. I hope this doesn’t disqualify me, but I did NOT read the blurb at the end of the book for Violet Dawn! I know your blurbs are TERRIFYING! ; }

Deb, president in good standing of the Big Honkin’ Chicken Club

Fortunately, Deb in all her chicken kindness said I’m off the hook for sending DeBrand chocolates, which would have cost me hundreds of dollars. For this I’m grateful. But she shall receive five pounds of some good stuff, nevertheless. She’s earned it.

New Christian Fiction

In the latest issue of Aspiring Retail, there’s a long article about some of the newest authors in Christian fiction. It’s wonderful to read through. Many of the people I know, some I don’t. I was struck with how diverse the topics of their novels are, and how every genre has new authors. There’s a lot to choose from here, folks. Something for everybody.

Read Christian Novelists on the Rise here.

Short But Sweet

Here's an email I received this past Monday. God knew I'd need it to get through the week.

hello i just wanted to say how much i enjoyed "eyes of Elisha" it really helped me to be more open and obeying to god and his call on my life...i would buy the rest of your books but i dont have a job...im only 16 but i just wanted thank you for letting god use you in this way.


Sure made me smile.

TODAY: Bev Trexel--A Surprise Birthday Party, Part II

Bev here again. As I was saying a few days ago, Kanner Lake threw a surprise birthday party at Java Joint for Angie. I left off my story with the presents.

The best part. It took several minutes to calm the ruckus down. Goodness, I honestly don't know how Bailey deals with it every day, running everything so smoothly, keeping everyone happy, and always holding onto that smile and sweet disposition of hers. And without her, I don't think we ever would have gotten to the presents...

More Time To Write

If you ever break an ankle and have surgery and the works, don’t ever let anybody tell you that you’ll have “more time to write.” More than one person has said this to me.

Hah.

I’m on deadline, as you know. I need to be sitting at the computer all day. Not. Why? Last Friday I started physical therapy.

I have to go three days a week, between Monday and Friday. Each time the whole process—getting there, doing the therapy, getting back—takes about two hours. That’s a big chunk out of a work day. Plus they want me to do this hot/cold process on my ankle because it’s so very swollen. (No wonder it is—I’ve been sitting at the computer all day with it down.) I’m supposed to do ten minutes hot, then then minutes ice. Then exercises and massage. This process takes about 40 minutes with the set-up of getting the ice, heating the pad, etc., etc. I can’t type while I’m doing it, because I have to lie down with the foot up higher than my heart. The therapist told me she wanted me to do this five to six times a day.

I just laughed. “No way. That would take all day.”

So I’m doing it twice, morning and evening. In addition to the physical therapy trips. Plus, you have to put in the equation the fact that it’s hard getting around. Everything takes longer—from walking across the room to taking a shower. (I still have to sit down on the plastic chair in the shower, since I can’t put weight on my bare foot.)

Fortunately, my wonderful editor has moved my deadline back one more week. It’s now at May 16. It cannot be moved any more—neither for her sake, nor mine. We both have projects right behind it.

Yesterday my Forensics and Faith post was late. Around 11:00 my assistant called, scared I’d up and died. You all probably thought so too. Not. The night before when I’d just collapsed into bed, I remembered I hadn’t posted my blog. The thought of getting up, putting the boot back on, going down to the first floor, across the house, up the five stairs into my office—uh-uh. Way too much work. The post would just have to wait until the next morning. And then, of course, in the morning, I had to do the hot/cold, eat something, yada, yada. I didn’t get up to my office until late.

Meanwhile, I must say, the therapy is working. My foot is much less swollen, and doesn’t hurt so much. But when I get to the computer, I really have to make the time count to get in my allotted pages.

Despite all this, I can only thank God the accident wasn’t worse. To think that a snowmobiling accident could have left me with two broken legs, or paralyzed …

I’m so grateful for God’s care. And a helpful editor. And a wonderful husband. And all you BGs and your prayers. And so many other blessings, I could never count them all. God is faithful.

Uh—about those prayers. Please keep ’em coming for my deadline.

