Letters To Nobody
I am a problem solver by nature. When something is broken I want to understand it, name it, and find the path to fixing it. That is just how I am wired. When I enter a difficult conversation I am carrying tools. Questions that get to the root. Observations that name what is actually happening....
Letters To Nobody
Something shifted in me the day I realized that some arguments are not actually arguments. They are scripts. Written before you arrived. With a role already assigned to you that has nothing to do with who you actually are or what you actually said. You walked into a conversation that was already finished. You just...
Letters To Nobody
I want to talk about reality television for a minute. Not as entertainment. As education. Because whether people realize it or not, these shows have been teaching a generation how to handle conflict. And the lesson is devastating. The lesson is this. When you have a problem with someone you do not sit down and...
The Writing Life
The single most important decision a series writer makes is not plot. It is architecture. The plot is what happens. The architecture is the world the plot happens inside. And if the architecture is not built to hold weight — if the rules are not consistent, if the internal logic collapses under pressure, if the...
Letters To Nobody
There is a specific kind of conversation that leaves you feeling like you walked into a room you did not recognize by the time you walked out. You went in trying to explain something. Something honest. Something you chose your words for carefully. You kept your tone soft. You removed the edge from your voice...
Letters To Nobody
I noticed something a long time ago in arguments that took me a while to put into words. Most people in a disagreement are not actually listening. They are waiting. There is a difference. Listening means you are taking in what the other person is saying and letting it land before you respond. Waiting means...
The Writing Life
Every protagonist I have written carries both. Craig Anderson in SEER. Alan Charms in Black Water. Significant gifts. Significant wounds. The two living together in the same person and the wounds making it difficult to access the gifts. That is not a formula I chose consciously. It is a pattern that keeps emerging because I...
The Writing Life
Richard Kinson shows up in SEER as Craig Anderson’s mentor. He is older. Established. He sees something in Craig that Craig cannot see in himself. He does not push. He illuminates. He holds up a mirror and lets Craig come to his own conclusions about what he is looking at. He is the presence in...
The Writing Life
I do not want to preach at my reader. I want to tell them a story that does the preaching for me. There is a significant difference between those two things and the difference is everything when it comes to whether a reader finishes the book or puts it down halfway through. Frank Peretti understood...
The Writing Life
The genre does not get the respect it deserves. Christian supernatural fiction lives in a strange position in the literary world. Too spiritual for the secular market. Too fantastical for the readers who want straight theology. Not edgy enough for the horror crowd. Not literary enough for the prestige fiction crowd. It exists in a...