Author Archives: Janet Sketchley

About Janet Sketchley

Janet Sketchley is an Atlantic Canadian writer whose Redemption’s Edge Christian suspense novels have each been finalists in The Word Awards. She's also the author of the devotional collection, A Year of Tenacity. Janet blogs about faith and books. She loves Jesus and her family, and enjoys reading, worship music, and tea. Fans of Christian suspense are invited to join her writing journey through her monthly newsletter: bit.ly/JanetSketchleyNews.

Friday Friends: Author Sara Davison (part 2)

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Last Friday we chatted with Canadian author Sara Davison, whose novel, The Watcher, released in March 2011. [You can read part one of the interview here.]

Janet: Welcome back, Sara. You’ve persevered a long time on the road to publication. What hope can you share with those of us still slogging?

Sara: It is a difficult journey, and a tough business that is only getting tougher as a result of uncertain economic times and on-going developments in technology. When this book was rejected yet again a year and a half ago I launched a blog called Choose to Press On, emphasizing the fact that if you believe in your story, and believe that God gave you this gift and this calling (and you really, really have to believe that or I would strongly recommend looking into other career options) then you have to just keep going and not give up. The stories are given for a purpose, and that purpose will be fulfilled in God’s time and in his way, not ours. In the meantime, keep working on your craft, honing it to continually become a better and stronger writer. To get published now, work can’t just be good, it has to be excellent which, as writers working for the glory of God, should be our objective anyway. After that, we have to leave the results up to God.

Janet: Sound advice. Thank you. Are you working on a sequel?

Sara: Good question Janet. And the answer is maybe. When the book was UnBroken, I had a sequel written. Now that it has all been changed I’m not sure if the sequel still works or is needed. However, people have been asking about one, so I am taking a hard look at the other book to see if it can be rewritten to follow The Watcher or not. I will have to keep you posted on that. I do have another suspense novel written, The Child-Snatchers, which was short-listed in the Word Alive contest, so I am currently looking into publishing options for that one as well, but that one is the first in a completely different series.

Janet: Is there a particular song or Scripture verse that’s made a big difference for you?

Sara: The song “Praise You in the Storm” by Casting Crowns has had a big impact on me. The first time I heard it, a girl from our church was singing it at the funeral for her twenty-year old brother who had died suddenly in a car crash. Praising God is always powerful, but I was overwhelmed by how powerful it was that someone could be in the midst of devastation and heartbreak, and still praise God. I often thought of this song, and of the moment I first heard it, when I was writing about how Kathryn dealt with what happened to her in The Watcher.

Janet: I think the choice to praise God in the hard times and in the pain is very powerful. And it’s something we all need to do at times. Next question: Are you a writer who likes to immerse herself in details of the setting while incubating the story idea?

Sara: Actually, that depends on what I am writing. The Child-Snatchers is set in a diner in Toronto, so I have spent a lot of time in diners in my town, trying to capture the feel, sounds, smells etc. Other than my husband questioning why I am suddenly spending so much more money on coffee and breakfast, I love being surrounded by everything my characters see and experience in the book. In The Watcher, the setting doesn’t play as big a role as the actions and interactions of the characters, so I did not end up spending extra time on a ranch, or travelling out to British Columbia. I do immerse myself in the dialogue, internal and verbal, of the characters whenever I write, however. I don’t tell this to many people, but I do act out a lot of the scenes, holding up both (or more) ends of the conversation and really putting myself into the action so that I can feel and think everything the character would be feeling and thinking. Like most writers, I find my characters become very real to me. In fact, I realize they are becoming too real to me when my poor husband says something to me and I find myself thinking “Nick would never say that to Kathryn!” That’s when I have to stop and remind myself that Nick is a fictional character and it’s not really a fair comparison.

Janet: What do your family think of your writing?

Sara: Well, other than moments like that, they are unbelievably supportive. It’s not an easy thing to live with a writer, and to go through all the emotional ups and downs that come with that calling. It would be extremely difficult to pursue that vocation if your spouse and children (and, in my case, grandmother, parents, sisters, brothers-in-law, nieces, nephew, aunts, uncles, cousins etc.) didn’t support you and encourage you daily not to give up. My husband Michael is my biggest encourager, and tells everyone about the novel, whether they want to hear about it or not J. My kids think it’s pretty cool that I’ve written a book, and they seem to be impressed. My older two anyway. My youngest son, who is seven, recently said to me, “I’m glad you stay home with us and don’t work. Well, except for writing books, but that’s easy!” They make me laugh, anyway, and that goes a long way toward keeping me sane and keeping me going.

