1. I am writing a novel. Or rather, I have written the first draft of a novel and am now editing it.
2. I have written a number of novels before, which ranged from unreadable disasters to nearly-there.
3. For this reason, I have generally been cagey about admitting in public that I write fiction. Even this much makes me wince.
4. I suspect that the current novel is not an unreadable disaster.
5. I attribute this hopeful stance to:
a) having learned a good deal from my previous failed fictional efforts;
b) having written a sheaf of short stories that forced me to figure out what makes a story tick on a smaller scale (forthcoming later this year!); and
c) having built the structure of this current novel on the Story Grid method.
6. This new novel technically counts as “historical fiction”: it takes place from August 1988 to November 1989.
7. Readers of my blog and of my memoir I Am a Brave Bridge will rightly suspect that it’s no accident that my historical novel ends in November 1989 specifically.
8. And while the novel also falls under the broad umbrella of literary fiction, my preferred classification is mystagogical realism—of which more here.
9. The story concerns a pastor and his family at a small congregation in upstate New York, a setting that draws on my own life experience.
10. The plot, however, does not reflect my own family’s happy experience in that setting, but concerns a catastrophe that strikes at the heart of the family and the congregational strife that ensues as a result.
And with that teaser, I’ll have to leave you hanging until there is more news to report…!