And they call me the extremist . . .

I really don't get the pro-abortion stance. My only assumption is that it's a self-delusional rational for birth control for people who want to be irresponsibly promiscuous.

You either believe a fetus is a human being or you don't. If you don't then you have to decide when it becomes a human being.

But beyond that, I've always been mystified by the following phrase: I'm against abortion except for rape, incest, or the life of the mother.

**(Okay, I'll concede that I'd have a hard time letting my (if I was married) wife die instead of the baby, so let's skip that one. )

Why does a child born of rape or incest rate lower than the rest of us? What a horrible thing to say. Can you imagine what those who were born of that circumstance must think when they hear this argument?

The current trend is to characterize those who believe "rape and incestuously conceived children are innocent and deserve to live" are extremist. Wow.

Why does the value of a human being diminish based on the actions of others or inherent circumstance? Sounds like early mid-twentieth century Germany to me.

Responding to comments . . .

Sorry I took so long . . .

Great comments on the last two posts everyone. I'll respond here since I took so long.

To Kay's comment:

"The idea of more money is always appealing. But I'm thinking that maybe if I say that my writing is a ministry I should back that up by perhaps contributing all proceeds to a ministry or something. And make that known to those who purchase"

This is exactly the point I'm trying to make. Now, keep in mind, I'm not saying authors should or should not do this. I'm saying that this should be the attitude of those who want the publishing houses to make decisions based on evangelism and not profit tempered with principles or values.

sidenote: quote from Randy Alcorn that might be of interest to you, Kay.

"Most writers won’t sell a lot of books. I encourage those who do to give away most or all of the royalties to God’s kingdom. Recognize they belong to Him, not to you. Because all the royalties from my books go to missions work and other kingdom causes, I’m not tempted to spend on myself the millions of dollars God has graciously entrusted to me. Instead, my wife and I get to give them away and to rejoice as we make eternal investments in God’s powerful work around the world."

Notice he said those who sell a lot of books. You have to eat first right? I know what you're thinking: "God will provide." Maybe he provided you with just enough books sales to eat.

XD, I think we're in agreement. It's not an either-or thing. It depends on individual declaration. On the fiction delivering a message thing, I did say it does happen. But as an evangelical vehicle in the Christian discipleship connotation of the word, it has little results. Not that they're not important results, but a very inefficient vehicle. I say trade in that clunker.

Todd, I still say if an artist makes 10 million/year off his work and wants to be lauded for his work being a ministry and then he goes off and buys a $10 million home, a private jet, three Porsche's, etc., he is out of step with the will of the Lord. One particular Christian artist loves to get awards for begging me to give $5 to third world starving kids while he flies off in a private jet after his concerts spending more in 4 hours than I make all year. He could fly first class and save $40 thousand. You can feed a lot of kids with $40 thousand.

The widow who gave the penny gave more than all the others combined, because she gave everything she had. I don't think that means everyone has to give everything they have, but they should give more than the sliding scale equivalent of chump change. A multi-millionaire giving $500 is not the same as me giving $500.

Last post - furtherized . . .

Thanks for the great comments on the last post everyone. I hate to admit it but . . . you too, Todd. Actually your comment beat me to the punch on the furtherization of my positation. And, Kay, there is certainly alot of room for overlap.

For instance, let's take a Third Day concert. Third Day considers themselves a ministry. But, . . . you have to buy the ticket. Personally, I have no problem with that because I equate it to passing the plate at church. Someone has to pay for the electricity, the water, the pastor's salary, etc.

They haven't to my knowledge declared themselves an evangelical outreach. With that said, happenstance evangelism does occur at Third Day concerts. (Probably more than all of Christian fiction combined.) In essence, evangelism is sold. But indirectly. This is kind of how I view publishing. I wrote my novel for everyone, but the reality is that since I'm pursuing publication through CBA, it will be read mostly by Christians. Christians who will be paying for it.

** The rest of this post was gonna be about the declaration of ministry that Todd covered in the comments of the last post. So we'll move onto something else.

