Writing Update!

I thought I would update my readers on my writing these days. I had been in such a rut for a while, not having a lot of "inspiration" to write, until recently, and it is so much fun to be back to it!

• Airborne. I actually wrote Airborne a couple years ago, but left so much of it incomplete because I had to do so much study for it. The story is about a young man named Jeff Scharlacken whose dreams are to go to college and to become a pilot. His dreams seem dashed to pieces when his guardian dies and he is sent to help missionaries deep in the jungles of Colombia, where his parents had once ministered before they were killed in the midst of guerilla warfare. Here on the mission, he is caught in between two choices: to follow his own ideas for his life, or to surrender his will to God and make Christ his All. God has to use dramatic circumstances-- like attacks from surrounding guerilla groups-- to bring him to a point of decision. Because this story happens in Colombia, it has been kind of hard to write, because, until recently, I knew very little about Colombia. It's kind of hard to try to describe a place you know so little about! So recently I got in contact with a missionary lady who grew up as an MK in Colombia, and so they are helping me to learn about missionary life, native cultures, and such. I am planning on beginning revisions very soon. I'm already amazed at how much needs changed in it as it is. I think I'm going to have fun with this!
  
  
• My 17th century England story that has no title. I mentioned in a post last month. I was able to scrounge up some books at our puny library in town and study those a little, but it was somewhat of a challenge, because my story is supposed to be about true Christians in the midst of religious and political chaos, but the books I got were from a secular viewpoint and so what they had to say on the different religious sects was tainted or uninformed. Today, however, I finally got my hands on a Christian, historical fiction novel set in that era and am looking forward to reading it and seeing what I might learn. Anyway, as I continue to study, I'm going to do with this what I did with Airborne: go ahead and start writing it, and fill in miscellaneous historical and cultural details as I learn. I am trying to at least get the story down now. So far I am on page 9, and it still has barely begun. It starts with the father of the main character Ann (who, by the way, is just a baby at the beginning), harboring an illegal Dissenter preacher at his home. This leads to the father's imprisonment, and the preacher and his son come up later on in the story and play a significant role. I'm having so much fun with this story!! Again, if any of you know anywhere else where I might get a good, detailed, Christian history of this era, please let me know!! :-D

So that's the progress of the pen these days!

"My tongue is the pen of a ready writer" (Psalm 45:1b)