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Read Part 11

Shake-up

Recently a review of the Broadway play Blackbird ran in The Wall Street Journal. Blackbird, by David Horrower, is a two-actor show that runs in a straight 90 minutes of real time, starring Alison Pill and Jeff Daniels. The story is about Una, age 27, showing up unexpectedly in an office to confront Ray, 55, about his molestation of her when he was 40 and she was 12. At first she’s furious at him, and he’s terrified to be found these 15 years later. But as the play moves on, as the reviewer puts it, we “learn that Ray and Una are still obsessed with one another” and soon start reminiscing in explicit language exactly what happened between them.

The reviewer, Terry Teachout, quotes Harrower as saying he wanted “people shaken up.” But Teachout wonders—to what end? He says that Harrower “suspended his characters in a moral and factual vacuum.” As a result of the “absence of any moral frame for the events,” the play offers nothing more than “shock for its own sake.”

Teachout was not calling for “stopping the action” to “insert an audience-comforting sermon.” But, he says, “moral points can be made in vastly more artful ways.”

That last paragraph sound familiar?

I keep coming up against a truth as I read about Story in its various forms in the general market. Those authors/screenwriters/playwrights face the same issues we do. Previously I posted about the issue of reviews. Now it's how to make moral points in an “artful way.” How to present real, sometimes raw life without doing it for mere shock value. It's good for us to realize that the issues and challenges we face aren't just in our industry. Too often we can talk about them and bemoan them as if the issues are only found within CBA. In fact, they are found within the world of creating Story.

As for making a moral point, the very raison d’etre of Christian fiction is to depict Christian truth, whether obviously or subliminally. So I don’t see that any of our novels as a total package would fall into the “mere shock value” category. But this point is something to remember as we struggle with how much reality to use, what scenes to include, how much graphic detail to include. Scene to scene, paragraph to paragraph, we can ask the same question: is there a moral value to this part of the story, or is it here for “mere shock value?”

I find Harrower's quote about shaking up people interesting. Almost as if he started with a result in mind, then set out to create a shocking story to achieve that result. We face that temptation in CBA, too, whether it's to push the envelope as far as possible just for the sake of pushing, or whether it's to hammer home a Christian theme, thereby ending up with a didactic-sounding story.

Either way, the danger seems to lie in focusing too much on what we as writers want to achieve and forgetting how our readers may respond to the resulting story. Both sides of that equation are important, and one side may need to temper the other.

Books That Made A Difference

Recently fellow Sta Akra author and pal Creston Mapes received this letter from a reader. We can all rejoice over this one, folks.
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Dear Creston,

My name is __________. I'm currently in a ____ (state) prison. I've read both of the Dark Star books, in order. My mom and step father sent the first one about two months ago. Then Full Tilt last week. I'm 26-years-old so both of the books caught my attention. I don't know if it was the ideas of the rock concert in Dark Star or the references to meth in Full Tilt, but God is what I'm after now. Since I read Dark Star I've been x'ed outof the Arian Circle, in other words, I'm no longer apart of it. I've also become less of a presence in the day room, where all the fighting and trouble seem to start from. I've got one year done on a five year sentence. I should be out on parole some time late in 2009. My 4-year-old daughter, _____, will be 7 by then. I'm writing all this to say "thank you." I love the books. My daughter would thank you too. I've given my life to God now. I'm slow but it's all taking affect. If you knew how I used to live, and what kind of person I was, you would know that angels are singing at the top of their lungs. I love the books. I'm patiently waiting for the next one. If ya'll have anything you could seen me that would tell me when the next one is coming to stores, I could in turn send it to my mom (she's a Christian too). Your book has helped me a great deal with my meth problem. I have the strength I need now. God bless you and yours.
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I’ve read both Full Tilt and Dark Star, and I’m not surprised that these books helped a twenty-six-year-old man. Creston’s novels are suspense--with a lot of God woven in.

His next novel, Nobody, releases in September.

Waytago, Creston. Thank You, God!

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Carnival of Christian Writers Happening Today!

TODAY: Bev Trexel--A Surprise Birthday Party, Part I

Hello, everyone. Bev Trexel with you today. It has certainly been a trying few weeks. First the ruckus about building the hotel. Then those horrible murders here, and everyone looking over their shoulders. (See, Angie, I told you having a dog was a good idea.) Now the shooting at Virgina Tech, where one of my friends used to teach. After all that, who couldn't use some cheering up?

