I'm Going to Miss My Characters

It was only two years ago in Hawaii when Don turned to me and asked, "Why don't you try writing some fiction?"

I agreeably replied, "Okay, I'll go upstairs and get my notebook." Up until that point, I had written hundreds of books and seminars for corporations and colleges. "The Spirit Series," a non-fiction series based in real life, was in my pocket already and up and running in seven countries. I had nothing to lose, and so I started that very moment, and have loved it ever since.

Now, I'm approaching the last chapter in the fifth and final book in "The Faith Series." It makes me very sad to leave these youthful characters behind to go onto a more mature series for the twenty-something crowd. I have fallen in love with my characters! Lilia has grown up in the five books. She was eleven-years old in the beginning, and we leave her in the fifth book at the age of eighteen. Jim is two years older, and many of their friends are well into their twenties at the end of the series.

I know who each of my characters is because I based them on people I have actually known. Some characters are composites of several people. The truth is that writing about these characters has made me very happy. I grow lonesome for them if I don't have a chance to visit them each day. That's why I carry my notebook everywhere with me: to restaurants, the grocery store, to church, to the nail salon, and to the airport.

The first book featured Lilia, her grandpa, her mom and dad, her best friend, and eventually a girlfriend for her grandpa. Throughout the series, I've developed more than forty characters, all precious to me. Never have I understood imaginary friends better! Now, the books circle the globe as God's amazing plan unfolds.

In the next series, "The Hope Series," a new set of adult circumstances emerges. The stories go together, but they don't necessarily come out of me in consecutive order. For example, I've written most of the third book in the next series, but I haven't finished the first or second book. I know what is going to be included in them, but for some strange reason, the third book came flowing out nine months ago in a non-stop manner on a twenty-hour junket from another country. Explain that to me!

I'm trying not to let the melancholy get the better of me. Instead, I look to God to lead me with hope, trust, and faith. He will reveal a new and special path, and that's all that I need to know right now.

Being an author is a strange pastime because I live out the life of someone else in my head. It's amusing, a catharsis, interesting, and challenging at the same time. It's almost like being my own psychotherapist. The hand that guides the work, however, is divine, and the road we walk on is a mystery in a giant mosaic of humankind. Who would want it any other way?