Great post, Tim. I've often said that oft-repeated quote, "I write because I can't NOT write," did not apply to me. I love writing but I could not do it. Easily. Getting up at 4:30 am and sludging through stories is something I choose to do because I enjoy doing it, it gives me an outlet, and it helps pay the bills, but I've often (lately more than at other times) dreamed of just being able to sleep in and not have to be tormented by deadlines and sales numbers and pressure from readers and reviewers. And like Athol, I too have recently dropped writing a column about the writing life for our local newspaper because I simply ran out of things to say. Thanks for being bold enough to write this. For us who write, writing is important and many of us feel it's a calling . . . but it isn't life or death stuff.

Great article, Tim. Thanks for the freebie! Lots to learn here.

Happy birthday, Josh! Thank you for your service, and Tim, thank you for keeping Josh and all our heroes in the forefront of our mind.

I don't know about the plotting but I know he still uses a way-outdated word precessor and can't type. He uses the index finger two-step to dance across the keyboard. Amazing how he is so prolific.

I'm with you, too, Tim. I don't plot on paper but have a very general outline in my head before starting, then as I write I'm constantly plotting in my mind what will come next, running through different scenarios and testing where they will go and if it will make sense. Sometimes it works, sometimes . . . well, it ends very badly for a character in the story (when in doubt, kill someone). I consider myself a SOTPBPAIG (Seat Of The Pants But Plot As I Go) writer. Great post.

Great post, Tim. In my own novels I try to create villains who are well-rounded, three-dimensional people. They have a past that has scarred them in some way, they wrestle with who they have become, with the evil that resides in them, and they all are redeemable on some level.

Evil is real, yes, and I don't think we should shy away from it. Villains give us the ideal canvas to paint a picture of how terribly evil can corrupt if one gives in to it. But at the same time I want the reader to feel the villain's plight, to maybe even sympathize with him. Because in the end we're all made in God's image (though that image has been flawed) and all capable of acts of terror or acts of mercy. As the saying goes, "We all have a little Eichmann in us." Every time I write a villain I say to myself, "But for the grace of God, there go I." I hope the reader has the same response.

But I'm still not sure I'd call that "Christian fiction." Christian has to do with Christ, either him particularly or a life lived for or through him, or empowered by him. Jews and Muslims both agree man is made in God's image. I wouldn't call a Muslim story "Christian fiction" just because it points a reader to God. But I digress and don't mean to steer this conversation into those murky waters of "What is Christian fiction?" That issue's been beat to death already too many times over.

Great post, Tim. Could it be said then that, since man is created in the image of God, whether we write explicitly "Christian" stories or not, if we explore the human soul and expose the basic realities of life every man and woman struggles with, if we show humanity in its barest forms, unmasked, the real deal, that we are, in fact, pointing readers to God. Hmm. Something worthy of pondering further.

Gina, thanks for your thoughts. I appreciate all the support you've been since day one!

Aw, Jill, you can do it. I know you can :)