The Ring

“How do I say I love you,” Michael said, “that I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you in Fitzhugh’s class? That I want to be at your side for always. I want you painting in that artist space in the loft and then coming into my arms and making love with me? I suppose I just said it, didn’t I?”

Sarah nodded.

“So, Sarah Hughes,” he said, “if you’ll have me, I’m asking you to marry me, to join me in whatever God has in store for us.” He placed the ring box in front of her.

-      From Dancing Priest. 

Photograph by Esther Tuttle via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Michael's First Glimpse of Sarah

She was sitting two rows down the amphitheater-like lecture hall and four seats to his right. Soft brown hair with blond highlights, tied in a ponytail. A white starched blouse like a man’s dress shirt. Jeans. Slender almost to the point of thinness. High cheekbones. Light makeup.

She’s beautiful, he thought. Who is she? She must be new; I’ve never seen her before.

His heart pounded. He felt his ears become hot. He looked at the syllabus in front of him but couldn’t see anything. He looked up again. She was still there. This wasn’t his imagination.

-      From Dancing Priest 

Photo by Riccardo Vicidomini via Unsplash. Used with permission. 

Reflecting on Writing a Novel

Dancing Priest, my first novel and the first in the Dancing Priest series, is free on Amazon Kindle this week.

It was published seven years ago, and it was almost a decade in the making. From an image inspired by a song, the story spent three years inside my head. In idle moments, or at night after I’d gone to bed, I slowly worked my way through the story of Michael Kent and Sarah Hughes. Over those three years, the story changed, incorporated new ideas and characters, shifted in its narrative arc, and shifted its location from Italy to Scotland. 

When I finally began to transfer the story from head to computer screen, in the early fall of 2005, it came as a torrent. It took about three months, but when I stopped, I had a torrent of 250,000 words, sufficient for three novels. Then began the cutting, splicing, and saving chunks for later. At a writer’s conference or two, I showed excerpts to editors and agents. Editors liked it; agents didn’t. One agent told me that if it didn’t have a vampire or a werewolf, it couldn’t be marketed to publishers (this was at the height of the mania for the Twilight novels). 

Dancing Priest eventually found its way into print. From that first behemoth manuscript in 2005, it was likely rewritten 20 times before it saw the public light of day. Writing is hard work. Editing is hard work. Marketing is hard work. Trying to market one book, write another, and hold down a full-time job is impossible work. 

I’ve reread the book several times, and while there are a few things I’d like to change or edit, I find myself content with it. I’ve always considered it a love story for men, and the reactions of male readers have supported that. While a few (male and female) readers have thought Michael Kent a bit too perfect, male readers have generally seen the character as to what men aspire to. One reader said it should be required reading for teenage boys, because it offered a sense of “the nobility of doing right.” 

The character I still feel the closest to in the story is Sarah Hughes. Her attitude to faith mirrored my own in college, as in, “You’re serious about this stuff?” How she comes to faith is a direct lift from my own experience when I was a senior in college. What happens to her when she begins to talk with the wife of the director of “College Campus Ministry” is an almost verbatim description of what happened to me when I began to talk with the director of Campus Crusade for Christ at my university. 

If there is a single theme in Dancing Priest, it is the same theme that you’ll find in the three novels that have followed it: No matter how dark things look, there is always hope.

This week, you can access the free copy on Amazon Kindle here.

A meeting at the dorm lobby

As Michael entered the dorm lobby with his bike and backpack, the housemaster stopped him. “Mr. Kent, you’ve got a visitor. She’s been waiting a good two hours.”

It was Sarah Hughes.

She stood, clutching a large artist portfolio. He stood still, gripping the bike, as she walked to him.

“I came to tell you how sorry I am,” she said. “After my outburst yesterday, I felt terrible and tried to apologize, but you were gone. I said terrible things, and there was no excuse. If you can’t forgive me, I understand. I just want to die. I felt so badly I couldn’t sleep last night—” Tears rolled down her cheeks. A few students stopped to watch, and the housemaster was definitely captivated.

“Would you like a coffee?” Michael said.

-  From Dancing Priest 

Photograph by Milan Popovic via Unsplash. Used with permission.

From "Dancing Priest"

“This young man was more than just David’s roommate, wasn’t he?” Gran said.