So Kanner Lake threw a surprise birthday party for Angie...

Radio Spots

Currently radio spots are running for Coral Moon on Christian radio stations across the country. The promotion, run by Westar Media Group, includes advertisements as well as taped interviews with me, and book give-aways. Details:

1. Mega weekend: April 13, 14 & 15. Participating radio stations promoted Coral Moon once every hour the entire weekend. Promotion included the radio host mentioning the book and asking listeners to call in to win a free copy, plus a brief clip from me. In the week leading up to the mega weekend, stations promoted the weekend’s events: “Be sure to tune in this weekend to win a chance for a free copy of the latest book, Coral Moon, from bestselling author Brandilyn Collins.” Or something to that effect. As I understand it, sixty-five stations took part in this program. I think all those who participated had five books each to give away.

2. The mega weekend led to this week, 4/16 – 4/25, of paid spots (two 30 second spots running back to back) that are running on seven of the stations four times daily. (I think these are some of the bigger stations.) Each is also doing on-air book giveaways. Most will be doing some additional excerpts from the interviews I taped. The stations are:

WFFH/WFFI (Nashville)
WRVI-FM (Louisville)
KGBI-FM (Omaha)
KXOJ-FM (Tulsa)
WJBZ-FM (Knoxville)
WJQK-FM (Borculo, MI)
KBIQ-FM (Colorado Springs)

I recorded the stuff over the phone, but I haven't heard how it was put together for airing. I answered a bunch of questions for the interview, and each of my answers had to fit with a certain amount of time. I think it was 45 seconds. Which meant I had to write each answer carefully and time myself before the recording. Then, of course, when I'm recording, I'm supposed to sound totally natural, as if I'd never practiced at all. I recorded the 30-second spots, too, but at the last minute they had to be redone by a radio announcer because, over the telephone, I didn't sound clear enough for an advertisement. The interviews worked fine, since listeners are used to hearing people being interviewed over a phone line. The problem with the 30-second spots was not Westar's fault. They had planned to have me record in a local studio. But at the time, with one good leg and crutch-hopping with one arm, I couldn't get around well enough, so we just did it from home.

Anybody heard any of this on the radio? (If you're like me, you're not listening to radio during the work day.) Was it an interview, the two thirty-second spots or what?

Agh!

Okay, here's the deal. I'm two and a half weeks from deadline on Amber Morn, fourth and final in the Kanner Lake series. I was doing great until the accident. Surgery, serious inability to sleep, pain, not moving easily, etc., etc. has taken its toll on the ol' brain. I must make this deadline.

Such is my tale of woe. But I'm just one writer in many. We all seem to bewail our deadlines as they approach, as if we didn't know they were coming. Here's your chance, BGs. Bewail away. Tell me the woes of your current deadline, or one of your worst in the past. If you're not published, have you ever set a true deadline for completion of a manuscript? Did ya make it?

Do tell. Make me feel I'm not alone.

The Antagonist

I've been thinking about bad guys.

A number of weeks ago there was a discussion on the ACFW loop about bad guys in fiction and the tendency in recent novels to make them understandable. That is, to explain their background or childhood as a way to show how they came to be what they are. Some people opined they didn’t like this, as it tended to smooth over the evil or make excuses for it.

I found the discussion interesting because it occurred not long before Coral Moon released. In CM the bad guy’s background is revealed. Indeed, I show do why he is the way he is. I found it surprising that some wouldn’t like this, as one of the historical complaints about the suspense genre in general is the tendency to make a bad guy “all bad.” That this leads to a shallow, one-dimensional character, which is unrealistic, because all people have some good in them. This concept has given rise to the so-called “pet-the-dog” concept in the characterization of bad guys, in which you have a scene in which the evil one shows compassion to someone or an animal. Thought being that the evil he then embarks upon looks all the more evil in contrast to his humane acts.

