Enjoying God

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I’ve been in a bit of a funk recently. Illness combined with a series of disappointments has served to create a flatness and lack of motivation.

This funk also stretched into my times with the Lord. I’d been grabbing snippets of time with Him and reading the Word had become a little monotonous.

The Psalms

“Read the Psalms” was a response I heard to a question I asked a few weeks ago. So that’s what I did.

I also found a book on my shelf titled, “Deeper Places: Experiencing God in the Psalms” penned by an Aussie pastor, Matthew Jacoby, who also happens to play in a worship band called “Sons of Korah” who I’d known of for years but hadn’t listened to much of their music. Their music is entirely focused on sharing the message of the Psalms.

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“The Counselor: A Screenplay”, Cormac McCarthy

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It’s been a few years since I read a screenplay. It’s obvious from the first page this was written for the screen.

The Counselor is classic McCarthy with his magnificent spartan use of language and ability to take his reader into the heart of every scene.

While I enjoyed reading McCarthy’s narrative and frugal but a times brutal dialogue, the story didn’t grab me. I think I’ll enjoy the story more when I see the visual representation of it on the screen. The story moves at great pace skipping from one scene to another then to another very quickly which I believe will be better portrayed on screen. There’s a wonderful cast assembled for the movie making it even more appealing. How the director captures the fear and tension that pervades the screenplay will be particularly interesting.

As with many McCarthy works there are some severe violent episodes that I actually found a little distracting but I expect is necessary to demonstrate the destructive essence of the drug trade.

This is one that is perhaps better to watch than to read.

My interview with Jack Haines

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A few months ago I shared a cup of spearmint tea with Jack Haines, the hero of Angelguard. My interview covered a range of topics including handling grief and loss of loved ones, how his faith has helped him through the struggle, confronting evil, to more mundane matters such as our shared love of all things football (soccer for our American friends).

In February this year Elaine Stock was kind enough to have me over on her very impressive blog: Everyone’s Story. Elaine has a real heart for sharing author’s stories behind the stories especially new authors. She was kind enough to have me over once again where I share a small extract of my interview with Jack.

I hope you enjoy getting to know Jack a little more. There’s also an opportunity to win Angelguard if you leave a comment under the interview on Elaine’s blog.

Wishing you all a fabulous weekend.

What’s in a name – Part 3

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Photo courtesy of Victor Habbick/Freedigitalphotos.net

This final part is long overdue. I do apologise. Unfortunately, I have been unwell and have been lying low for the past week.

If you are new to this short series on how I derived the names of the lead characters in Angelguard, may I suggest you read the first two parts. The first one features the human characters and the second, the angelic ones. In this post I will share a little about the lead demonic characters.

Military Titles

As I adopted an organised hierarchical structure for the supernatural beings I initially used military titles for some of the lead characters. However, over the lifespan of the manuscript’s development and the attention of Jan, my astute editor, some of those titles went away along with a number of characters being benched for this first act in the series.

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“Soul’s Gate”, Jim Rubart

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Jim Rubart’s novels simply get better and better. This is top notch and I’d encourage every Christian to read it.

From the first page Jim’s writing took me on a spiritual journey that had me pressing into the Lord as I explored the ideas in the novel in my own prayer life. Jesus brings freedom, it’s a fundamental aspect of the gospel and Soul’s Gate explores this truth by introducing four characters who are still struggling with their own particular issues. They are called to firstly tackle their own captivity before being able to help others to do the same which I take will be the main thrust behind the second in the series, Memory’s Door.

However, the enemy doesn’t just sit back and allow us as individuals to surrender our brokenness to the Lord. Rubart demonstrates this by using the allegory of people entering another’s soul to help that person to both recognise their struggles and then helping free them. However, frequently the enemy will turn up in an attempt to thwart the crusaders efforts. In essence, I see this as how the Holy SPirit works in our lives. He enables us to identify the roadblocks to our freedom and provides us with the ammunition to blast them away. And once again, Satan and his cronies fight hard to stop the roadblocks from budging.

We can all help others in their individual battles by way of prayer which again is a big theme that runs through Soul’s Gate. Prayer is powerful and it does work to prevent the enemy in its efforts.

I enjoyed each of the four characters, all very different and believable. I look forward to their development in the next edition. The scenery both physically and supernaturally is fantastic making the novel a great joy to read. Rubart does a magnificent job visually taking the reader into each of the scenes.

I’ll be recommending this to everyone. It’s a must read and the best novel I’ve read in 2013.

Congratulations Jim on a novel that I hope will stand the test of time not unlike some of those of a certain hero of yours, Mr CS Lewis.

What’s in a name – Part 2?

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As I mentioned last week, I love naming the characters in my writing. In that post I took you through the three leading human characters. This week I thought I’d cover off some of the angelic ones.

Territorially I structured the supernatural beings along global regions. Much of the material I’ve read about them makes reference to a hierarchical structure within angelic and demonic circles so that was the approach I followed. As I mentioned last week, the novel started as three separate parts, each focused on one of the lead characters (Thierry, Loren and Jack) being a victim of a terrorist attack. The first attack was in London (Europe), the next in Los Angeles (the Americas) and the final one in Australia (Asia and the Pacific). Accordingly, I established angels and demons to link with each situation.

Over the course of many re-writes and edits, the cast of supernatural characters shrunk dramatically including some of the regional leaders. The cast as outlined in the prelude to the novel reflects about 50% of the characters that have been created. I expect some of those who missed the final cut will attempt to push their way into making an appearance in subsequent Chronicles.

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