The Novels

When I started college in 1969, I wanted to teach either history or English.  I ended up majoring in English, with a minor in history.  I already enjoyed writing, and wrote a few short stories and kept an extensive journal.  I had plans to write seriously after graduation.  Those plans died when I became a Jehovah’s Witness.  The Watchtower culture severely discourages such individual creative endeavors.

As noted in a previous post, I first considered writing a JW related novel in the early eighties.  “Waiting for Armageddon” never advanced beyond a few ideas and notes.  Most Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t do much that would interest a non-Witness.    We went to meeting and conventions, and studied books and magazines, all of which contained the same information.  We knocked on doors to no effect.  (Sidebar: it takes about four thousand hours of preaching to make one convert to the Jehovah’s Witnesses)  I could not turn this into a story.

I tinkered with the idea because life as a Witness bored me, and wanted to find a way to challenge my brain again.  In retrospect, I could not write the book because I could not examine the subject dispassionately.  Removing the influence of the religion freed me to write about conflicts between religious fantasy and the real world.

A few years after we left the Witnesses I began writing another book.  I didn’t even know it was going to be a book when I started.  One night I wrote a scene about a religious leader’s stirring speech about the approaching end of the world.  I added to it in small pieces, working with only a vague idea of where I intended take the story.  I did in fact finish the book after several years of desultory writing.  Since then, I’ve expanded my knowledge of the writing art.  An outline helps, a lot. I traveled with no road map for the journey.  At one point, I realized that a semi-major character had wondered offstage about fifty pages back, never to return. 

I rewrote “Armageddon’s Disciples” to fix some of the problems.  Events forced another rewrite when, on March 26, 2000, King County blew up the site of my opening scene.  I eventually produced a workable manuscript about an apocalyptic religion grappling with prophetic failure.  Although unsold, the book provided a valuable stepping-stone, in that I created a fictional milieu that provides fodder for many stories. 

My writing then took a diversion as I stumbled on an online writing circle for alternate history.  I wrote some stories of varying lengths over the next few years.  Two shorter pieces, “The Pig War – an Alternate History” and “The Wait,” now have a permanent home at militaryhistoryonline.com.  Along the way I improved my craft (I hope) based on the feedback from the online writing community. 

In November 2010, I joined another online writing community, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month.  The object of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words during the month of November.  “Winners” receive a handsome certificate stating that they achieved the goal.  I managed to crank out 52,000 words of “Armageddon’s Angel” in twenty-eight days.  The basic plot concerns a serial killer related to the Disciples. 

Following that burst of speed, I went on over the next six months or so, to complete the novel.  Then work and family obligations forced me to slow down.  I used the time to research the publishing industry and submission process. A major rewrite is now underway, based on what I learned.  

I plan to have the manuscript ready for submission in a few months.  This time I’m getting some help and suggestions from a professional editor.  Having made many mistakes with the earlier writing efforts, I hope I’ve learned from a few of them.  If I sold the book tomorrow, it would be about a year, at least, before you’ll see it in your local bookstore.

My created religion has its own history, jargon, mythology, and rules.  The Disciples live in a world that provides ready answers to all of life’s problems.  They no longer need to think. Their most personal decisions arrive with instructions from the Apostles that govern them.  As my protagonist says “Disciples are so used to accepting direction from above that they will do anything they are told to do.”  I like some of these people, despise others, and pity many of them.  My desire in writing their story is to provide a window into the workings of high control religions without pointing fingers.

Besides, I’m having fun.