Since writing about my story of publication, I've had numerous people ask if they could read my fiction. Here is an offering in that direction, an excerpt from my unpublished novel Black Dog Man, just a little action snippet with some of my favorite dialogue.
Read the rest of this entry . . .

This may interest nobody, but I get asked often enough -- more and more these days -- how I landed a book deal, so I figured a short bullet-point chronology might be worth sharing. I was halfway inspired by this post from Jeffrey Overstreet, also.

This is the story.
Read the rest of this entry . . .

1. Do something else, if you can.

It's hard work. If you want to get published, the odds are that you won't. Even if you get published, if you want to make a living at it, the odds are that you won't. The market is glutted. Everyone says they're writing a book or has a book in them. Unless you really do, don't bother. But if you really have the fire, you'll ignore all that.

2. Read fiction/literature. Get a feel for the poetry of language.

We don't need more regurgitated information. We have the Internet for that. If you want to write, write big or go home. And the best way to learn how to do that is to read. Even if you plan to write non-fiction, read fiction. Good fiction. Poetry too. You can stomach poetry, can't you? If you can't, you may not be a writer. You can probably put some words together that say things, and you may be really smart, but you're probably not a writer. But if you are a writer, read the sorts of works where it's not just what is being said, but how it's being said. Good fiction is typically the best for this because the number of real writers writing non-fiction is dwindling.

If you're reading this blog, it's likely you want to write from a Christian perspective. My friend Ray Ortlund has some good words:

It is so hard not to be dull. C.S. Lewis wrote that "when the old poets made some virtue their theme, they were not teaching but adoring, and . . . what we take for the didactic is often the enchanted." As I write, I am not merely teaching. I am adoring. Please do not take the enchanted as merely the didactic.

Figure out how to exult in your writing. This will involve feeling what sentences can do, holding up the diamond of language at different angles to see how the light plays from this perspective and that. If you don't know how to exult in your writing maybe write flow-charts or restaurant menus or something. We don't need any more Christian books that approach the gospel like a manual for a toaster oven.

3. Seek feedback from people who will be honest.

Other writers, if they're not jealous nitwits, might actually be inclined to over-praise your work, hoping you'll return the favor when it's their turn in the hot seat. But non-writers close to you may struggle with honesty for fear of hurting your feelings. Seek feedback from people who a) would know good writing if they read it, and b) won't lie.

First, you will need a thick skin. (I know this is difficult, because writing something good is akin -- in our minds -- to crafting a Ming vase. Then, handing it to some Philistine for critique is like saying, "Here, use this for a bedpan.") Secondly, hand your work to some Philistine for critique. Find an honest Philistine, preferably one who reads a lot. Aunt Martha is probably not the ideal choice, unless Aunt Martha is an editor or (real) writer herself. Leave Aunt Martha to like your Facebook statuses and find a real peer who is honest instead. You want to get better, not have smoke blown up your Ming vase. (Pronounce that last word "vahz.")

4. Do the work.

Talking about writing, reading about writing, thinking about writing, planning to write is all writing. Don't listen to people who say it's not, even if you find me saying that somewhere in the archives. So do all that stuff. It's part of the process. But writers write. At some point you have to stop processing and start producing. The process becomes writing when it directly results in pages. Don't slack. Read your guts full and then write your guts out. Open up a vein and bleed. Or take up knitting.

Forgive my tone. I'm hungry for a literary renaissance among followers of Jesus. Are you it? If so, I love you. Godspeed.

---

Previously: Tips for Aspiring Writers (Lotta hubris there, because it was written a few years ago, before I had a book deal, but I stand by it still. Those are the steps I worked through myself.)

Also, on the humorous tip: That's Not Really How it Works (So You Want to Write a Novel)

Did C.S. Lewis write allegory? The answer is not as obvious as it seems. Because modern readers define and interpret Allegory so loosely and broadly, it has become common to speak of the Narnia stories as allegories of the Christian faith (or at the very least, to speak of the first book in the series as an allegory of the Gospel story), or to speak of The Space Trilogy as allegories of spiritual origins and conflict. But the fact is that C.S. Lewis published only one allegorical work: The Pilgrim's Regress.