In Violet Dawn, first in the Kanner Lake series, the bad guy is all bad. The challenge there was to create an interesting “all bad” guy—a man who fancies himself as wily and deadly as the legendary black mamba snake. Verbs and adjectives for this character were those that would be used in describing a snake. I even sprinkled in words ending with “S” sounds that would lend the subliminal hiss. Some readers got this, some didn’t. Some complained he was “one-dimensional” or “flat.” Others liked him. Well, for a bad guy, anyway.

In Coral Moon I did something entirely different. I wanted the reader to understand the bad guy even as he/she feared and hated his terrible acts. I chose to begin the book in his POV, showing how he didn’t want to do what he felt he had to do. However, this inner angst made him no less a cold-blooded killer, for he pushes down whatever conscience he starts out with to commit the murders. This look into his psyche forms one of the more subtexted themes of the book—how closely evil and good can coexist, and how, through certain circumstances and without God, the former can rise in a person’s life to trump the latter.

Last week’s blog tour of Coral Moon brought forth various reader reviews. One BG reviewed the book and mentioned that because she understand the bad guy’s background and almost felt sorry for him, she couldn’t fear him as much in the crisis/climax scene. I found this fascinating. It wasn’t a reaction I’d expected.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Nearly thirty years ago I read Tennessee William’s play Camino Real. In his foreword to the play, he makes a statement that so struck me, I remember it to this day. He says, “Hatred is a thing, a feeling that can only exist when there is no understanding.”

And so I am left to ponder: must a reader thoroughly hate a bad guy in order to fear him? And if understanding lessens the ability to hate, then should we writers of suspense stick with the “one-dimensional” all-bad bad guy?

Where is the balance? Tell me what you think. (Those of you who’ve read Coral Moon, please be careful in your comments not to include any spoilers.)

Keyless Entry

If I have any gumption or perseverance at all, it comes from my mother, Ruth Seamands. She may be 90, but she's as independent and determined as ever--with a lot of humor thrown in. Here's one of her latest escapades, written last summer. This one occurred right at home in her retirement village...

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Tonight I slammed the back door and headed for the hose. I love squirting water and my personally-planted swamp cypress trees were begging for some. Soon long cypress branches and round green tomatoes dripped in appreciation. Two tiny basil plants swayed in glee and swallowed their drink in one gulp.

A pain streaked down my arm so I turned off the hose and sagged into a lawn chair. The soothing splash of my pool’s waterfall lulled me to the edge of La-La Land. Better go inside.

My hand on the door. Oh, no! I’d locked myself out. I knew the front door was locked—hadn’t wanted any boogiemen visitors. Grrrrr—now they could grab me outside. Had to get a master key from the village office.

Running through the front yard in twilight, I nearly fell over a big, black mountain. My startled heart jumped into my throat. What was THAT?

Oh, silly Ruth! It’s only a pile of black garbage bags holding yesterday’s bush clippings. They looked mighty spooky, all humped in silence.

Blundering past my garage door, I saw the answer to my homelessness. The door was up about fourteen inches. How brilliant of me to leave it partly open. Could I slide underneath that door and ignore the key?

Sure. I’m not fourteen inches thick!

I lay flat on the tarmac, pulled in my stomach and stretched my legs as long as possible. Nothing to do about my sticking-up feet except to flip 'em sideways. I edged under the door, an inch at a push, head and shoulders leading. Next--bottom, then heels and toes.

What if suddenly that door rolled down and cut me in two? Longways.

Nah. That little light stops it.

When I was halfway through, a giggle started in my stomach and nearly choked me. Were any neighbors watching? Me. Nearly ninety, dignified, on a Sunday slinking into my garage like a Kentucky polecat. I kept scooting and laughing through the opening, legs and waving feet in last.

Success! I raised my head and bumped it on the tail pipe of my car. Ouch! How stupid to park so close to the door.

Squirming around, trying to stand, I slid my back up the door. As I walked around my car, I had to be careful. If I got too close to a shelf on one side of the garage, bush trimmers would fall on my head. If I got too close on the other side, a huge old cooking pot would jab my let-out stomach. (Precious heirloom pot. My mother used to cook apple butter in it. My brother and I loved to feed the fire, stir the pot and taste.)

