Now on audio

David Padgett is an outstanding pastor, best-selling author, motivational speaker, or serial killer. Grace tabernacle is one of the largest churches in the world. As their pastor, David's TV and radio ministry reaches millions. His books regularly top the New York Times best seller list. His internet site generates thousands of hits per day. As a motivational speaker his fee for one lecture is more than most pastors make in a year. He has earned the respect and admiration of the Christian and non-Christian society. His gorgeous wife Anne ministers by his side and his son Robert - the chief associate pastor - is poised to step in as David plans to retire. The future for David and the church seems bright and inviting.

It is all a facade.

Twenty-five years ago, a woman in the college David attended disappeared. Two weeks later, her body was discovered in a shallow grave in the woods behind the campus. For weeks, David was the number one suspect, the case is still open. David is terrified, his past is about to catch up with him; the secret he kept buried over the years as he built his ministry is about to be revealed. He is implicated in the mysterious death of Ellen Ridgeway, a production assistant; and the murder of Linda Darby, a prominent member of his church.

As the investigation continues, David is arrested. Charged with one murder, he becomes the suspect in unsolved murders in each city where he spoke in the past. The secret he protected so carefully is exposed. It seems to David as if everyone including God has turned their back on him. His soul plunges into the dark abyss he feared for so long. Yet God isn't through with David. He is about to bring His servant out of darkness, into His marvelous light.

http://www.amazon.com/Out-of-Darkness

Timex Authors

Many years ago the Timex watch company produced commercials featuring their timepieces. In these ads a watch would be subjected to torturous test. Taped to a baseball bat shot through glass or various other trials. At the end, a camera zoomed in on the watch to prove it was still running.  ‘It took a licking and kept on ticking’ become the motto for the Timex company.

Some authors are like the watches in these advertisements. They were rejected criticized and told they had no talent. However they didn’t listen to the critics. They kept on writing. Today we consider them among the greatest writers and their works classics.

  The difference between these authors and 99 percent of those who put their words on paper is they didn’t give up. Pure and simple this is the answer to their success. No hidden secret, no magic formula they didn’t quit. They became flustered they threw their manuscript away picked it out of the wastebasket and kept on. They may have given up for a short period ,however they always returned to the task.

They wrote, revised and revised again until the book was finished. Some authors took rejection letters and torn them up stomping them into the ground others shot them.

Would you consider William Faulkner    unpublishable? What about James Joyce? Jack London papered his walls with rejections all 600 of them. He kept a running tally of the ones who turned down his work. Louis L’Amour  was rejected 350 times. Later Congress awarded him a gold medal. John Creasy 774. One hundred and twenty publishers turned down Chicken Soup for the Soul.C. S. Lewis was turned down 800 times before his writing was sold.

Only 50 copies of Moby Dick were sold During Herman Melville’s lifetime. He died in obscurely. Yet today it is considered a .masterpiece 

Often discouraged these authors kept going. Today their   books are still in print.

How would you like to be the agent or publisher who turned down London falkenter Steinbeck or Hemmingway?  Would you kick yourself each time you rest the list of best sellers.

Are you a Timex author? Can you take a beating and still come back for more? When you get knocked down you do get back up? If you do, you have a good chance of being a success.

 

Abigail my partner in crime. Abby is our 9 months old Sheltie. She helps me write laying under my desk. 

Imagine That

One of the greatest gifts God gives to a fiction writer is an imagination. With it, He enables us to observe shootouts, car chases, births and deaths. To solve mysteries and relate these events to others. We weave stories together with the joys and sorrows of life. We experience the horror of losing a love one. The elation of falling in love, the conflict of everyday life. We sit at our computer and create new worlds and populate it with our characters.  

  Imagination is a wonderful asset. With it, engineers build bridges connecting cities spanning vast chasms and rivers. Architects design buildings reaching for the sky. Before a vehicle appears on the showroom floor, it was in someone’s mind. Without Imagination, we would still be living by candlelight with our only form of transportation, a horse and buggy.

As writers, we transmit what we see in our minds to paper or screen. We may go over it a dozen times or more perfecting and clarifying the story. Some believe they can write the story once and it’s perfect.  If you can, you’re very fortunate indeed. For the rest of us, we labor day and night. We struggle over each word, sentence, and page. Writing and rewriting until the story flows. Or as some have put it ‘sings’.

Finally the story is told, the book is finished.  Then as our final act, we offer our novel to the reader hoping to connect with their imagination. Thus, we continue the story we first saw in our mind.