#TheJesusRing

What is one of your favorite childhood memories? Can a person have a favorite childhood memory? There are many. The best memories are of things where the senses take over, the memory is vivid, and the colors are bright. In great memories you can smell the aroma of the food, feel the nip of frost on your nose, savor the sun’s warmth on your face, feel the heart swell with love, relive the emotion of the moment, and feel the laughter building from within. Some of my favorite or most vivid memories are included in my collection of humorous short stories, Ramblings of an Old Poot. It was released in mid-March 2020. Do you remember the first story you ever wrote? If so, what was it about? I wrote a lot of stories while I was in school. The best one was a short story, in my junior year of high school, that I received an A++. The only time I ever received that grade on anything in English class, ever. In 1969, the US was in the grips of the Cold War. I grew up in the west Texas town of Odessa, Texas. The setting of the story was in Odessa. The story concerns the discussions between a boy and his grandfather in the aftermath of a nuclear conflict. The farms were wastelands, the water supply contaminated, and the animals dying from radiation poisoning. The story was written so that the reader would assume the setting was in Odessa, TX in the US. In the final paragraph, it is revealed that the actual setting was in Odessa, Russia (USSR), which is now in Ukraine. What sort of cultural, spiritual, or social value do you think reading and books hold? Reading holds the key to everything. What do you enjoy most about writing science fiction? What I enjoy most about writing science fiction is I can produce some of the most oddball devices in my stories and not have to explain how they work. The best part about The Jesus Ring is each and every one of the designs God gave to Peter for the life saving devices, weapons, and transporters is actually scientifically feasible. They have been mathematically proven to be feasible but the science hasn’t caught up with it yet. Science fiction is fiction till it’s proven, then it’s just science. Repairing the body with just a different frequency of light? The Bible says “God is light”. Dialing into a specific magnetic band for a flying aircraft? Science has proven there are trillions of magnetic bands throughout the universe, each with its own frequency. Warping the fabric of space and time? Science is working on it now. Science fiction is fun. No matter what oddball contraption we can dream up, the science will be found to prove it eventually. In the 1960’s, Pluto was the edge of our solar system, now look where the limits reach. Science and technology are still infants compared to a hundred years from now. What challenges did you face while publishing your first novel, The Jesus Ring? The biggest challenges publishing The Jesus Ring was the title and genre. There is such a negative attitude in the publishing world about anything to do with God, Jesus, Christianity, or the Bible. Like any other writer, I submitted my manuscript to many of the major publishing companies with and almost instant refusal stating they “weren’t interested in Christian books” while it stated right on the reviewer’s bio that they were open for submittal of Christian books. Guess my synopsis and queries weren’t as good of a “hook” as I thought. Agents were just as bad. Querying may not be my strong suit. Where did you find the inspiration for the character Peter Christian in The Jesus Ring? God knew the Apocalypse was going to be intense, so He chose a warrior to lead the faithful into those harsh times. Peter was the first of Jesus’ disciples based on the Bible. It seemed fitting that the first warrior God recruited for the “end times’ would be Peter. All of the “Golden Twelve” were named after Jesus’ disciples but very few readers have commented about the connection. I made a point not to spell it out in the book. What is something that most people don’t know about fantasy books that they NEED to know? I really don’t know what I could tell people about fantasy books. If they don’t know the difference between fantasy and reality, they need to have Scotty beam them back to their home planet. How do you usually select character names? Have you ever named a character after your family or friends? I usually make up names for characters. If I am stumped, I will take an old Houston white pages book and pick a number. If it is 25, I go to page 25 and take the 25th name down. I don’t use friend’s names because a lot of characters get killed off during the book and that would be terrible. I am not normally a superstitious person, but the bumper sticker says, “Crap happens” (something like that) but why tempt fate? When is writing hardest for you? What do you do you pick yourself up during those moments? Every writer struggles with their talent. I have been writing technical documents for over 30 years and it is never easy. The “flow” has to come and, sometimes, it doesn’t come willingly. I always likened the mind to a house full of windows. If the window I am looking through is blocked or blurred, I move to another window. I work on something else till the “epiphany” or that sudden insight comes that ties things back together or pushes it onward. I am notorious for adding ideas or thoughts to the bottom of the story to see what can or will fit into the story later on in the book. It may end up looking like a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle but