Post by newburydave on Jul 14, 2008 23:28:02 GMT -5
After getting somewhat disgusted with Baen I've been looking for Christian Sf sites and found this one. Nothing wrong with some of Baen's published works, I really like the Honorverse. Webber kind of got me interested in writing Science Fiction. I joined the Baen's Bar website and started doing slush critiques. Then I noticed that no one was critiquing any of my work. So I went looking for somewhere else where Christian themed Sf would at least be looked at.
So here I am.
I can't claim to have written any books (except for a book of mostly evangelistic poetry that I self published last year). I'm just starting out in this writing stuff. I've written some chapters and short story chunks of my planned story arc. After reading Jeff's weekly tips I see that a lot of what I've written needs some serious revision to be viable.
Now as to my Bio:
Who is Newburydave (aka Dave Withe, Popie, Grandpa, etc)
I'm a 60 year old bi-vocational gospel preacher currently down with medical problems. I've been a Christian since January of 1971 (37 and 1/2 years ago) when Jesus arrested me in my downward plunge toward hell and saved my unworthy self. "I the worst of sinners am but Jesus died for me."
As a college student I was deeply involved with the vanguard of the Marxist anti-war counterculture in Boston, Massachusetts (aka the Kennedy plantation). The groups that I was starting to run with were in the newspapers back then for acts of domestic violence and terrorism (no Dorothy the Jihadists didn't invent terrorism, Satan did). I was attracted to the direct action groups and the Progressive Labor people (Trotskyites) because their spiel was more populist. At the time I was a radically atheistic Marxist (programmed signed and sealed by the faculty gods of our blessed university system and my own desperately wicked heart).
Well out of the midst of that mess Jesus grabbed me and dropped me into an old fashioned praying, shouting church of the Wesleyan Holiness tradition. The first time I set foot in that church the Holy Ghost lowered the boom on me with deep conviction for my sins and I, the big tough revolutionary, landed at the altar weeping for my sins and my lost condition pleading with God (who I hadn't believed in for years) to forgive me and keep me out of Hell (that I also didn't believe in till that day) I didn't know that repentance was even in the Bible but He led me every step of the way through it.
Then Jesus was standing right there (No it wasn't a vision, I don't know what it was but I saw Him) He touched me and said "I will be thou clean." Now I was ignorant of the Bible at that time. It wasn't until a month or more later that I found that particular scripture in the New Testament. All I know was that when He did and said that to me all the guilt that I had been carrying (unknowingly) fell away and I felt so light I thought I could have jumped over the church. But more importantly I knew I was saved from my sins. He changed me on the inside.
Everything old fell away. The immoral, illegal, impure stuff I used to love turned sour to me and the things I had mocked at and reviled (God, the Bible, Holiness, Goodness, etc) became the most precious things in my universe. It happened at that instant when He touched me. I didn't make a decision, I met Jesus in my repentance and He accepted my brokenness and changed me from the inside out. My overt sins (the stuff I knew was wrong) he cut off immediately. Other things, attitudes, bad habits took longer for Him to dig out of my thick skull, but he got the job done. He's still working some of those inward changes out into my outward life even today 37 and 1/2 years later.
Ten years later Jesus finally cornered me at an old fashioned camp meeting and nailed my Jacob Shuck and Jive, evade and confuse, slip, slide and shuffle routine to the wall. Oh it wasn't me that was the cause of my problems... I have an excuse; This woman you gave me....(you know the drill if you've walked with the Lord very long) I knew I was born again, but I had some real spiritual heart problems. He showed me what was really in my heart, all the deceit, the impure desires etc etc etc. So asked Him to crucify the old rotten Dave like Paul said in Romans and kill that old crook off so I could really live for God without all the time embarrassing my guardian angels, the kingdom and God Himself. I asked him to kill the old me off and take over the controls of my life. To get me out of Romans 7 so I could live over in Romans 8. He had made me so desperate I was ready for what ever He set on me.
Well he did it; And he pushed me out into the work to preach the Gospel about one year later. He used me to raise up an inner city rescue mission dealing mostly the wild characters that most churches wouldn't let in the doors. I had been pretty rough myself and I guess I just gravitated to the ones who had been like me. He did the rest, and I wound up with a core of born again folks to start a church with. None of them had any real church background. It was signs and miracles and impossible accomplishments. I just hung on and watched God work.
