I was as curmudgeonly against this old tale as the character Sir John Penlyon was about life at first. It seemed dull and but a feeble carbon copy of one of my favorite classics, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. It did borrow from that tale but as the children characters came onto the page of this book I became delighted with the story. Sadly that didn't last. Their bright little characters lightened the story as it lightened the heart of old Sir John Penlyon. By the end though he still liked her for selfish reasons and didn't grow as a character in a way I would consider worth telling a story about. So while I liked the middle of the story a little, overall it was boring and to me the resolution fell short. The character growth I was hoping for was lacking. I got this book for free from Audible and continued reading it only to finish it so my list of books read could pile up for the Goodreads Reading Challenge. When in the middle of the story I was glad I kept listening, but by the end it wasn't worth it to me. To each his own. Read A Christmas Carol by Dickens instead ;)
On the bright side - Richard Armitage's narration of the story was very good.
I've been sitting on this one for a couple years now because I haven't been able to get the illustrations done. I see more and more kids books without illustrations and while this book is short it is definitely for older elementary school readers. I WILL be publishing a second edition with illustrations someday, I have like 9 of them completed, but for now it's the perfect time of the year to publish this book!
Here's the synopsis:
SMART KID MUST SOLVE A MAGICAL CRIME TO CLEAR HIS FATHER'S NAME
Barnabas and his friend Jeff made a great snowman but it has gone missing! From the huge round footprints in the snow it looks like it came to life and walked off. Then they see on the news that the local bank, where Barnabas's dad works, was robbed. A strange crime scene was left behind with large puddles inside and half-melted snowmen outside. No one believes Mr. Thackeray's claims that snowmen robbed the bank, so he loses his job. Barnabas must solve the crime to get his dad's job back.
I've been very busy writing, but it hasn't been fiction. I spent many hours over several weeks writing, editing, revising, and practicing a sermon. I finally gave that sermon to junior high and high school students at my church this Tuesday. It was an amazing awesome privilege. I am humbled to be used in that way. I have to admit something that really surprised me too: I enjoyed writing my sermon even more than I've enjoyed writing fiction! That's saying a lot! I'm not one of those authors who enjoys "having written," I actually LOVE the whole process. I love first drafts. I love revisions and editing. I love the end where I'm formatting and creating the cover. I would say one of my favorite things to do in the whole world is to write fiction and I enjoyed and was even more excited about writing a sermon than a fantasy novel! Here's a binder I bought for my sermon manuscripts to use while preaching and for archiving:
Here's a journal entry I wrote on my other blog where I put my bible study and sermon notes and things:
Preaching My First Sermon | Journal Entry
November 28th, 2018
Yesterday I preached my first sermon. Well, technically I gave a couple short messages to junior highers back when I was in high school as an intern, this was my first sermon where I preached directly from the text of a passage of scripture rather than on a topic. My first expository sermon. It was on a prayer of Paul's in Ephesians 3:14-21. You can read it here. It was a very humbling intense awesome experience. I am blown away that I was given the opportunity to speak to teens and share truths from God's word with them. I'm not sure how many hours I spent prepping to write the sermon, writing the sermon, and editing and rewriting sections of it for over 10 drafts, but it was a pretty crazy amount of time. It was my first time, and I wanted to really do my best and make it as good as I could. I REALLY enjoyed the process though! I write fiction and I enjoyed writing a sermon more than writing a fantasy novel. Who knew?! After all that prep, writing, editing, and practicing I couldn't believe how fast time flew by as I was preaching the sermon! It really felt like I was on stage for like 5 minutes instead of 25. I must have been talking fast too because my goal was 30 minutes. I had practiced the day before with my 4,800 word manuscript and it was 37 1/2 minutes long. So I cut my manuscript down to 4,200 words. I wish I would have left a little more of it in but I'm happy with how it was when I preached it. I am overwhelmed that I had the opportunity to be used by God to proclaim truths from his word. I couldn't believe it was over after all my preparations and practice runs preaching it in my house to my wife or an empty room. My wife had really helpful suggestions. I needed to cut out a lot! My original like 3rd draft was over 7,000 words long! Yikes. It was more of a paper breaking down every part of every verse than a sermon with way too many extra verses and bible commentary quotes. I am so thankful for my wife who has listened to tons of sermons at church and online during her week. She is an amazing resource to be my first audience. OK, my first, and second... and seventh audience! She listened to many iterations of my sermon and I'm so thankful for it. I love her so much. After I was done and for like two hours after preaching I was still sort of in shock that it was over. I was overwhelmed that I got to do it. I can't wait to do it again. I saw a lot of ways I can improve, but as I've been reading in books for the internship I'm doing at my church, success is being faithful to preach what the bible says and by God's grace I did that. I am very thankful to the Lord in all of this. I'd love your feedback on it if you read it and I hope God speaks to you through it. Revelation 4:8 “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” (ESV) Amen.