This may be a little off the path, but I am a little perturbed by those who claim to be a ministry, be it in preaching, music, or writing, and then live a lavish lifestyle all the while basking in the glow of accolades for doing God's work. One particular musical artist lives in a mansion and routinely mentions his Porsche. One takes a private jet home after his concerts. All this while asking me to send $5 to a pet charity.

Kind of like a politician who wants credit for his "service" to his country. As though it's a sacrifice. Let's see, you get fame, glory, power, riches, and then we're supposed to serenade you with thanks for your "public service." Thank you Mr. politician for screwing the little guy, cheating on your wife with the intern, all while giving yourself a raise, full health benefits and a pension for life, lying and stealing all funded by the taxpayer. You truly are a hero.

Disclaimer: During the writing of this post, the author was suffering from low blood sugar and was thus subject to nonsensical ramblings.

For Sale: One Savior.

I've said before that I don't see any great potential of Fiction as a conveyance of evangelism. That's not to say that fiction can't evangelize or hasn't. In fact, I'm quite sure it has and I hope mine does. But I would say it is a very inefficient means.

With that said, I am always puzzled by those who lambaste the CBA publishers for not treating themselves as an evangelical outreach ministry. They are not. They are a business which supplies a product, subject to a set of chosen standards, to a market of individuals who make certain requirements of them. They succeed or fail based on their ability to satisfy those requirements.

The puzzling part for me is that an author who wants their fiction to be an evangelical tool decides to get it published through CBA.

Why? --- Am I the only person who believes that evangelism should be free? So we want to reach people but only if they pay $14.99?

If you want your novels to be strictly an evangelistic outreach, then use the evangelistic model:

1. convince other Christians of the value of your project.
2. ask them for donations.
3. self-publish the novel.
4. GIVE IT AWAY.

Can you imagine if Billy Graham went to a third world country to preach but charged admission?

Some got it, some don't . . .

Happy belated 13 th birthday to Teddy. That's 91 to you and me. (I'm sure that formula's not right.) Anyway, let's hear from the birthday boy:


Okay, don't hate me because I've aged beautifully.

You can do it, too. The secret is to eliminate all stress. Here's my patented 3 part plan:

1. Find a sucker, I mean human like Dayle. He does all the work and all I have to do is eat, sleep, and fetch the occasional tennis ball.

2. Perfect a pathetic look. That way even strangers give you stuff.

3. Two words: Twenty-four hour naps. ( I know it's more than two words, it's a joke. Silly humans. )

For a more detailed plan, send $24.99 to Teddy (That's all you need. The post office knows it's for me. Kinda like Santa Claus. )

A Disturbing Trend . . .

It's bad enough that the American Left is hell bent on pushing God out of our country - lock, stock, and barrel. They don't care about fairness. Everything's fair game: revising history, school children who write essays about Jesus being their hero, even Christian charities which provide beneficial social services.

The media-entertainment and news- distorts, stereotypes, and maliciously impugns everything Christian. I could go on and on, citing examples, but you probably could too.

What's worse? A new breed of Christians are picking up the cause. This new Christian has decided that the stereotypical fundamentalist Bible Belt Christian represents the majority. But instead of trying to clear the misconceptions, they join the Left. I suppose they assume that if they prove to the Left that they are not representative of the maligned stereotype, that they will somehow be accepted. This is pure fantasy. It's divide and conquer. They will be next.

Sidenote:

I have seen a small hint of this in author interviews. Some of them can't wait to distance themselves from stereotypes. The most common I see is the rush to tell the interviewer how much they love to drink. We all know the Bible does not prohibit drinking. It only prohibits getting drunk. So why the need to profess. My theory is that they are really saying: "Hey just because I'm a Christian author, please don't think I'm really one of "them". I'm cool. I drink and everything."

Doing the Blurbs . . .

I'm surprised by the attitude of some authors who've expressed a distaste for blurbs. They contend that they are ineffective and a waste of time. Among the reasons they give is that readers don't buy based on blurbs. For this and other reasons, they refuse to do them.

As a reader, I totally disagree with this. If an author whose books I've enjoyed (i.e. Robert Liparulo or Tosca Lee) shows up on the cover of a book I'm browsing, I definitely take a closer look. I still may not buy it, but it does get more than a cursory glance and will get the default buy over another book without those blurbs.