In determining this, it is important to consider what Lewis himself believed about Allegory, how he defined it. He may very well have been wrong (and perhaps modernity has blurred the fine edges off of his definition to the point where he would be wrong today), but I think we cannot rightly call works of his allegorical if he himself did not regard them so.

The brief note at the beginning of Perelandra includes the curious disclaimer that none of the figures in the story are allegorical. I always thought this odd considering that the book so obviously included references to the biblical account of the Fall and that the hero Ransom was so obviously a Christ-figure. Indeed, the second book of Lewis's Space Trilogy is the easiest of the three to read "allegorically." But again, we must keep in mind that Lewis regards Allegory as a specific genre with specific rules.

How then does he define Allegory? Perhaps the clearest definition in the most common language comes via a letter to Mrs. Hook (found in Letters of C.S. Lewis, 12/29/58):

By an allegory I mean a composition (whether pictorial or literary) in which immaterial realities are represented by feigned physical objects, e.g. a pictured Cupid allegorically represents erotic love (which in reality is an experience, not an object occupying a given area of space) or, Bunyan, a giant represents Despair.

A more literary explanation is found in Lewis's historical survey and critical appraisal of Allegory, The Allegory of Love:

On the one hand you can start with an immaterial fact, such as the passions which you actually experience, and can then invent visibilia to express them. If you are hesitating between an angry retort and a soft answer, you can express your state of mind by inventing a person called Ira with a torch and letting her contend with another invented person called Patientia. This is allegory.

To put it more simply:
For Lewis, allegory is when tangible figures represent the intangible -- ideas, emotions, or experiences. As an example, the character Christian in Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress represents Christianity or Christians in general, just as some of the characters Christian encounters in that allegory represent typical Christian struggles -- fear, doubt, etc.

Allegory would be when a character Johnny represents the virtue of sacrifice, not when Johnny represents Jesus. When figures represent not the intangible, but other things tangible (like other figures), then they become symbols. This is why the Narnia stories are not Allegory either. Or, more specifically, this is why Aslan is not an allegorical figure of Jesus. In that same letter to Mrs. Hook, Lewis writes:

If Aslan represented the immaterial Deity, he would be an allegorical figure. In reality however he is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, "What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?" This is not allegory at all. So in Perelandra. This also works out a supposition . . . Allegory and such supposals differ because they mix the real and the unreal in different ways.

Lewis goes on to elaborate, but a basic point is clear -- the author did not regard Narnia or Perelandra (and I think, by extension, the first and third episodes of the Trilogy) as allegorical. He regarded the Narnia stories as "supposal," a term I believe he invented himself to suit his purposes (although I could be wrong on that point). By "supposal," Lewis meant to relate the imaginative speculation of his story, the exploration of the "what if?" he describes in the passage above.

In his Letters to Children, he writes:

You are mistaken when you think that everything in the books "represents" something in this world. Things do that in The Pilgrim's Progress, but I'm not writing in that way. I did not say to myself "Let us represent Jesus as He really is in our world by a Lion in Narnia": I said "Let us suppose that there were a land like Narnia . . ."

None of this is to say that Lewis's works are without symbolism. But if we want to interpret his writing correctly, we must do so according to the author's rules at the very least. And if we are going to follow his rules for his writing, we must make the distinctions between Allegory and Symbolism and Supposal that Lewis himself does.

This won't keep anyone from reading the works as allegorical, or from saying they are allegories. The term has lost its meaning, really. And modern readers have inherited a slight reader-response critical mode from postmodern literary criticism without really knowing it. Nothing's to keep you from reading Narnia as an allegory. Lewis acknowledges this:

Here, therefore, the critic has great freedom to range without fear of contradictions from the author's superior knowledge.

