Blog on the Lillypad
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
 | Those first novels!
Inspired by some of the positive comments I have seen lately, I went through my old things and found a copy of my book, Crown and Jewel I wrote it nearly 20 years ago. Sorry to those readers who like it. But apart from an opening that I do think is very good, I think the book overall is awful. In the strata from which it comes (literature for children produced by monolithically conservative publishers that kept even a great writer like CS Lewis at a distance because he was considered too liberal and too fanciful), my books probably were a breath of fresh air. I don't object to the plot and the gimmicks in Crown and Jewel. I think I did a good job with those elements. It's the writing style that's bad, and the dialogue gets pretty stilted and downright horrible in places. |
It's no great compliment to have gotten published because everything else from similar publishers was so trite and predictable. Not that I'm overcome with shame. Twenty years is a thick buffer and sturdy cushion. But I'm thankful for the spell that Doctor Who cast over me, that sheer joy of plowing into gee-whiz style science fiction and learning to tell a story as tightly as possible. The years I spent unpublished professionally put me back on track again because I had to convince readers one at a time to read my stuff. And I did. And my readers helped me.
When I was twenty-ish I had to learn not to please myself in what I wrote, but rather please the market. It was a good lesson for a person who started as most writers start---self-centered and craving approval. But now I see that the Christian marketplace has shelved that which is truly Christ-centered in favor of that which is derivative, trivial, and faddish. So I am ready to write to please myself again. I want to hold out for my tastes and my ethics in writing. That still means exciting plots with lots of twists and turns, but also Christians who sin, wolves in sheep's clothing, conservatives who exploit the Gospel rather than live it, and the grace of God working in unbelievers where we least expect to find it. There's a lot to say about the grace of God, but many Christian books just make Christians look good.
I don't mean to dump on all my old stuff. Renegade in the Hills (written under my pen name of Andy Thompson) and Abandoned are two books that I am proud of. Also, Courage by Darkness. I can't remember enough about The Two Collars to pass judgement, and I don't have a copy here to read. It won some standing in the now defunct CS Lewis Awards.
Lessons Learned: Keep moving forward! Keep learning how to write. Add more spaceships to your stories (hee hee).
