Writers: What Do We Feel About Our Writing?

     Writers are often asked how they feel about their writing. The answer seems obvious until you read what some prominent authors have said in response. Kurt Vonnegut told an interviewer for the London Times in 2007, “When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.” C.S. Lewis once wrote on a student’s paper, “… If you become a writer you’ll be trying to describe the thing all your life: and lucky if, out of dozens of books, one or two sentences, just for a moment, come near to getting it across …” Consider also James Joyce, who told a friend in a letter, “Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives.”
     Don’t misunderstand me. I'm a writer who finds great joy in what I do … sometimes. Ask me on a day when I’m feeling particularly inspired and the words seem to write themselves, and you’ll find me singing praise songs all day long. But ask me on a day when the words won’t come and I’m struggling to eke out a sentence, and then I’ll be singing that old Hee-Haw song, “Gloom, despair and agony on me …”
     All this is to say that writing can often be like the blustery snow storm outside my window on this April day. When the clouds first move in and the impending weather appears ominous, I dread the driving winds and the bleak beginnings, and a cold harsh reality sets in that I must write something worth anybody’s time. I ask myself why I’m putting myself through this agony. Yet, when the winds have subsided and the sun comes out, and the snowflakes lay like billowy drifts of tiny multi-faceted diamonds, I’m warmed by the way the words sparkle with intricate beauty … if I’m lucky. 
     Perhaps it’s the latter sentiment that compels me—the eternal hope that, if I’m lucky, at least two sentences will have gotten across in a way that captures the essence of all that matters and is worth reading. I believe God planted the desire in me to write from the moment I was conceived in my mother’s womb, since I've been writing from the first time I could put words to the page. 
     Truth be told, I write because I believe God gave me a gift I should not squander. It's not about the money; most writers will never make a living at their work. It’s not about the fame; few authors reach that stature. Yet perhaps someday, if I’m very lucky, something of beauty will sparkle off the page, and your heart will be warmed as well as mine.     

Undaunted Valor  Book 2 The Waldensian Series now available at: Amazon.com


     For nature lovers, ski aficionados, travel enthusiasts and history scholars, the French Alps offer some of the most spectacular scenery and outdoor recreation in Europe with its majestic mountain peaks, cascading waterfalls, unspoiled forests and quaint villages. People visit to get away from the daily grind and rejuvenate their spirits.
     But when Alessandro Marianni's grandmother Luciana is kidnapped during a church conference in Chamonix, the same landscape becomes an ominous height to scale, and Jamie Holbrooke and her fiancé Alessandro have difficulty distinguishing between friend and foe on a race to find her. They will have to weather a rainstorm on a mountain trail, negotiate a dangerous waterfall, outmaneuver a car chase, and defy an assassin's gun in their search.
     Will they find their beloved Luciana before it's too late, and who will die on the way to the finish line? Who can they trust? Where will Jamie find the courage to confront her adversaries? In this sequel to Light Out of Darkness, the answers will lie in unanticipated places and with unexpected allies and require Jamie to discover what it means to trust God with undaunted valor.

Also available: 2nd Edition of Light Out of Darkness
Book 1 The Waldensian Series now available at: Amazon.com

A prestigious art exhibition turns into a horrific spectacle when a murder sends an art curator and a professor on a hunt for a highly coveted stolen painting.
     Escaping a painful past in Cleveland, Ohio, Jamie Holbrooke flees to Milan, Italy as an art curator. But her past follows her during an evening stroll along Varenna’s shoreline walk when an assailant, who looks like her dead brother, presses a mysterious riddle into her hand. Still reeling from shock the next day, she discovers her long-time paragon, Dr. Alessandro Marianni, may have a link to the enigmatic riddle. Before she can discover the answers, their colleague falls prey to an assassin’s bullet. Convinced the riddle and murder are connected, Jamie and Alessandro risk their lives to uncover why an obscure painting has caught the attention of art critics and criminals alike. At stake is a two-thousand–year-old drama, unfolding in the contemporary world of the Northern Italian Alps.
     Will Jamie and Alessandro stop powerful organized crime figures before the painting is lost forever and with it a secret more valuable than the prized artwork? Will Jamie find the answers to help her reclaim her life again? She will need the courage to face her fears and the persevering faith of Dr. Alessandro Marianni to heal her wounded heart.