Squeezing past the car, I closed the garage door, brushed off my pants, drank some iced tea and sank into a chair inside my locked house. Sinister black bags still in the yard, but no boogiemen.

I’ve just combed a bunch of leaves out of my hair. Tomorrow, I’m hiding a key in an old flower pot.

TODAY: Jared Moore--Prayers for Virginia Tech

... I am writing this post on Monday the 15th, my heart laden with sadness, as I watch the news.

I've been a newspaperman all my working life. In fact, even in school. I've posted before about my childhood foray into printing a newspaper. As a reporter and owner of a paper, I have covered crime and tragedy for many years. Indeed, it's a sad truth that trauma--not good news--is what people have come to expect in watching or reading the media. But I have never seen such senselessness as these school shootings. Each new such crisis leaves us to weep and volley why? questions at heaven ...

I Got The Boot

In this case, gettin' the boot ain’t such a bad thing. Well, now it isn’t. I wasn’t exactly thinking that as I sat in the doctor’s office Friday morning. Doc wasn’t around at the moment. Ever notice how they get the nurses to do their dirty work?...

So I’m sitting on the same gurney where I got my cast put on over four weeks previously. Mark’s in the same chair over by the wall. A pleasant-faced nurse in a blue-and-pink uniform approaches with her handy-dandy tool. Looks like a vacuum cleaner hose with a saw blade on the end. I look at Mark; he looks at me. One side of his mouth rises. He knows what I’m thinking.

My eyes pull back to Nurse Blade.

“So, uh.” I rub the underside of my chin. “You’re gonna demonstrate that thing first, right? Like on your own arm.”

“Oh. You’ve never had a cast taken off before?”

I shake my head. My eyes are so wide, the motion takes extra energy.

“No worries. This can’t cut skin.” She turns the blade on and whirs it back and forth over her palm. “See?”

I lean in close, squinting for blood. Not a drop.

I straighten. “Okay.”

The tremble in my voice says I'm not totally convinced.

She starts in at the top of my blue cast. “Now you’re going to feel the vibrations, but that’s all.”

The blade cuts into the cast and moves downward, toward my foot. I’m feelin’ those Good Vibrations all right. I don’t like this one bit, but I’m not about to show any fear.

I start singing the Beach Boys song. Mark rolls his eyes.

Nurse Blade cuts all the way down one side around my foot and up the other. Then she uses a wedge tool to crack the cast. Slowly it comes apart. She lifts it away.

Oh.

Wow.

Is that my foot? That swollen, scarred, purple shoe box? And the leg. It’s ghostly pale, covered with two inches of dried skin. My calf—that huge runner’s muscle I used to have, hangs like jelly clinging to an upturned bowl. I raise a tenuous finger, give it a poke. It jiggles.
Fifteen seconds later, it’s still wiggling.

I look at the nurse, swallow hard. She smiles. “Don’t worry. It’ll come back.”

Uh-huh.

I crutch off dejectedly to take X-rays. Doc appears to read the results. Good news. The bone has healed nicely. He puts me in this gray boot thing that I can take on and off. Says I can start putting weight on the leg, as long as I’m wearing the boot.

My face lights up. “Really? I thought I’d have to wait weeks for that!”

Immediate weight-bearing is the good news. Bad news is—6 weeks in the boot. That’ll put me near the end of May. June 25—another surgery to take the long screw out that goes clear through the ankle. “You can wait longer if you have to,” Doc says. “But eventually the screw will break, and then we got to go in from both sides to take it out.”

The only thing worse than one new hole in my ankle is two. I say June 25 is just fine. Doc says recovery from that won’t take too long. Let’s hope not. Ten days later I’m supposed to fly to Atlanta for the ChiLibris retreat and ICRS. I’m imagining those humongously long convention floors, wondering if I might better rent a wheelchair for the day…

Now, three days after seeing the doc, I’m walking around with the boot, using crutches for support. Soon I think I can get rid of the right crutch. It’ll be nice when I don’t need either of them. When the boot is off, I’m exercising the ankle. Stretching it right, left, up, down. It’s a weird thing, feeling the ligaments under my skin. They feel like inch-thick rubber bands. With attitude.