Well enough ancient history (from the prehistoric early 1980's). My health totally blew out in 1990. I was bi-vocational so I was working a full time job days and pastoring in the other 18 hours. Oh and I had all of Almost one semester of Bible School too along with my secular Philosophy and Religion degree. I had to rely on God, I really didn't know what I was doing.
My doctor warned me that I was heading for trouble, but....
After they got me stabilized in the Emergency Room and ICU, I started my first inning of overtime living.
That was the firs time I walked the valley of the shadows down to the door into eternity. Jesus was already in the valley waiting for me (He'll do the same for you too). At that time he told me "well done thou good and faithful servant;" right at the time when the doctors were being the most frantic. To say it was a deep comfort to me would be a vast understatement. I clung to that like a drowning man (which I was). But He sent me back because my work wasn't done.
Well I didn't learn much, I kept on being a responsibility magnet and overloading myself so I've been back down that valley six more times since then. The heart condition that started in 1990 and other causes kept pulling me back into the vortex. But every time He's met me in the valley. For a while in 2004 I thought I had a ministry to Emergency Room workers I saw them so often.
Once this past April (2008), He gave me the most wonderful revelation that I have ever received, to reassure my weakening faith. I was in with Congestive Heart Failure (aka you can't breathe) I mean I was being swamped with doubt in that hospital room and He pulled me out into heavenly places rejoicing in the Hope of Glory. That was just before the Doctor told my wife that I might die that night but that she shouldn't let on and discourage me. Well I didn't die. But I came close, twice in that very night. Jesus held my hand and my heart through it all.
Well I had to quit preaching after that, the physical was just too used up to sustain the divine energies of preaching the living word. But He opened another door, I felt led to get into writing as an outlet for my calling to communicate His truth. That's when I got involved with Baen. Well I tried to anyway.
The docs did a double bypass operation on me on June 23rd so I'm kind of grounded for the next few months. (seventh overtime inning)
So what do I want here and in general (what does your protagonist want?)
Since THE operation I found the "Where the Map ends" site. Reading Jeff's stuff I feel that I have learned more about the practical side of the craft of writing than I managed to learn during the previous 2 months of my efforts. Thank you Jeff.
I don't know if I'll ever do anything good enough for your POD offerings but I'm going to try to; the Lord Helping me.
Maybe I'll go back and try to get Baen's attention again too after I learn some more about how real authors do things and write some un-bad material.
My original thought was to write Christian themed Science Fiction for the secular market to show the larger Sf audience what a real Christian worldview looks like.
Who knows? After all, with God all things are possible....
Yours by His grace alone
So here I am.
I can't claim to have written any books (except for a book of mostly evangelistic poetry that I self published last year). I'm just starting out in this writing stuff. I've written some chapters and short story chunks of my planned story arc. After reading Jeff's weekly tips I see that a lot of what I've written needs some serious revision to be viable.
Now as to my Bio:
Who is Newburydave (aka Dave Withe, Popie, Grandpa, etc)
I'm a 60 year old bi-vocational gospel preacher currently down with medical problems. I've been a Christian since January of 1971 (37 and 1/2 years ago) when Jesus arrested me in my downward plunge toward hell and saved my unworthy self. "I the worst of sinners am but Jesus died for me."
As a college student I was deeply involved with the vanguard of the Marxist anti-war counterculture in Boston, Massachusetts (aka the Kennedy plantation). The groups that I was starting to run with were in the newspapers back then for acts of domestic violence and terrorism (no Dorothy the Jihadists didn't invent terrorism, Satan did). I was attracted to the direct action groups and the Progressive Labor people (Trotskyites) because their spiel was more populist. At the time I was a radically atheistic Marxist (programmed signed and sealed by the faculty gods of our blessed university system and my own desperately wicked heart).
Well out of the midst of that mess Jesus grabbed me and dropped me into an old fashioned praying, shouting church of the Wesleyan Holiness tradition. The first time I set foot in that church the Holy Ghost lowered the boom on me with deep conviction for my sins and I, the big tough revolutionary, landed at the altar weeping for my sins and my lost condition pleading with God (who I hadn't believed in for years) to forgive me and keep me out of Hell (that I also didn't believe in till that day) I didn't know that repentance was even in the Bible but He led me every step of the way through it.
Then Jesus was standing right there (No it wasn't a vision, I don't know what it was but I saw Him) He touched me and said "I will be thou clean." Now I was ignorant of the Bible at that time. It wasn't until a month or more later that I found that particular scripture in the New Testament. All I know was that when He did and said that to me all the guilt that I had been carrying (unknowingly) fell away and I felt so light I thought I could have jumped over the church. But more importantly I knew I was saved from my sins. He changed me on the inside.
