Welcome everyone! I'm SO excited that the day is finally here! Today is the first installment of a month long series called "Bee My Guest". Each Tuesday in August, there will be a different guest author here at A Pair of Bartletts, the first of which is a dear friend and sister in Christ. You may know her as Elizabeth White, the extremely talented Christian romance novelist. I am privileged to know her as "Beth". Beth is an awesome lady with the heart of a scribe, devoted to the Lord's work. She has the sweetest countenance of anyone that you'd ever want to meet. Most of all, she LOVES her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ with all of her might! She is a devoted wife and mother and frequently graces us with her flute and penny whistle skills in our church orchestra. I am not only honored to have her here today, but also thrilled to be giving away a copy of her newest book, "Tour de Force" to one of you! All you have to do for participation in the giveaway is leave an encouraging comment for Beth after this post. I will choose a winner in a random drawing and will notify you on Wednesday of the winner.
Without any further delay....dear readers, I give you Beth White!
We shatter devices, exit the stage,
We stop masquerading to the rattle the cage,
We face every searchlight at places we hide,
We dress up for Eden, the gates open wide.
--From “Heaven” by Jars of Clay, from the album The Long Fall Back to Earth
I used to be a person who believed in flying under the radar. For one thing, I didn’t imagine I had an original thought worth sharing with anyone else. I found it comforting to avoid the spotlight while other people took risks and crashed and burned. Besides that, I came to adulthood in the fabulous 70’s, a time when “live and let live” became the American cultural mantra (or “Live and Let Die” if you were James Bond). My generation was brainwashed by film, television, and the publishing industry to believe that no one philosophy or world view contains more or less truth than another. Even as a practicing Christian I had a squirmy conviction that I didn’t have the right to impose my deeply felt faith on anyone else.
Then, somehow, I became a writer.
Oh, well, I’ve always been a writer. I’ve always had a knack for shuffling words around, I spell well, and—thanks to a long succession of militant English teachers—I understand grammar. Those are the tools in my toolbox. The art came later.
My journey to publication was a fairly normal and boring one. I have always enjoyed reading romance—and I mean that in the classic, not the bodice ripper sense—so I naturally gravitated to writing those kinds of stories. I had the usual arrogant idea that nobody was writing romance with a Christian worldview like I wanted to write it, so I planned to step in and fill the gap. And that’s when I discovered a previously unmined store of bulldog, teeth-gritted determination to learn whatever it took to write a publishable novel. Eventually I did.
What did it take? A college fiction-writing class. Membership in a national romance writers’ organization and its local chapter. Participating in a critique group. Studying a shelf full of books on how to write a publishable novel. Giving up weekends and naptimes to write (practice). Being in the right place at the right time.
I interrupt myself at this point to recommend applying the above process to whatever your dream is. A lot of people think that just because they want something badly enough, God will give it to them. I don’t think so. Natural talent will only get you so far. And often we grow and mature in the process of apprenticeship. Most writers simply don’t have anything useful to say until experience has honed the natural talent. And sometimes, for his own undisclosed reasons, God says “no” to the dream.
Anyway, for a long time I was just happy to be along for the ride. God said “yes” to me, connected me to three first-class publishers and a powerful Christian literary agency, and granted friendships with some of the most gifted Christian authors alive. (I treasure those things, though I can’t take any credit for them—it’s simply where God has placed me in the body.) And I walked around feeling alternately unworthy and bruised. Praise is a dangerous thing for the pride; on the flip side, having your words in print makes you vulnerable to harsh criticism.
So when my last contract with Zondervan was fulfilled and God moved me back into teaching music fulltime, I was almost relieved. I didn’t write for eight months or so, at least nothing original. I read and took notes for a historical idea, edited my pastor’s blog, and answered interview questions about the two current releases, Tour de Force and Crescent City Courtship. I couldn’t get a peace about what God wanted me to write next.
Because, you see, by now I’m convinced that words have power. The more I think about the influence of books, film and television on our culture, the more frightened I get about the direction America is going. Have you seriously sat down and thought about how much of your thought process is shaped by what you see on a movie or TV screen, or read on a page or computer screen? As a teacher and pastor’s wife, as a mom and aunt and mentor of young women—heck, as a tiny speck on the Facebook scope—it has become increasingly clear to me that we are in for one big rude wake-up call. Millions of American women are confused, worried, blind to the possibility of hope, the reality of God’s unconditional love, the sure coming of his judgment on our selfishness.
Now, am I delusional enough to think I can do anything about that by writing Christian romance novels that might, max, get into the hands of 10,000 other Christian women? Well, yeah, I guess I am. Because for whatever reason, forums like this keep opening up. Opportunities for me to say: HELLO! My name is Beth White. God has a purpose for your life, just like he’s got a purpose for me. The Bible says so. Creation says so. The proven resurrection of Jesus Christ says so.
I’m tired of downpedaling the demands of faith. I’m sick of standing by and watching my sisters settle for weak, sit-on-your-fanny-in-a-Bible-study Christianity lite. I’m not sure how this is going to play into what I write, or if I’ll ever even sign another publishing contract.
I’m so very far away from where I want to be. But I tell you this—I’m not going back. I challenge anyone who’s reading this to jump off the spiritual cliff with me. What do you have to lose except yourself and your fear? And is that really worth hanging onto?
This "Bee My Guest" article is courtesy of Elizabeth White.