As for the plate in the ankle and all the other screws, they can come out in another year and a half or so—if I choose. That’s another major surgery, followed by crutches all over again. All those holes in the bones could make for an easy new break until they’re healed. Great thought--yeah, let's start this process all over again

A pox on snowmobiles.

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Read Part 10

New Avon Inspire Fiction Line

The latest issue of Christian Retailing includes an article on the secular publisher HarperCollins’ new venture into the Christian fiction market. Through HC’s sixty-five-year-old imprint, Avon Books, the new Avon Inspire line will first feature contemporary and historical titles, and later offer suspense as well.

Launching Avon Inspire on May 8 is Tracey Bateman’s historical, Defiant Heart, first in her “Westward Hearts” series. Next comes Linda Windsor’s Wedding Bell Blues, first in her “Piper Cove Chronicles,” releasing June 26. These two are followed by titles by Lori Copeland and Lyn Cote. Defiant Heart and Wedding Bell Blues are planned for initial printings of 75,000 copies each.

Avon’s Senior Vice President and Publisher Liate Stehlik says Avon Inspire plans to release from six to ten titles a year.

Avon Inspire is partnering with HarperSanFrancisco, which it providing its editor Cynthia DeTiberio for the titles. HSF will also handle marketing the books to Christian stores. (Interesting, that HSF is doing this and not sister publisher Zondervan. They did not explain why.) HSF Deputy Publisher Mark Tauber notes, “This partnership recognizes what we have witnessed happening in the (Christian) industry over the last few years. Namely, that Christian fiction is no longer a sideline in (Christian) and general trade stores, but (it) has become a mainstay.”

Stehlik noted that Avon had noticed many general market customers were buying Christian books. The publisher sensed that this wasn’t “just a Christian thing,” but that more traditional ABA readers were also becoming fans of Christian novels.

Who wants to say a hearty Amen!?
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Coral Moon blog tour continues today.

Coral Moon Blour

The Coral Moon blour (blog tour) can be found on these sites. I encourage you to check out these blogs, not just for their Coral Moon reviews, but to meet some new people in the blogosphere. You’re likely to find a few blogs you’ll want to put on your favorites list.

Richard Mabry

Marci

Deena

The Curmudgeon's Rant

Cee Cee

L. Diane Wolfe

Rel

Cara Putman

Todd

LaShaunda

April Erwin

Valerie Comer

Andrea Graham

Erica Vetsch

Deborah

Jim Thompson

Jason

Sabrina L. Fox

So Many Books...

Jenny

Christy LaShea Smith

Jackie Castle

Kelly Klepfer

loves to read

Hisart777

Dineen A. Miller

Jim (The Bedford Review) Black

Elaina

Camy Tang

CeCe Lane

Georgiana

Becky Miller

News Flash! BHCC Takes Major Hit!

Could the BHCC be unraveling? In a few days’ time, three events have occurred:

First, I received this email:

Brandilyn, I wanted to drop you a note to say hi. I have been a card carrying member of the Big Honkin' Chickens Club for years. I'm also an aspiring writer who has enjoyed reading your blog. I finally broke down and read one of your books. I was reading it to discover how you tied faith with suspense. I read Brink of Death. I must admit that I didn't hate it. In fact, I read it in one evening and was turning the pages so quickly at the end that it was ridiculous. So while I'm not a huge fan of the genre, I am a fan of your writing.

Imagine that. A BHCC member who read one of my books, and reports no nightmares. And actually enjoyed herself.

Then to further weaken the club’s foundations, its very Vice President, Robin Lee Hatcher, posted about Coral Moon on her own blog yesterday. Ever the chicken, she admitted to not reading the book, but did highly tout my writing to others.

In her post, Robin mentioned BHCC President Deb Raney. These two share a common entry into the club. Since they had enjoyed my previous women's fiction novels, both forced themselves to read my first suspense, Eyes of Elisha. Both had nightmares. In her comment to Robin’s post, Deb claimed she gained 10 pounds after reading the book because she could no longer walk the path she’d once used for exercising. From then on, both of these dear pals of mine swore off my books.