There are other good reasons to blurb. One is the simple fact that it doesn't hurt to get your name out there as often as possible. Inherent in a blurb to the reader is that the author considered these blurbers equal or superior to himself. Therefore, if an author's name appears on two books that a reader enjoyed, I assume they would do what I'd do: Check out that author's work.

Personally, after I'm published, I plan to do as many blurbs as I reasonably can. With a caveat that I want to keep my credibility with the readers. In other words, I won't blurb a book I don't like. I expect the same from the authors I plan to request blurbs from. If they don't like my book, I want them to say no. No hard feelings. If they don't have the time -- same deal.

There's another reason to do blurbs.

Imagine you're an author and you've had a single novel with modest sales and some guy you never heard of asks you to blurb his debut novel. You read it, like it, give it an honest blurb even though you may have had some problems with the quality of the writing. You then forget about it and go on to the next project. And then it turns out that guy's name is William P. Young and the novel is The Shack. Now your name and novel title are on 8 million books. What do you think that advertising is worth? Not to mention that he'd blurb your next novel without hesitation.

The arrogance of some published authors . . .

The actual title: The arrogance of some published authors who don't sell a lot of books yet.

This author has confused published with successful. They have also confused published with all-knowing brilliance in the field of novel writing. Their acknowledgments and interviews have a narcissistic "I've reached the top of the hill because of ..." tone. I'd rather they have the philosophy that I haven't done anything until the reader says "ooh, I can't wait to read your next one."

Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind a published author teaching me the craft, what editors are looking for, or how to get published. But please wait until you're a bestseller before acting like one. Or better yet, don't ever act like one.

I won't go into anymore detail because it may be easy to figure out who I'm talking about.

Fortunately, not many authors fall into this category. Most of the authors I've met feel lucky to be published and they have an ongoing hope that their novels will be enjoyed by the readers. And they hope they have a chance to publish another without letting their readers down.

I stopped reading two novels this week. I couldn't finish them. One because of style, the other because of too many plot holes and inconsistencies. The latter was written by one of the types of authors I'm speaking of. He/she may be published, but he/she is not as great as he/she thinks.

The arrogance of the expert newbie . . .

This is one of my biggest pet peeves in the community of writers. There are a few unpublished writers out there who have taken a class, read a book, or attended a conference, who now think they know exactly how to write a novel the correct way.

But the kicker is, they feel the need to impose their newly found "truth" on the rest of us. Even going as far as commenting on successful author's blogs in an argumentative fashion of how wrong they are when said successful author gives free advice.

Now I'm not against anyone expressing their views, but you might want to listen to an author who sells a lot of books. The readers are the true arbiters of "correct" writing.

I have seen this psychosis before. Someone discovers the secret of something, has an "Ohhh, I get it now" moment, and then develops an arrogant gestapo like attitude toward the rest of us dumb rubes who don't employ these truths.

There is no one way to write a novel. Editors culminate years of experience to offer valuable but sometimes flawed advice. The reading public, however, can be hard to pin down. They want a good story, period. It's up to editors to figure out what that means this week. They all admit that if they knew exactly what makes a bestseller, then every book they put out would be one.

I'm not supposed to say this, but . . .

. . . it's true. I have read published novels that I believe were inferior to my (unpublished) manuscript.

I know, I'm treading on thin ice here and I'm in danger of sounding like a delusional fool or an arrogant jerk. But, don't worry I'm a realist. I have read many novels that are better, and in some cases (such as Tosca Lee's), far better than mine.

Furthermore, I'm not saying those novels I feel rank below mine are not good, or not well-written, or undeserving of being published. I know how hard it is and I'm happy for all of them.

So, should I ever say this? Should I just keep my opinion to myself?

I believe there's a time and place for everything. (Actually that's not true. That's a crazy saying. There's never a time and place for nazism or cruelty to animals for example.) I would never say this to anyone in a professional setting. No good can come out of it.

These thoughts are better left in your own mind or in private discussions with good friends who know you're not delusional or a jerk. But then again, do you really know what they think of you?