Janet: Writers are told to read widely and voraciously. I think that’s one of the perks of the deal. What are you reading these days?

Sara: At the moment I am reading The Story of Edgar Sawtelle for a book club I attend and it is a beautifully written book. I am also reading One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, another beautiful, poetic book that is teaching me to live with a perpetual attitude of gratitude, and an awareness of the grace of God in the ordinary and everyday things of life. I also recently read In the Company of Others by Jan Karon, as enjoyable as the rest of the series, and Rescued by Donna Dawson is next on my list. I try to read a variety of books and authors, and to expand my horizons beyond what is familiar and, sometimes, even comfortable, in a desperate attempt to learn how great writers tell a story that has a powerful effect on their readers.

Janet: What do you like to do to get away from it all?

Sara: Is that an option? It’s pretty tricky for me to get away from it all these days, as I have three kids and have moved away from my family and don’t know very many people in town yet. Mostly I escape up to my room with a book, and I walk every morning with a friend down to the lake or on one of the many trails around here. Now that my kids are a little older, my husband and I do actually get out for a meal or a movie once in a while, and an hour or two of uninterrupted conversation is pretty much as close to a getaway as we’re taking these days.

Janet: Uninterrupted adult conversation is nothing to sneeze at! What’s the most surprising/fun/zany/scary thing you’ve ever done?

Sara: Wow, after contemplating this question for quite a while, I have come to the conclusion that I mustn’t be a very surprising/fun/zany/scary kind of a person, as nothing significant immediately came to mind. I’m not a huge risk-taker by nature, so this whole journey of putting myself and my work out there has been an on-going process of pushing myself further and further out of my comfort zone, which is always a good thing. Flying is I guess the scariest thing I have done, mostly because I have encountered pretty much everything that can go wrong with a flight short of crashing – being lost in fog, landing in tornadoes and the plane almost tipping over, having the plane searched for a bomb after someone checked in and didn’t get on a flight loaded with Hell’s Angels. I will still do it when necessary, but it does require a leap of faith and trust every time. Oh, and one of the most fun things that ever happened to me was bumping into Donny Osmond – literally – on a sidewalk in Toronto one day when he was there performing in Joseph.

Janet: Sounds like plenty of things that could work into future novels! Sara, thanks so much for taking time to let us get to know you a bit. May the LORD continue to bless you and make you a blessing to others—in every area of your life.

===

Sara Davison blogs at Choose to Press On, and you can also find her on Facebook and on the Great Canadian Authors site. Visit her website, saradavison.org, for information on her current projects, an excerpt from and discussion questions for The Watcher, interviews, reviews and more.

Expecting God’s Mercy

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Turn to me and have mercy on me,
as you always do to those who love your name.
Psalm 119:132, NIV*

Do you hear the absolute trust and confidence in God’s character and in His commitment to care?

“As You always do.”

We may not have a clue of what God will do, or how or when, but we can know that He will always keep His word. For those of us who love Him, part of our responsibility is to actively trust Him, and to keep alert to recognize His mercy when it comes.

Or, as Oswald Chambers expressed it in My Utmost for His Highest, we need to live in “Gracious Uncertainty”:

Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how He will come in—but you can be certain that He will come. Remain faithful to Him. Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, April 29. [Click the link to read his entire message—it will bless you.]

It isn’t easy for people who like to see, touch, and forecast our world. People who are used to instant fixes. But that’s how God works, and it trains our spirits to trust Him.

Sovereign and loving God, thank You for Your Word that teaches who You are and what You’ve said. Help us in our unbelief, increase our faith, and open our spiritual eyes and ears to notice Your touch on our lives and circumstances. Help us to give You praise, and to live in this “gracious uncertainty” that is certain of You—for our own benefits and for a demonstration of Your goodness to the people around us.

∞

Here’s a new-to-me version of Ira Stanphill’s classic hymn, “I Don’t Know About Tomorrow,” sung by Ernie Haase and Signature Sound.

Review: Dark Clouds of the Morning, by Janet C. Burrill

Friday Friends: Author Sara Davison (part 1)

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Sara Davison is a Canadian author, and the winner of the fiction category in Word Alive Press’ free publishing contest in 2010. Her entry, The Watcher, released from Word Alive Press in March 2011.