Naturally I did the only thing a self-respecting suspense author/pal would do. I eventually dedicated a book to them. The creepiest one of all: Web of Lies. Surely these two weenies would read a book dedicated to them.

Not.

I answered Robin’s post and Deb’s comment with this challenge:

Deb and Robin, you know I love ya both. And yes, I am such a forgiving soul. But I'd send ya both five pounds of chocolate--your choice of brand--if you'd read Web of Lies--the BOOK I SO THOUGHTFULLY, GRACIOUSLY, CONSIDERATELY AND WITH ABSOLUTELY NO TEASING INTENT OR ILL WILL--dedicated to both of you.

Heh-heh.

I thought that would be the end of it. But these BHCC members can fool you sometimes. Deb replied in an email:

Okay, I’ve responded to your challenge, Brandilyn, and to prove my intentions, I’ve just finished the prologue and Chapter 1. Okay...I gotta admit it: you’re good and I’m hooked. (Even though that first scene is WAY too much like the murder I witnessed in a grocery store 13 years ago!) I’m also home alone right now, so may hold off on chapter 2 until Ken and Tavia get home. Or maybe I’ll take it to the hospital and snuggle next to my dad and read it where spiders are regularly exterminated and medical help is close at hand, just in case I have a stroke or something. ; ) But I can already taste the DeBrands. Hey! Wait a minute! This book is going to make me gain 10 pounds, too, isn’t it??? You sneaky thing, you...

Deb concluded by noting: I even stooped to putting you in my ‘What Deb’s Currently Reading’ feature on my website.

That's a might deep stoop all right, Deb.

BHCC, you just might lose your president. Either she’ll come over to the dark side or be hit with a major coronary. Either way she’ll be two sizes bigger after eating all that chocolate.

DeBrands, huh. Better start savin’ my pennies. That is, if she finishes the book.

Who's bettin' she won't get through it?

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Coral Moon blog tour continues today and tomorrow.

Announcing a BG Contract

I’m pleased to make a contract announcement for a great writer whom many of you know. Mary DeMuth, author of the novels Watching the Tree Limbs and Wishing on Dandelions as well as numerous nonfiction titles including Building the Christian Family You Never Had, has signed a three-book fiction deal with Zondervan.

Here’s what Mary has to tell us about her Defiance, Texas series:
One mysterious tragedy. Three stories. Young Daisy Chance's abrupt disappearance spins three lives out of control--Jed Pepper, whose guilt over not protecting his friend Daisy strangles him; Emory Chance, who blames her own choices for her daughter's demise; and Ouisie Pepper, who is haunted by dreams of Daisy while pierced by the shattered pieces of a family in crisis. The dusty streets of Defiance, Texas provide a haunting yet hopeful backdrop for human depravity and beauty, for terrible secrets and God's surprising redemption.

Mary tells me the first manuscript is due in October, the second in April '08, and the third in October '08. The books will release six months apart.

Agent on the deal is Beth Jusino of Alive Communications. The acquiring editor is Andy Meisenheimer.

That Andy. He’s gettin' around.

Mary’s one busy girl. In the meantime she has other books in the works. She just finished a novel for Tyndale, currently untitled, co-written with a marriage author. It should release next year at this time. She also has a nonfiction proposal circulating right now titled Thin Places—"a spiritual memoir about those places in our lives where the veil between God and us seems thinner, more translucent." Third, Mary has a book releasing this summer at ICRS titled Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture, published by Harvest House. “They're giving it their full media and publicity treatment, so I'm pumped about that,” she says.

Mary just got through teaching at Mount Hermon. She led a track called "Inner Guts," which focused on "the importance of getting our hearts right as we pour them out on the page."

Three cheers for Mary’s new contract! She’ll be a fellow Zondervanite!



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Coral Moon blog tour runs today through Friday.

That Spring Reading Thing

Update: Thingies and Thing Authors unite!

Katrina over at Callapidder Days reports that as a result of my post/announcement last Friday, over 55 authors have signed up to give away a total of around 110 books.

Katrina will be doing the giveaways on her blog every Saturday for the next ten weeks.

You Thing Authors who hear from the Thingy who received your book--do let me know. It would be fun to post some of the e-mails (anonymous e-mailer, and with permission).