My Favorite Novel is the One I Tell People to Burn

I was born a writer.

Yes, I didn't begin to discover this until grade school, when I -- unlike the some other students -- didn't scoff at copying down printed stories on our lined notebook paper in order to practice our penmanship.

Quite the opposite: I chose one of the longest tales to write, possibly six pages.

It was one of those excellent precursors of marvelous things to come. But along with that gift came a noticeable dark presence of something not wanting me to fulfill my talents.

Creative "Writhing" Class

In college, I was beginning to flow more seriously into my gift, and I looked forward to the Creative Writing class I'd signed up for with great eagerness -- much more than any Economics 101 or Intermediate Accounting classes that filled my transcript.

But a weird thing happened in that Creative Writing class. I could not concentrate on the work at hand -- probably because it ended up being one of the most boring classes I'd ever taken -- so much so that I barely remember the male teacher who obviously wasn't an engaging writer himself.

More so than usual I found myself starting at one of my blithely uninterested Chicago homeboys with a lust that can only be described as out of this world. (From the netherworld, no doubt!)

I mean, the guy was cute and all, but this level of distraction from a class that could've been the seed that grew my writing talent earlier is easily recognizable to me all these years later as a direct distraction assault from the enemy to try and get my focus away from nurturing my God-given abilities at that time.

So much for creative writing. I found the class assignments boring and the whole thing uninteresting.

I turned to scribbling movie script storyboard ideas in journals that I would let my friend read -- and she was encouraging.


Publish Me or Else!

After college I entered the "real world" of corporate work life, but I never let my writing dream die.

I wrote hundreds of articles and query letters, sending them off in droves to various magazines, literary agents and movie studios around the country.

Some came close to publication, but by the late 1990s, I still hadn't achieved the bylines I wanted.

That's when a seemingly glorious idea came to me: I'd publish my own novel!

And I did just that, spending around $10,000 to get my salacious and sleazy novel published to look like a Bible -- gold gilded edges and all. I named it a titillating "Seducing God" -- a title that caused one publisher to pause for an awkward full 7 seconds or so, calling it too provocative and refusing to publish the tome.

But the content inside was much worse than any Song of Solomon sensuality. It was downright debase.

At least I was published. Under a pen name to try and hide my sins, but published.


Truth or Consequences...

It was 1999 when I was still trying to sell more than the 100 or so copies of the book I'd moved on Amazon.

Suddenly, my mother died in her sleep, and my newfound marriage was experiencing some strain and sadness from two miscarriages.

I returned to the church I'd only visited occasionally and finally walked up to the front and kneeled with a worker who led me in pray during an altar call.

My husband sat in the sanctuary pews a short time later, watching me get dunked backwards in the baptismal pool in "the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."

I was changing, but I still had hoards of that book sitting in our home office closets, sequestered away like some stash of drugs I wanted to sell on the sly.


A Nightmare Like Hitler Had

In the middle watch of the night I was set to turn 31, I had the scariest dream of my entire life.

I was holding candles like in a vigil, chanting numbers that reminded me of the numerology and Feng Shui stuff I was into at the time.

I led a bunch of women to some doorway, and in differing views of the doorframes, I saw a woman lying still and supine in a coffin, apparently dead.

In the other frame I saw her sitting up and wrestling with someone.

She paused -- and all at once I knew she was Satan, so I prepared for the ugliest snarl ever.

Instead, she smiled at me, like I was one of her good servants doing her work for her. That scared me more than any sneer could have.

That Easter Monday I returned home and threw all remaining copies of the novel in the Dumpster -- and urged anyone who still had the books in their homes to do the same. Some refused, saying they'd keep the accursed objects.

I heard that Adolph Hitler had terrifying dreams of Satan like that -- ones that would leave him shaking and crying, standing in his room in the middle of the night.

I often think of what would've happened if Hitler would've just turned from his evil ways and heeded the warnings from heaven...


Maybe God is Trying to Tell You Something...

"She's got a cross on the cover?" my dad whined in his agitated way in the background as my mother talked to him about the book while I listened.

"Why won't he read it?" she'd asked back then, before she died, acting as my editor.

"I don't know..." I said, but I knew.

Daddy was one of those people that I'd kind of avoided giving a copy of the book, a Christian that I knew would take issue -- rightly so -- with the contents.

After Mommy died and Daddy became a surrogate confidant of sorts, I told him about my scary nightmare.

"Maybe God is talking to you," he said.


Dissing the Whole World to Keep My Soul

It's been over a decade since that novel fiasco, but it still remains the favorite novel-learning experience that jumped in my head when I first saw this writing assignment.

That's because it felt like a definite fork in the road as to which way I'd go in my writing career, following God over the darker and sexier stuff I could be creating and turning a whole lot heavier profit than I am right now.

But could I sleep at night? That's the real question.

Over the years the Lord has seen fit to give me plenty of writing gigs, and I've had the pleasure of seeing my byline in print magazines and all across the web.

I pray that continues (in Jesus' name!) and only grows to the bigger and better venues that I dream of.

But never -- ever, ever, ever -- at the cost of my soul.