I love Christ and seek to glorify Him. I also love to create. Besides writing, I enjoy journaling, drawing, building playsets and marble mazes, and coming up with funny voices for my kids. Regardless, my faith flows through everything I do, often in ways I don’t recognize until long after the fact.
I love my family and togetherness. And I do everything I can to resist the spirit of atomization that animates our age. Every day, I count myself blessed to call Julie my wife. We have two wonderful children, Ryden and Ember, and make our home in the second largest city in northern New England (i.e. the very small city of Nashua, New Hampshire!).
Hopefully, I’ve covered your question here. If not, please send it to me!
Absolutely not! I love Christmas. One of the things I enjoyed exploring in Misguided was the tension between secular Christmas and a Christ-centered Christmas. In case you’re wondering, I’m more Cindy than Daniel!
I’ve had a couple of interesting adventures, but nothing compared to what Cy Reed has faced. I’ve never flown a World War II-era rocket (Ice Storm), fought a quadrupedal animal robot (Vapor), or battled my way into Fort Knox (Fury). However, I have ventured into an abandoned subway tunnel (Chaos) and explored ancient Maya pyramids (Torrent).
Broken Lands wasn’t born out of a fear of artificial intelligence. Rather, I wanted to play with the idea of how a primitive, post-apocalyptic society might deal with such a high-tech threat. With that said, AI technologies are quite powerful and will only grow more impressive with time. Still, I’m not worried. In my view, God is sovereign over everything. So, this world won’t end until He’s ready to end it.
God is the ultimate storyteller and we’re made in His image. I try to lean into that as I write.
Only God creates out of nothing. As for me, I have ideas bumping around my head as well as life experiences to draw upon. Before Misguided, for instance, I spent a lot of time thinking about idols. I was also fascinated with the concept of wishing upon a star. What might happen if your deepest wish came true? Would it really satisfy you?
In Genesis 1, God creates on the spot, day-by-day. That’s kind of how I write my stories. I don’t outline or do much planning. Rather, I prefer to create characters with strong feelings about their surroundings. Then I throw some trouble at them and see what they do. God is the ultimate storyteller and we’re made in His image. I try to lean into that as I write. So, if my instincts say a story is too slow, it’s time to shake things up!
Unlike the Creator, I don’t get everything right the first time through. After writing, oh, maybe 100 pages of Misguided, I started to feel like the town of Braxton should be building to a giant celebration. That’s when I came up with the idea for the ‘Merry Brax-mas Bash.’ Immediately, I went back to earlier chapters and began weaving the bash into the narrative. I do that sort of thing a lot, going back and forth, adding and subtracting elements as needed.
Since I shape as I go, I don’t rewrite much. The first draft gets me about 90% of the way there. I tend to over-write, so I usually take out a bunch of words in the second draft. I’ll follow that with a quick third draft, tidying up and fixing errors. Afterward, my first reader—Julie, my wife—reads it. I look over her suggestions and make any final changes. And then, I’m done. It’s on to the next story!