Sarah nodded.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I love him Gran. I love him and I can’t love him. He has this enormous faith in God. He’ll be ordained a minister when he returns from the Olympics and then he goes to Africa.”

“Is it the religion, Sarah?” Grand said.

Sarah nodded again. “I just don’t have it. It just doesn’t work for me. But it’s everything about him.”

     - From Dancing Priest 

Photograph by Brooke Cagle via Unsplash. Used with permission.

‘Dancing Priest’ Free on Kindle

My first novel, Dancing Priest, is free on Amazon Kindle today, tomorrow and Thursday:

Michael Kent…
A young man studying to become a priest finds love, and learns that faith can separate.
A university cyclist seeking Olympic gold finds tragedy, death and heroism.
A pastor thousands of miles from home seeks vocation and finds fatherhood.

Sarah Hughes…
A young woman living abroad finds love and loses family.
A university student meets a faith she cannot accept.
An artist finds faith and learns to paint with her soul.

Dancing Priest is the story of Michael Kent and Sarah Hughes and a love, born, separated, and reborn, in faith and hope.

(And if I had to pick my favorite scene in the book, it would be the closing ceremonies in the Olympic Stadium in Athens. Or the Christmas Eve scene with Michael and young Jim. Or possibly the Last Tango in Edinburgh. And then there’s…)

Merry Christmas! 

“A Light Shining” Publishes Today; “Dancing Priest” Free on Kindle

Today is the official publication date for A Light Shining, the sequel to my first novel, Dancing Priest. It’s now available in e-book format on Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and other online sellers shortly. The paperback edition will be available in about a week.

The new novel includes most of the same characters from Dancing Priest, with a few new ones added, including a character born doing the editing and rewriting process this past summer. Giving credit where credit is due, the editor – Adam Blumer – suggested that a character be added (for a specific reason, which you have to read the book to understand). I worked this character for weeks stretching into months, and finally it clicked and the story was essentially recast and reborn as a result.

It’s a character who has no name, and he’s introduced on the very first page.

The story: Michael and Sarah are newly married, joining their names as Kent-Hughes, and back in San Francisco from their honeymoon in Hawaii. Michael continues to work as assistant pastor at St. Anselm’s Church, and he and Sarah are raising Jim, the young boy Michael became the guardian for in Dancing Priest. Within a few short weeks, they have a new addition to their family. They return to Europe on vacation, seeking the family of Michael’s birth mother.

Then comes the Violence. And everything changes.

Over the next few weeks, we’re planning interviews with Michael and Sarah, background on the writing of the story, some giveaways of the novel, a free pdf of the wedding story (cut from Dancing Priest and not included in A Light Shining), and some various other activities.

Today, to help celebrate the publication of A Light Shining, we (that’s the publisher and me) are making Dancing Priest a free download on Amazon Kindle.

I’m still somewhat surprised that all of this has happened. Dancing Priest in 2011, A Light Shining now, a novella in the spring, and a contract for another kind of book altogether signed and planned for the fall or winter of 2013 (more on that later).

And I’ve already been asked – will Michael and Sarah’s story continue?

The answer is – it’s possible. We’re going to see how these two novels are received, and then we’ll decide.

But there is a lot more to the story.

Related:

Laura Boggess reviews A Light Shining at The Wellspring.

A Light Shining

It’s coming.

Sometime in the next three to four weeks, the sequel to Dancing Priest will see the light of day.

A Light Shining takes the story of Michael Kent and Sarah Hughes – newly married with the hyphenated last name of Kent-Hughes – into and just past their first year of marriage.

And it’s a year in which they and their family are caught up in a web of terrorism and violence.

A Light Shining is not a romance. It’s still a love story – the story of Michael and Sarah will always be a love story – but it is not a romance. It is a love story with an overlay of suspense.

It was always my intention to develop the story this way. But a rather traumatic reaction (from the author) from the reader and editor said something more, and something less, had to happen.

Large chunks of the manuscript disappeared, replaced by a cleaner, leaner, (and shorter) story.

And a new character, a character with no name, emerged in the rewriting. Most of the suspense of the story centers on him. And he fundamentally changed the story.

I’ve now read the finished (final! done!) manuscript three times. It reads quickly. No, what I should say is that it reads fast. It contains a lot of emotion, like its predecessor. And certain scenes – as familiar as I am with them – still get me up out of my chair and walking around the room with anxiety.