Where he seems to me most often to go wrong is in the hasty assumption of an allegorical sense; and as reviewers make this mistake about contemporary works, so, in my opinion, scholars now often make it about old ones. I would recommend to both, and I would try to observe in my own critical practice, these principles. First, that no story can be devised by the wit of man which cannot be interpreted allegorically by the wit of some other man . . . Therefore the mere fact that you can allegorise the work before you is of itself no proof that it is an allegory. Of course you can allegorise it. You can allegorise anything . . . We ought not to proceed to allegorise any work until we have plainly set out the reasons for regarding it as an allegory at all.

-- from "On Criticism" in "On Stories" and Other Essays on Literature

I would suggest that if our definition of Allegory differs from Lewis's, we probably ought to drop the idea that his works are allegories altogether.

It's funny because it's true.



(HT: My agent)

Previously: Tips for Aspiring Writers (Written 2 years ago, before I had a book deal, but I stand by it. Those are the steps I worked through myself.)

I am happy right now because I found out today that my third book will be my first to keep the original title I gave it. (Long-time readers may remember that Your Jesus is Too Safe was originally titled The Unvarnished Jesus and that Abide was titled God vs. Suburbia.

Publishers tend to know better than authors about what titles catch the eyes of bookstore browsers, though, or what appeals more to target audiences, so they tend to like to change them during the editing/publishing process. But Crossway's editorial team informed my agent today that "Gospel Wakefulness" sums up my book's contents strongly, and they believe it is 'catchy' enough. In just-as-cool news, it is scheduled for release on Reformation Day (Oct. 31) next year.

You can read an excerpt from my ms. after the jump...
Read the rest of this entry . . .

I "love" that the cover in the ad on this page (right sidebar) for a book on how to help writers get noticed by editors and avoid the slush pile has a typo.

Here's a tip, though: Never trust an anonymous editor who wants to give you advice on how to get published.

I'm currently at work on my third book. I'd like to share bits and pieces as I go, if that's okay. The book is about the gospel (of course), and here is a passage from the chapter I finished today, which is on brokenness.

When our heavenly Father looks upon the broken mess of our lives, he doesn’t snicker or sigh. He ministers to us a sweeter comfort than any temporary and worldly comfort we’d sought before. We are told by the prophet, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” God doesn’t despise us in our brokenness; he comforts us in it. The greater the brokenness, the greater the impulse to trust him. The greater the trust in him, the greater the joy of his salvation. So, then, the further to the end of ourselves we go, the more of Christ we will enjoy.

People ask me all the time how I got published or how they can get published. Some thoughts:

1) You have to be a good writer. There are exceptions. But don't try to be one. Get critical feedback. Don't be like those honestly deluded folks on "American Idol" every year. Just because you think you're good, and your spouse does too, doesn't mean you are. Get better.

2) Get an agent. It's harder and harder to get viewed well by an editor if you are not represented. It's sad to say, but long looks at unsolicited manuscripts are going the way of the dodo, including in the Christian publishing world.

Once you're in an editor's hands, if he or she likes what you've written, the process is kinda weird. Here is a great post from my agent on how the decision to publish a book gets made.

The pub board makes or breaks you. It's a business, folks.

My first novel Otherworld (still unpublished) -- which I know some of you have read -- got quickly snatched up by a zealous editor in charge of helping launch a Christian publishing company's new "supernatural fiction" imprint. The editor loved it and pitched it with a select few other faves as books to launch the imprint with. But the pub board didn't love it. They said female readers wouldn't like books about UFO's.

It didn't matter that the book wasn't about UFO's (not really, anyway) or that, if women readers are your target, "supernatural fiction" probably isn't the best genre to go with. They didn't think the book would sell, so they said no.
(I confess a smidgen of schadenfreude when the imprint folded a year later.)
Before Kregel picked up Your Jesus is Too Safe an editor at another good publisher wanted it and pitched it to his company. Again, the pub board said nope.

So I guess the final bottom line is "Write a marketable book and pitch it to a publisher who deals in that market."

That's all I got.

Maybe. :-)

If you're on Facebook and haven't become a fan on the page for my book Your Jesus is Too Safe, please rectify this injustice anon. Becoming a fan automatically enters you for drawings for free books.