Janet: Welcome, Sara, and thanks for taking time to join us. Congratulations on the publication of your first novel!

Sara: Thank you Janet! It has all seemed incredibly surreal since I got the call seven months ago that I had won the contest, but it’s also been very, very exciting.

Janet: Tell us a bit about The Watcher.

Sara: The Watcher is the story of a journey. After a traumatic experience that changes her life forever, Kathryn Ellison has to find her way back to God and to the man she loves. Along the way she learns the importance of forgiveness and is able to find healing and peace. Which she is going to need as she is about to face the greatest test of her faith and trust as the man who has haunted her dreams for twenty years begins his own journey to track her down and finish the job he started twenty years earlier. Her daughter is on a quest of her own, to find the father she knows nothing about, and her search threatens to thrust both her and Kathryn back into terror again. The story is told from the viewpoint of a unique narrator, one of the many characters in the novel that represent God’s passionate love for us and his promise that we are never alone.

Janet: One of the distinctive things about the novel is the unseen narrator—the Watcher—and her companions, Grace, Faith, Hope etc. I appreciated the Watcher’s humour and her observations about humanity. At what point did she join the story in your mind?

Sara: This book, then titled UnBroken, was actually shortlisted for The Best New Canadian Christian Author Award through The Word Guild in 2008. It didn’t win that award, and was subsequently rejected by several publishers. When the Word Alive Press contest came around again, I sat down to seriously consider how to handle the biggest problem with the manuscript, which was that it took place over twenty years, a timeline more suitable to a sweeping epic than a suspense novel. I wasn’t sure how to shorten that up, until one morning in church (a great place for writers to get their inspiration, apparently) the pastor was reading Romans 5:1-5: “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

It suddenly struck me that all of these things are the “states of being” God desires for us, and as I pondered that it occurred to me that maybe I could add a narrator to the book that wasn’t actually human. It was kind of a crazy idea, and I had no idea whether or not it would work, but I decided to just play with it and see what happened. Putting in the narrator meant chopping up the book and mixing the scenes all around and then fitting them back together like a jigsaw puzzle, but it enabled me to shorten the timeline from twenty years to six days.

All of that happened about three weeks before the deadline for the contest which was kind of scary because it meant I was working on the book right up until the day it had to be mailed in, and didn’t have a chance to have anyone else read or critique it, so even when I sent it in I had no idea whether or not it worked, but I guess (hope) it does.

Janet: I think the narrator and the looking back at key pieces of the puzzle works really well. It’s not the standard format these days, but a straight-time narrative of the 20 years would feel choppy—or be huge. This way accomplishes something else too. We don’t experience Kathryn’s trauma as a complete shock. There are enough hints and glimpses first that we’re prepared. The novel is pretty intense in places, but you did a great job of portraying the pain without traumatizing the reader. Where did the story idea come from?

Sara: I’m not entirely sure, to be honest. Thankfully not from anything I have ever personally experienced. I have completed three novels, and each time the story has been given to me. In this instance, the whole storyline, characters, everything came to me while in church one Easter Sunday morning. I went home and wrote out the first draft in a few weeks. When I showed it to an editor, however, I was reminded that, while God may give us the stories, he doesn’t do the work for us. It took five years of writing, rewriting, editing, polishing and more rewriting to get the novel to this point.

Janet: Definitely true, there’s a ton of work involved. Good thing most of it’s fun. Do you have a favourite character in The Watcher?

Sara: I think my favourite character, although not necessarily someone I completely relate to, is the narrator, or the watcher. She is a delightful, sprite-like figure (in my mind, anyway), with a deep commitment to her creator and her charge, Kathryn. She also lends humour to the novel and often makes me laugh out loud. I don’t really relate to her boundless energy and desire to always be moving and doing and active, although I completely get her obsession/addiction to coffee.

Janet: She makes a delightful narrator, and I really enjoyed her. She kept me guessing at her identity to the very end, and she had some great lines. As the author, as well as delivering a compelling read, what one key thing do you want readers to take away when they’re done?

Sara: The truth that I would most like to see readers get from this novel is that, no matter what they may be going through, whether or not they can see any purpose or point to their suffering, even if they are doubting or questioning or angry at God, the one thing they can grasp hold of and cling to is that they are never alone.

Janet: I’m so glad God never abandons us, and that He can bring good out of horror if we let Him. I know the novel just released, but what has reader response been like so far?