Everything old fell away. The immoral, illegal, impure stuff I used to love turned sour to me and the things I had mocked at and reviled (God, the Bible, Holiness, Goodness, etc) became the most precious things in my universe. It happened at that instant when He touched me. I didn't make a decision, I met Jesus in my repentance and He accepted my brokenness and changed me from the inside out. My overt sins (the stuff I knew was wrong) he cut off immediately. Other things, attitudes, bad habits took longer for Him to dig out of my thick skull, but he got the job done. He's still working some of those inward changes out into my outward life even today 37 and 1/2 years later.
Ten years later Jesus finally cornered me at an old fashioned camp meeting and nailed my Jacob Shuck and Jive, evade and confuse, slip, slide and shuffle routine to the wall. Oh it wasn't me that was the cause of my problems... I have an excuse; This woman you gave me....(you know the drill if you've walked with the Lord very long) I knew I was born again, but I had some real spiritual heart problems. He showed me what was really in my heart, all the deceit, the impure desires etc etc etc. So asked Him to crucify the old rotten Dave like Paul said in Romans and kill that old crook off so I could really live for God without all the time embarrassing my guardian angels, the kingdom and God Himself. I asked him to kill the old me off and take over the controls of my life. To get me out of Romans 7 so I could live over in Romans 8. He had made me so desperate I was ready for what ever He set on me.
Well he did it; And he pushed me out into the work to preach the Gospel about one year later. He used me to raise up an inner city rescue mission dealing mostly the wild characters that most churches wouldn't let in the doors. I had been pretty rough myself and I guess I just gravitated to the ones who had been like me. He did the rest, and I wound up with a core of born again folks to start a church with. None of them had any real church background. It was signs and miracles and impossible accomplishments. I just hung on and watched God work.
Well enough ancient history (from the prehistoric early 1980's). My health totally blew out in 1990. I was bi-vocational so I was working a full time job days and pastoring in the other 18 hours. Oh and I had all of Almost one semester of Bible School too along with my secular Philosophy and Religion degree. I had to rely on God, I really didn't know what I was doing.
My doctor warned me that I was heading for trouble, but....
After they got me stabilized in the Emergency Room and ICU, I started my first inning of overtime living.
That was the firs time I walked the valley of the shadows down to the door into eternity. Jesus was already in the valley waiting for me (He'll do the same for you too). At that time he told me "well done thou good and faithful servant;" right at the time when the doctors were being the most frantic. To say it was a deep comfort to me would be a vast understatement. I clung to that like a drowning man (which I was). But He sent me back because my work wasn't done.
Well I didn't learn much, I kept on being a responsibility magnet and overloading myself so I've been back down that valley six more times since then. The heart condition that started in 1990 and other causes kept pulling me back into the vortex. But every time He's met me in the valley. For a while in 2004 I thought I had a ministry to Emergency Room workers I saw them so often.
Once this past April (2008), He gave me the most wonderful revelation that I have ever received, to reassure my weakening faith. I was in with Congestive Heart Failure (aka you can't breathe) I mean I was being swamped with doubt in that hospital room and He pulled me out into heavenly places rejoicing in the Hope of Glory. That was just before the Doctor told my wife that I might die that night but that she shouldn't let on and discourage me. Well I didn't die. But I came close, twice in that very night. Jesus held my hand and my heart through it all.
Well I had to quit preaching after that, the physical was just too used up to sustain the divine energies of preaching the living word. But He opened another door, I felt led to get into writing as an outlet for my calling to communicate His truth. That's when I got involved with Baen. Well I tried to anyway.
The docs did a double bypass operation on me on June 23rd so I'm kind of grounded for the next few months. (seventh overtime inning)
So what do I want here and in general (what does your protagonist want?)
Since THE operation I found the "Where the Map ends" site. Reading Jeff's stuff I feel that I have learned more about the practical side of the craft of writing than I managed to learn during the previous 2 months of my efforts. Thank you Jeff.
I don't know if I'll ever do anything good enough for your POD offerings but I'm going to try to; the Lord Helping me.
Maybe I'll go back and try to get Baen's attention again too after I learn some more about how real authors do things and write some un-bad material.
My original thought was to write Christian themed Science Fiction for the secular market to show the larger Sf audience what a real Christian worldview looks like.
Who knows? After all, with God all things are possible....
Yours by His grace alone
