Thursday, April 29, 2010

In the beginning

I never wanted to write a sequel, let alone, a mystery of sorts. I am a Christian Fiction writer with heaven, not the hell of crime scenes and jail in my view. But, I went there. It was indeed a journey that started in January ’09 when my Executive Editor, Joylynn Jossel, advised that I don’t put anymore time or another book between my debut novel, Soon and Very Soon, and its sequel. So thanks, Joylynn for that.
I wanted to be a career writer, so this was the test. I had to turn this around in nine months. I knew it could be done. All good writers, Cleage, Briscoe, Dickey, and the dynamite Christian fiction authors, Kimberla Lawson Roby, Victoria Christopher Murray and all the Urban Christian authors wrote on a schedule, right? They show me the tireless effort of writers that create, edit, market and promote all inside of a year.
I think it was Victoria Murray, who many affectionately dub as the Godmother of modern Christian fiction that talked about her recurring character, Jasmine as a franchise character in one of her interviews. I thought about that when bringing back Willie and Vanessa Green. Whole NBA teams are built around a franchise player, and the Greens as a newlywed couple that live between ministry and insanity had not finished telling their stories to me. What do you know? There might be a part three. Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.