Sara: You’re right, The Watcher just came out a couple of weeks ago, so most of the responses I have received so far have been from family and friends. Given that they are not the most objective readers, I’m still overwhelmed and grateful for the positive responses to the book. Many have said they couldn’t put it down and they were intrigued with the storyline, and by having to guess the identity of the narrator. Several have said the book made them laugh and cry, and any time an author hears that their reader has been moved to that extent it is extremely rewarding.

Janet: Rewarding indeed! What got you started writing?

Sara: As far back as I can remember, reading and writing have been two of my greatest passions. I practically lived at the local library as a kid (still do, actually). There are two defining moments that I can remember vividly that I think really ignited my passion to write. The first was going on a class trip in the fourth grade and having to do a write-up about it afterwards. Mine was the one selected to go into the newsletter, and I can still remember how it felt to see my words in print, and know that others were reading them and learning something from them. It was a powerful feeling and made me want to do more of that. About a year after that I can remember walking up and down the aisles of the library one day, running my hands along the spines of all the books and thinking, all these people published a book, it can be done. I can do this. Although it has taken a few years to realize this dream, I know that without a doubt God had planted it in my heart even then.

Janet: Thanks for taking time to chat with us, Sara. We’ll wrap this interview up next week. [Click here to read part 2.]

Desiring God

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How lovely is your dwelling place,
LORD Almighty!
My soul yearns, even faints,
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh cry out
for the living God.
Psalm 84:1-2, NIV*

This psalm opens with a progression: it’s not just the Temple courts the writer craves, it’s the Presence in that sacred space.

A few of the late April readings in Oswald Chambers’ classic My Utmost for His Highest touch on the danger of desiring the experience of God or the blessings from God instead of desiring God Himself.

A holy hush in the sanctuary, a strong spiritual experience, God’s tangible touch on our lives—these are wonderful gifts we need to receive with praise. But they’re evidence of His glory, they’re not the ultimate desire of our spirits.

If you make a god out of your best moments, you will find that God will fade out of your life… until you have learned not to be obsessed with those exceptional moments He has given you. Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, April 25

Holy and loving God, because of Jesus Christ our Saviour we can come into Your presence, and Your Holy Spirit dwells in us and makes us His Temple. Give us a thirst for closer relationship with You, a hunger for more than Your blessings—a hunger for You alone.

∞

Matt Redman’s song, “Better is One Day,” echoes this psalm. Not sure who’s singing here.

Review: False Pretenses, by Kathy Herman

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False Pretenses, by Kathy Herman (David C. Cook, 2011)

“I know what you did.”

The anonymous note jeopardizes all Zoe Broussard has so carefully built: a new life, a thriving Cajun eatery in a small Louisiana town, and a happy marriage.

Because it’s all built on lies.

As Zoe tries to keep her personal life from exploding, a murder rocks the town and ignites racial tension. If the killer isn’t found fast, will the police be able to stop race riots?

Zoe’s new friend and tenant, Vanessa, will be familiar to fans of Kathy Herman’s Sophie Trace series: she’s Police Chief Brill Jessup’s daughter, and we met her in The Last Word. If you’re planning to read book 3 in that series, The Right Call, read it before False Pretenses or you’ll learn how things work out.

False Pretenses offers the good things I expect from a Kathy Herman novel: believable characters and relationships, danger and suspense. Zoe’s lies, theft, cover-up and abusive past make her who she is. And they’ve caused the crisis she’s now desperate to solve.

The novel is a good, fast read. I enjoyed the Cajun setting, and would love the chance to sample the cuisine at Zoe B’s. And it was fun to discover the secret of the historic home Vanessa is renovating. The only thing I wasn’t sure about was the swiftness and accuracy of DNA test results.

False Pretenses is the first in Kathy Herman’s new series, Secrets of Roux River Bayou. I’m glad there’ll be more stories, because I’d like to spend more time with these characters. Book two is called A Dangerous Mercy and will release in October 2011.

There’s a book trailer for False Pretenses, and you can learn more about Kathy Herman at her website or find her on Facebook.

[review copy source: public library]

Interview and Giveaway: A Second Cup of Hot Apple Cider

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Thank you to the friendly folks at The Barn Door Book Loft for hosting me this weekend for an interview. Just click the link to read the interview.

For a chance to win a copy of A Second Cup of Hot Apple Cider, go to the interview post and/or the post featuring the book, and leave a comment on that post. See contest rules on the site–you have to check back there (or subscribe) to know if you’re the winner.