The cast of characters is largely the same as in Dancing Priest. Two minor characters from the first novel become more significant in A Light Shining, thrust suddenly into roles and circumstances they could never have anticipated or even imagined.

The photo above is the one that, in a modified form, is being used for the cover. Taken (and more than taken, “created” is the right word) by Kelly Sauer, it combines the elements of light and a spider’s web. What attracted me to the photo immediately was the subtlety of the spider’s web – a web only illuminated by the light.

The title is taken from a Scripture passage. In St. Peter’s second epistle, he says this: “And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”

It’s the text that Michael Kent uses in Dancing Priest for his first sermon at St. Anselm’s in San Francisco. In a way, that passage summarizes A Light Shining. It is a story of love, family, darkness, and violence, but it is mostly about love.

More details are coming. Soon.

I promise.

Photograph by Kelly Sauer.

An Interview with Sarah Hughes

Last week, we talked with Michael Kent, the lead character and hero in the novel Dancing Priest. This week, we talk with Sarah Hughes, the lead female character.

Faith, Fiction, Friends: We asked Michael this question, and feel somewhat obligated to ask you the same. What is it like to be a character in a novel?

Sarah Hughes: Like your father is inside your head at all times. It’s strange at first but you get used to it.

FFF: Can you tell us a little about your background, and where you grew up?

SH: I was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. Likely the biggest impact on my life has been being a twin. My brother David was born two minutes before I was, and he never tires of reminding me he’s my older brother. We have an older brother, Scott, and there was quite a gap between us – 12 years. My father was an investment banker and then founded a venture capital firm with his best friend from college, Tyler Zimmer.

My childhood was fairly normal, I think, for a family that was financially blessed. My parents sent us to private schools. David and I spent a good chunk of our summers with my paternal grandparents in Santa Barbara, although we didn’t see my mother’s parents that much. She was originally from Chicago; she met my dad when they all attended the University of Colorado. David and I were seniors in high school when our parents separated. Actually, that’s not quite accurate. My mother left my father, walked out on the whole family, in fact, and later married Ty Zimmer, Dad’s business partner.

FFF: I detect some hurt there.

SH: Yes, you probably do. (Silence)

FFF: Okay, then, how did you end up at the University of Edinburgh?

SH: David and I went as exchange students. We were both attending UCLA, David for its British history program and me for its fine arts program. David had already planned to attend the University of Edinburgh for his junior year; he was specializing in the history of Scotland. At the last minute, and it was really the last minute, I decided to tag along.

FFF: Wouldn’t staying at UCLA made more sense for your fine arts degree?

SH: At Edinburgh I could take a lot of elective courses I needed and I decided it would be a good experience. I also wasn’t ready to be separated from my twin, to be honest. That was the main reason, I suppose. David and I had grown up together and been through a lot together, especially with my mother leaving the family. My dad was able to pull some strings to get my application reviewed; one of the professors there was a consultant for my dad’s business.

FFF: What was your first reaction to seeing Michael?

SH: We had just finished the first meeting of our medieval art class. Medieval art was about the last thing I was interested in, but the lecturer had a reputation for being an outstanding speaker and teacher. And he was, a wild Irishman who passionately loved his subject. I was leaving the building when this young man called out to me. He was in a cycling outfit – polyester jersey with “EUCC” across the front and spandex shorts, and dragging his bike along with him. He rather clumsily asked me out for coffee and I thought I was being hit on for the fourth time that day. I’m afraid I was rather rude. But he was nice looking, I will say that.

FFF: What’s your most vivid memory of Edinburgh?

SH: I know I should say something about the city or Scotland, but my most vivid memory is Michael. Everything about Edinburgh I now associate with Michael. Once we got past our problematic first meeting, it seems we did everything together. He even sat in on my art class just to watch me draw and paint and I attended his cycling practices. If I had to pick a most vivid memory of the city, it would have to be a kind of non-memory – when Michael and I danced the tango at MedFest. I was oblivious to everything during the dance except him. It was if we had known each other forever, and we had met only two days earlier.

FFF: Are you looking forward to being in the sequel to Dancing Priest?

SH: I have a yes-and-no answer. I’ve read the manuscript, and the best part for me is my life with Michael. But things are going to happen that I find frightening. We’re both going to face severe tests, and our lives will never be the same afterward. It wasn’t what I expected at all.