Got the page proofs for the book today. It keeps getting realer. :-)

The book releases in July but you can pre-order it on Amazon now.

And if you're in the Houston and Nashville areas, I'll be in your areas this summer for a book signing or two.

I've tried to keep the self-promotion to a minimum, but if I've stepped on your sensibilities, I apologize. You can skip this post if you want.

A few personal notes:

My book Your Jesus is Too Safe is still on track for a July release. Don't have a street date yet, but I'll obviously shout from the rooftops when I do. The good folks at Kregel have been incredible to work with, btw. I've seen a preliminary workup of the prospective cover, and it looks awesome! I'm pretty excited, naturally.

I'm also excited because the Ed Stetzer has agreed to write the Foreword. Thanks, Ed!

We began a new series at Element two weeks ago on the book of Haggai. It's called "DWELL." It has been such a blessing to present the gospel from the Old Testament and preach Jesus from the minor prophets (as I did last year with Habakkuk). If you are ever tempted to skip over the "obscure" books, don't! And don't think you can't find the good news in them either.

Writing update:
Each week I've hoped to have a substantial amount of time to begin work on my follow-up in earnest, but each week -- and this is a blessing -- I keep receiving freelance assignments that keep me busy. It's good paying work, so I don't turn much of it down. I know to be thankful for having steady work at a time many do not.
But this week may be the first in months I've been able to sit down and focus on writing for me. But of course this won't be the first week I've thought that. ;-)

In any event, the book I will begin any day now is tentatively titled Postcards from the Revolution: The Parables as Sabotage.

On only a semi-related note, I now have a booking page on my personal website. If you're interested in having me speak to your group or at your church or event, check it out.

And on that note, I will be preaching at Middletown Springs Community Church in Middletown Springs, Vermont on March 1. If you're anywhere near that area then, hope to see you.

Thus ends the shameless self-promotion. For the time being. ;-)

I'm signing the publishing contract right now for The Unvarnished Jesus!

Lots more to come.

Seriously.

You're gonna get sick of how much I talk about this. :-)

I need help. (Yes, again.)

In the manuscript for my book The Unvarnished Jesus, I include in a chapter called "Jesus the Redeemer" a first person account from a woman whose husband and two daughters were afflicted with a rare, incurable disease. She cared for them to the utmost until they passed. Her story is incredible and inspiring, and it was just the thing I was looking for to illustrate grace in a narrative way.

Two things causing me some discomfort:
I don't know the woman.
I got the story off the Internet.

I would like to replace this story with something similar but from someone I have a closer connection to. I know Thinklings readers tend to be good with words and good at "getting" grace.

Here's my offer:

If you have a story of extreme, self-emptying, incarnational grace in action -- preferably your own but perhaps that of someone quite close to you -- write a first-person account of it (no more than 2 double-spaced pages) and e-mail it to me at jared DOT wilson AT elementnashville DOT org.

I know it may seem kinda weird to brag on your own acts of service and sacrifice, but think of it as an opportunity to testify to the goodness of God in your experience. The point is to talk about how God used the ups and downs to redeem your struggle, pain, depression, stress, etc.

If I pick your story, it will appear in my book.
The only catch, of course, is that you will have to grant me permission to use it. I will credit you of course, but your only compensation will be (Lord willing) seeing your story in a book people can buy at a bookstore.

I will show the "winner" his or her story in the context of the chapter for approval before submission.

Tip:
Write honestly, including your frustrations and emotions during the experience.

Ask any questions in the comments . . .

I am contacted quite frequently by aspiring writers seeking advice on breaking into the publishing world, which is always amusing as I would love to break into the publishing world myself. But I have published some articles and I have an agent shopping my book-length efforts, so making the mistake that I know some stuff is understandable.
Plus, I do actually know some stuff. So there's that.

My wife also quite frequently receives copies of self-published books in the mail from aspiring authors who believe she has some pull in the Christian industry. The truth is, she kinda-sorta does, but not in the area of getting stuff published. (If she did, don't you think I'd be on the bookshelves by now?) But that doesn't stop people sending her their Xulon-printed paperbacks and half-cocked proposals.