A Second Cup of Hot Apple Cider Canada-Wide Launches

The Goodness of the Lord

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I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD.
Psalm 27:13-14, NIV*

This verse gave me a lot of comfort during a hard time. I don’t know the translation a friend sent to me, but the wording for verse 13 is “I would have despaired if I had not believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” (It’s similar to the NASB translation of Psalm 27:13)

I clung to that promise, repeated it over and over, and although that crisis has passed the words are still on my fridge. Things were bad, and I needed help believing there would be good days ahead.

The verse has been going through my head again this week, in the form of a song by Carolyn Arends, “Land of the Living”. Just the chorus:

I would despair
If I did not believe
That I would see again
Your hand in the land of the living.

And I saw something deeper: the promise doesn’t say anything about what this goodness will look like. Doesn’t say the pain will go away, health or wealth be restored, wars and natural disasters cease.

What it says is that we will see the goodness of the Lord.

See the goodness of the Lord.

One of the points I took from Ann Voskamp’s amazing book, One Thousand Gifts, is that sometimes God’s goodness—the grace He gives us—is hard to recognize. It comes disguised as what we call more bad news or hard times.

She also points the way to see it: “praise precedes the miracle”. As we pray, praising God for who He is, asserting our confidence in Him, He helps us recognize His hand even in the hard experiences.

If the circumstances don’t change, or while we’re waiting for the change, don’t we need to recognize—to see—the goodness of the Lord present with us? Don’t we need His goodness to get us through? That’s grace.

Father God, Giver of all good gifts, open our eyes and our spirits to see Your goodness here with us, in the land of the living. We will still pray in trust that You will deliver us from our hard places and heal our hurts, but in the here and the now, help us praise You. Praise You with no strings attached: not if You work things out a certain way, but because of who You are. And we will remember that the praise does precede the miracle, whatever that miracle will turn out to be.

∞

I couldn’t find “Land of the Living” as an audio file, so here’s a video of my first favourite Carolyn Arends song: “Seize the Day.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lmqtYR5tJo&feature=fvsr

Review: LEAP for Faith, by Gary Cox

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LEAP for Faith, by Gary Cox (Bryler Publications, 2011)

The Christian life is a journey, which Eugene Peterson has dubbed “a long obedience in the same direction.” Believers need to grow spiritually. We also need to respectfully and responsibly share our faith with family, friends and co-workers. In-their-face agendas build walls, not relationships.

So how do we grow? And how to we encourage those who are spiritually interested but not ready to make a full commitment to a God they’re only beginning to suspect may exist?

Part Bible study, part spiritual workbook and part novel, LEAP for Faith takes a fresh look at these perennial questions.

Canadian author Gary Cox addresses spiritual growth in the form of LEAP: Look and Listen, Explore and Examine, Acknowledge and Accept, Practice and Pray. And as Nick, one of the book’s main characters, says, it’s not a one-time sequence:

“P is both the last and the first step. With prayer you go back to looking and listening for God at work in your life. Seeking to discover what he wants to teach you. It’s a cycle, and each cycle expands your understanding and deepens your relationship with the Lord.” (p. 246)

The book contains 27 short chapters that follow the fictional case study of Troy, a man beginning to wonder about God, and Nick, his Christian friend. Each chapter ends with personal-application discussion questions and with Scripture passages to consider.

For new Christians or those considering the faith, there’s a helpful section at the beginning called “My Bible” that demystifies the process of looking up Scriptural references and offers suggestions on Bible reading and accessible translations.

Older-in-the-faith Christians will find Nick’s gentle model of teaching an encouragement, and the simple but logical LEAP system is easy not only to share but to apply in our personal devotions.

I found it a helpful book, easy to read and to follow. Troy and Nick are fictional examples illustrating how the LEAP process might play out in real life. It would dilute the focus of the book to bring a fully-featured novel into play with subplots, detailed characterization and the traditional conflict and plot arc. Allowing their journey to follow a straight path makes an easier teaching tool.

The only negative I found in the book was the need for more copyediting. My husband and I bought four Bryler Publications books at the same time, and the three we’ve read to date all had editing/formatting errors (one was missing an entire chapter) so I’m thinking this is a publisher issue.

LEAP for Faith can be used in private study or in a six-week group setting. Additional resources and videos for groups and group leaders are available on the LEAP for Faith website. The first two chapters are available for preview here.

Janet Sketchley

Writing Christian Mysteries & Suspense