An awesome guy named John Wilkerson with tons of cool podcasts reviewed my debut novel! Watch his review above. Thanks John! Here's the details so you can go grab your copy of my novel:
A paranormal / urban fantasy novel with a Christian mythology
Description:
Ray is a friendless realtor who stumbles on some supernatural tools, including a sword, that can rid a property of evil spirits. He decides to use them to change his career and finally become a house flipper, but on a grander scale. He plans to flip old haunted mansions that no one else will buy, rid them of their evil spirits, renovate them, and sell them for a hefty profit. Getting them to leave isn't as easy as he'd hoped and he has some competition from Bill Baldock, who buys up haunted mansions to destroy them and build apartment complexes in their place. Discover a new world within our own with Ray as he tries to learn how to use his new tools against demons, make new friends, and outsmart new enemies.
Scroll down for a couple free Halloween Short Stories in audio from my archives. Also my debut novel Haunted House Flipper is the perfect book to read on Halloween!
Here's what it's about:
SUPERNATURAL MEETS HGTV WITH A CHRISTIAN MYTHOLOGY
Ray is a friendless realtor who stumbles on some supernatural tools, including a sword, that can rid a property of evil spirits. He decides to use them to change his career and finally become a house flipper, but on a grander scale. He plans to flip old haunted mansions that no one else will buy, rid them of their evil spirits, renovate them, and sell them for a hefty profit. Getting them to leave isn't as easy as he'd hoped and he has some competition from Bill Baldock, who buys up haunted mansions to destroy them and build apartment complexes in their place. Discover a new world within our own with Ray as he tries to learn how to use his new tools against demons, make new friends, and outsmart new enemies.
This is a narrated short story for Halloween about a new kid in town discovering just how real the local ghost story is when he's dared to climb up an old creepy tower that sits behind a mansion. Have a listen.
Attributions:
Music used: "Tempting Fate" and "Beginning" by Audionautix.com.
Sound effects used were all Public Domain and came from Freesound.org
When Tammy is house sitting, she get creeped out. She keeps hearing and seeing things in the dark corners of the mansion she is alone in. Then, she hears and sees something and this time it's not her imagination.
I'm working on writing my first real sermon and reading books and writing papers on those books for the pastoral internship I'm doing. I've also been making quick little drawings for Inktober. I'll paste some of my favorites down below:
I am a pastoral intern at my church. I've been using my free time to write papers and read non-fiction books on the bible and the church. All of this is super exciting to me! It does mean I haven't been creating any new fiction as of late, but I do have plans to write a book during NaNoWriMo this year so look for more news on that. In the meantime if you're really curious about what I've been up to I have been posting stuff on Christianity on my new blog Dan's Bible Notes.
For a taste of that future book I plan to write during NaNoWriMo here's the first bit of it pasted in below. Not sure if I'll end up using this but it was a great start to get some words on the page for this new book. I don't know what to call it. It's about:
a kid who discovers he has the power of flight. The government also discovers this and employs him as a secret agent to work for them to help them get certain objects that are hard to get for big adults who can't fly to and squeeze in tight spaces.
Also scroll to the bottom or check out my Instagram for some of my #Inktober drawings.
My
name is Bridge Travers and I live with my grandma in a house that smells like
cabbage. Dang, that was a terrible start. Let me try again. My name is Bridge
Travers and I am a kid secret agent who can fly. Okay, so both of those things
are true, but focus on the flying secret agent part because that's way better.
Grandma Rose is cool and all, but she still
thinks I should be stuck in school all day. I know she wants what's best for me
but come on! Would you rather go to school or on a secret mission for the
government? She just doesn't get it.
She's been taking care of me ever since my
parents died in a car accident when I was two. They left me with grandma and
went out on a date never to return. So I pretty much think of Grandma Rose as
my mom. She's a sweet old lady who always wears sweaters, dresses, pearl necklaces
and earrings, and huge glasses. Her skin is all wrinkly and she's a little slow
at getting around but she takes great care of me. Her cooking is the best and
she can still drive, not that I need her to drive me around anymore with my
power.
It took a lot of convincing for Grandma Rose to
let me take the job from the government, but Agent Winters can be very
cajoling. That's a big word I know. I means like to talk someone into
something. I just learned it from Agent Fredrickson. Anyways, once grams was convinced
Winters made a deal with principal Wally, that's really his last name, to keep
up appearances at my old school so it seems like I'm just a normal boy who goes
to sixth grade and like plays four square or whatever. I still have to learn
all the stuff I would at school, but now I do that in a government building
with my tutor named Agent Fredrickson. Yeah the one who is big on vocab. He's
pretty cool. Not a lot of personality, but a nice enough guy and a good
teacher.
So what do I spend most of my days doing when I
should be at school? Working for the government on secret missions to recover
lost artifacts and magical items they don't wan't the world to know about. I
know what you're thinking, I'm just a kid. I can't be a secret agent, right?
