Angela Benson
The last post in the Taking Back the Past series ended with my decision to write Christian fiction. Rather than picking up where that post left off, I’m going to digress a bit and go back to the start of my writing career. I think this is fitting given that Harlequin is re-issuing my first three books in a 3-1 volume in April. I promise to continue that story after I take you through those first three books.
Anyway, I think you’ll find it interesting to read my reflection on my start as recorded in the nonfiction book that I wrote in 1998-9, Telling the Tale: The African-American Fiction Writer’s Guide (Berkeley, 2000). One similarity that you’ll notice in the piece I wrote back in 1998-9 and the piece I wrote last week is the noton of “life-changing” events. Last week, I wrote, “. . .that call changed the course of my life. Literally.” In Telling the Tale, I wrote: “That decision changed my life.”
When I noticed that similarity in the pieces, I wondered about my word choices. So, you tell me, should the events in both pieces be described as “life-changing” or am I given to a bit of hyperbole? 🙂 You decide. You can read my account of the beginning of my writing career as recorded in Telling the Tale HERE.
Praise alert: Do you know how we prayed that the Lord would use these re-issues for His glory? Well, I got a call two nights ago from a girlfriend in a Tampa, Florida Wal-Mart (yes, cell phones have changed our lives) who noticed copies of A Family Wedding and Second Chance Dad on the shelves. She was about to purchase copies for her young daughter, thinking the books were among my new Christian fiction titles. We were able to quickly clear that up (she decided to look for The Amen Sisters for herself instead) and spent the rest of the conversation discussing the recent happenings in our lives and encouraging each other. I’m going to count that as a win in the re-issue category.
Angela, I think God can use even our wilfullness, mistakes and, forgive me for saying it but it goes for a lot of us Christians, me included, our cowardice in sticking up for what is right in His eyes, for His glory. We might wonder why.
In this case, like me when I kept looking for other books by you after having found your first few “secular” books, it pleased me all the more when I found your Christian books. I knew I had to read those.
If we ask God to prepare the hearts of the readers who find your reprints to look for other books that you, as a good solid writer, have written, they’ll come to your site and find the Christian books. Unless they are totally against Christianity, they’ll certainly consider getting those Christian books. Maybe some of them are like me who long thought that there was Christian fiction only for children–as was the case for a long time. It really was through Francine Rivers’ change in course that I became so much more aware of the Chistian fiction that was out there.
Sorry, I hope I made myself moderately clear. I’m not doing too well so trying to express myself is a little hard.
You do very well at expressing yourself, Sigrun. Just keep doing it. We need to hear from you because you always bless us with your thoughts.