Timothy wrote to me with the following questions:
When did you know that you are/were a writer?
I guess I knew that I wanted to be a writer when I was about 27 or 28. I’ve always been an avid reader and one day, during my lunch break, I’d forgotten to bring a book with me to read. So, I took out my pen and paper and started writing a book. I’ve been writing ever since.
What made you choose Christian Fiction?
When I first started writing, back in 1994, I wasn’t aware of the Christian fiction genre. Actually, the genre wasn’t very prominent back then. I still consider Christian fiction and Christian romance novels to be a fairly “new” genre, meaning, I haven’t really started seeing them until the past fifteen years. When I was growing up, Christian fiction did not exist and I read a lot of secular fiction.
Regarding your question – when I first started writing, I sent my writings to an editor whom I’d paid to edit my work. One of the comments she made was: Is this a Christian romance? I was not familiar with that term at the time. To help with my writing career, I joined Romance Writers of America and I joined the RWA chapter entitled Faith, Hope, And Love (RWA’s Christian Inspirational Chapter). Being a part of Faith, Hope, and Love opened the door for me regarding Christian fiction. I became familiar with the genre and I started reading those novels. I’d been mentioning God, faith and church in my books before I even knew about the Christian market. So, by my “discovering” this genre, it just made me aware that this is the type of fiction that I needed to be writing.
Sorry for taking so long to rI needed respond. After you were very timely. But I needed more help… more urgent help with this project. I enrolled myself in the Christian Writers Guild and most of my attention was focused on that. I am currently working on several short fiction stories. Hoping to get them published I’m talking to one publisher now… My biggest challenge and concern is that three of the stories are very graphic in nature and I may have to rewrite them for the Christian reader. Also looking into enrolling at Gotham Writers Workshop. Thank you for answering my questions and I hope that I can call on you again…
==Brother Tim
Hi, Timothy
I’m glad that you found my response helpful. I’ve heard of The Christian Writers Guild. I believe it’s run by Jerry Jenkins? I’m not familiar with the Gotham Writers Workshop.
How graphic are your stories? Are you talking about graphic as in sexual, or, graphic as in violence?
I’ve noticed that Christian author Steven James writes very graphic stories dealing with violence – I believe he even mentioned someone eating body parts? I find it hard to read his books, but, he’s very popular in the Christian market. See my book review in this link: http://ceceliadowdy.com/blog/2011/09/queen-by-steven-james.html
I wish you the best in your writing endeavors.