As far as I can tell, there are two things every aspiring author must have (and a third that would be extremely helpful) to get even considered for publication:

1) Talent
You have to write well. I won't belabor this point, but most aspiring authors think they are good writers, and most are not. Some are passable, but only a minority are publication-worthy. Most bad writers don't know they're bad writers, and this self-delusion is really a turnoff.
But if you happen to have the self-awareness that you're not all that great, don't despair. The encouraging thing is that plenty of bad writers get published, which proves you don't need to have that much talent.
If you're a writer, keep writing. Don't trust your Aunt Mabel's assurances that you are good. Study craft. Keep writing; get better.

2) Education
I'm not talking about formal education. I'm talking about knowing how to work the process. Do you know how to format a book or article for submission? Do you know which publishers take unsolicited manuscripts (very few these days), which require agented submissions (more and more these days), which require a query letter? Do you know what a query letter is or how to write one?
Are you printing your cover letter on floral stationery? (Don't do that.)
Are you sending your self-published paperback to your writer relative who might know somebody who might know somebody in the industry? (Don't do that.)

Here are two fabulous places to start:

Nelson's Michael Hyatt on Advice to First-Time Authors

Mark Bertrand on formatting manuscript submissions.

You'll want to get the latest edition of the Writer's Market Guide to whatever it is you're trying to write, and it'll be helpful if you regularly read the blogs of editors and agents in the industry.
Conferences and manuscript submission services have worked for some people, also, but I don't think they're necessary.

Writing well and being informed, in tandem, greatly improve your odds of getting published. If you don't write all that well, being informed is especially important. A bad writer with an incoherent proposal or a query letter printed in 18-point Verdana will get nowhere.

This is the part where the "Self publish!" brigade rolls in to trumpet the praises of building demand by providing the supply oneself. It doesn't work. Doesn't. Sorry. Agents and publishers do not take self-published works seriously, because any joe with some dough can self-publish his book. The exceptions only prove the rule.
For every grassroots success like The Shack or that kid who ripped off The Lord of the Rings, there are literally hundreds of thousands of awful writers printing up their mediocre material and taking out pathetic ads to promote it.

Self-publish if it will make you feel better, if it will make you feel like a "real" author. Or if you already have a platform for speaking (or some such thing) that allows you to sell your books directly and regularly enough to make a profit. If you want to be published in the real world, however, self-publishing only makes you look like an amateur, and as there's no serious editorial filter, most agents and editors won't waste time weeding through the thousands of awful books to find the gems. Go through the prescribed process.

There is a hypothetical third way in:

3) Be "somebody" or know somebody
Plenty of bad writers who know nothing initially about the publishing process get published because they are popular preachers, notable politicians, or recognizable entertainers. Or because they know somebody with real influence in the industry.

I can tell you right now what most agents and editors are really looking for, though:
A very talented writer who is informed on the publishing process and also happens to be a recognizable figure in whatever field he's writing for.

Your mileage may vary.

The sidebar* to Chuck Klosterman's article in the May Esquire makes some good, troubling points about our favorite show.

For three seasons the ABC series "Lost" used flashbacks to illustrate elements of the narrative the audience never saw. Now they've gone the other way; now they're consistently using flash-forwards to show pats of the story we haven't yet experienced. It's made the series even more interesting than it already was. But something keeps occurring to me: Isn't this a dangerous move on behalf of the producers? They seem to be giving its central cast members the strongest negotiating leverage in TV history.

Let's say the actor who plays Sayid (Naveen Andrews) suddenly decides to ignore his current contract. Let's say he demands twice as much money as he's scheduled to receive and won't show up for work without it. What could ABC possibly do? They can't just feed him to the smoke monster and write him off the show; we already know he definitely exists in an abstract tomorrow. By actively showing the future, the screenwriters have relinquished their ability to control the present. An even greater (and admittedly morbid) problem would be accidental death: What if Michael Emerson (the actor who portrays Ben) died in a car accident? Would the show simply have to end? How could his absence be reconciled? There is no "News Radio" option for "Lost." Not any more.