Well I am just a kid, but a kid who can fly.
It all started when I was on my way home from
getting an awesome birthday balloon for my grandma from the grocery store a few
blocks from our house. I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking because
I was watching the balloon float above me and I tripped. My foot slipped right
off the edge of the curb and I accidentally let go of the balloon. I was so
upset. I was just looking up at it, staring hard wishing so bad that I could
somehow just reach up high enough and get it back. That's when I noticed that
somehow the balloon was getting closer. Before I knew it I was tons of feet up
in the air off the ground grabbing the string of the balloon. I didn't get back
down to the ground in the most graceful way but I did it without breaking
anything or popping the balloon.
The next day after school a man in a nice suit
showed up at our door asking for me. His name is Agent Winters. He's actually a
really cool guy. He's bald but has plenty of his hair above his lip in his thick
red mustache. He's my boss and he treats me with respect and never lets me get
into too much danger when I'm on missions. While my grandma went into the
kitchen to make coffee for our guest the man informed me that they had seen me
flying on a nearby camera. He asked me if I wanted to keep going to school like
a normal kid, or if I wanted to work for him and learn how to use my flying
abilities better with special training so I could go on missions that only
someone like me could pull off.
"It will be your job to secure special
objects for us," he said.
It turns out I can get into a lot of places no
one else can without using noisy equipment or vehicles.
As he passed me a piece of paper I signed it
right away. He smiled and tucked it into his inside jacket pocket just as my
grandma was coming out with coffee.
So there it is! A taste of what's to come in my next novel. I also have one that's been fully written for over a year that I need to finish illustrating. Also I'm doing #Inktober. Here's a few drawings from that:
So boring. I LOVED Treasure Island so I really like Robert Louis Stevenson as an author but man this book was dull. It was a tiny bit interesting near the end but even that was short lived and not worth the read to get to. I realize this book is old and so it's not like a modern page turner but I love many books written in this era and older. Just boring to me. Did not like it at all. Tons of other people love this book so take my words with a grain of salt.
Next week I'll be in Canada at an amazing CG conference. It will be awesome! I'm expecting to be incredibly inspired as an artist and to take lots of notes.
What is Siggraph you ask? Great question! I'll let them tell you:
SIGGRAPH is the world's largest conference on computer graphics. It takes place once a year in a city somewhere in the U.S. or Canada, and is attended by tens of thousands of computer graphics professionals. SIGGRAPH is one of the most highly respected venues for the presentation of new computer graphics technology and research. [source]
I'm going to stay at the conference as long as possible to get as much information and inspiration as possible but the show doesn't last all day so I'm also hoping for a little downtime to do the following:
Finish outlining the next book I'm going to write.
Finish writing my book of Haikus called "Explore (108 Haikus)"
Hang out with my co-workers and get to know them better
It should be an awesome trip! I'm really going to miss my family. Being away from them will be really hard. My coworker went a few years ago and said it was amazing. So much to see. So many top piers from the 3D industry to learn from and meet. It should be an incredible experience. I'll let you know how it went and hopefully soon I'll have news to share about my haiku book being available for purchase. The cover is already done! Should be a fun little paperback for trips, night stands, coffee tables, and book shelves. Thanks for stopping by!
This book was fantastic. There were some parts where I was a little bored thus 4 instead of 5 stars, but in general it was amazing. Great characters that I fell in love with in the last book I got to know and love even more. The story was awesome. I also really liked the city the story takes place in and getting to fly through it on adventures with the Wax the protagonist. Again Wayne was as charming as ever. A scoundrel you can't help but love. Without giving anything away I'll just say that the antagonist not only seems impossible to beat (not saying he/she is beat) but also turns out to have a huge twist on who they are that I didn't see coming. It was a well crafted story.
I've been away from home for almost 2 weeks, but while I was gone something for you to listen to was published! Episode 12 of The Writing Crusade with Indiana Jim! I'm his co-host now and we talked about:
In this episode, I tell Dan all about The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. Almost all of us commit acts of self-sabotage when we experience new levels of success, love, joy or creativity. How do we overcome our limiting beliefs and spend our time where we are truly unique and gifted? The lessons from the book are especially relevant to writers. Most of all I want to inspire you to make the big leap in your life and writing career.
Go have a listen, it was a fun time as always talking about writing with Jim. In other news, where was I for the last 2 weeks? At a kids church summer camp with my whole family, and then we went to Glacier Montana with two other families. It's been a super fun very exhausting couple of weeks! Pics below:
In this 72nd episode, I review The Chimera Sequence by Elliott Garber. This book was rich in action, cosmopolitan characters, science and medicine, and touching scenes. It's about a group who risk their lives to fight off evil men while trying to save a special group of gorillas. The audiobook was amazing. The narrator nailed every accent and his narration was spot on.
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The Christmas Hirelings by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