We could end up with a whole new version of "Bewitched"'s two Darrins or "Roseanne"'s two Beckys.
Or, I guess with the whole time travel angle in play now, they could write someone off and just spin into a new future without the stubborn actor.

Bill, does this still count as having to look at a "Lost" post?


* Not available online.

Revision of the Jesus book is done!

I'm going to celebrate by going to see the new VeggieTales movie with my family.

This is going to be the best Jesus book ever. Not only do I get to footnote scholarly discussions of the Gospels' similarity to ancient Graeco-Roman biography, I get to footnote stuff like this.

Hey, I'm editing my "Jesus book" manuscript, and I need your help.

Several years ago, Asbell told me that the absence of infancy narratives in the four Gospels was actually not all that unique for ancient stories. He suggested that biographical propaganda of the surrounding time/culture typically recounted a hero's birth and then -- boom -- the story jumped to his adult exploits.

He cited a source for this idea (I think), but I don't know what it was.
I have a pretty good collection of references on Jesus and the Gospels, but I'm coming up empty on any discussion of childhood/infancy narratives in the Gospels and their similarity or dissimilarity to other ancient biographies.

Anybody know of a secondary source where I might see this notion confirmed or contested?
Scratch that: Anybody HAVE a secondary source on this? I'm footnoting this discussion and need to be able to provide page numbers. If I can't find a source, I won't mention this discussion in the book at all.

Thanks ahead of time!
Thinklings readers rock!

As some of you may recall, in June I posted a Thinklings interview with author and chess historian, J.C. Hallman.

Hallman is the author of two books: The Chess Artist and The Devil is a Gentleman.

If you'd like to learn more about Hallman's writings, visit his website -- jchallman.com.

Incidentally, if you go to his site, you can see that he linked back to his Thinklings interview. Here's a piece of that interview:

Both of your published books -- The Chess Artist and The Devil Is a Gentleman -- have a religious theme to them. What's your concept of religion in the world? Did you grow up in a religious environment?

Hallman: I started out Catholic but rejected it very early. Like when I was ten. As to my conception of religion in the world, it's something I articulated more in the second book, in which I explored a variety of religious movements, taking along with me the thinking of William James as a kind of guiding spirit. What I came up with, in terms of the big picture of religion, is that consciousness, human consciousness, comes with a significant attendant cosmological curiosity. That is, when we become conscious as people, we begin to get curious about big questions: why am I here, what is the nature of the universe, and so forth. All this is another way of saying that the side effect of sentience is a god-shaped hole in our psyches. Now that's Sartre (I think), but what James might add to it is that failing to satisfy that curiosity can result in a kind of profound sadness, even the tendency to reject life. So people are hardwired to find some set of answers that satisfies that cosmological curiosity. Fills the god-shaped hole. Very often that set of answers is God, but it can just as well be science's version of creation, the Big Bang (which some string theorists describe as quaint, it's so out of date), or organized Atheism, or Christianity, or Satanism, or chess, or literature, or whatever else satisfies you in terms of your personal quandary about the basic questions and mysteries of life. This is basically what we mean when we turn religion into an adverb and note that someone pursues whatever they pursue "religiously."

Click here to read the entire interview.

As some of you know, I've been converting a message series I taught called "Old School Jesus" into a book. One of the joys in this process is transferring my typical sarcastic asides in preaching into sarcastic footnotes. Here's one I just wrote I felt like sharing:

"I am halfway convinced that Oprah Winfrey herself is responsible for the hamartological bankruptcy of Middle American culture. If you don’t know what hamartological means, it’s okay. I only halfway believe this theory, so it’s not that important."

In an earlier chapter I was being cheeky and long-winded and was footnoting definitions of some terms. In the final ranty lines, I made up a German theological term, which I footnoted: "This one I just made up."

This is a fun book to write. :-)