7/17/13

It's A Problem

Yesterday, I wrote about how all the books I read are religious ones...even if they aren't.

I write that way, too. It's a problem. My books are secular...but they're not. It's frustrating. It frustrates me, as a writer, because I'm trying to write something that fits into the market. It frustrates secular readers, because they feel preached at.

I've been yelled at about it. I say "yelled". Hard to tell through the internet. But I know that people read that earlier version of Those Who Trespass and came away unhappy.

"I'm sorry," I wanted to tell them. "I'm just as frustrated as you are."

Because I wasn't going to actually remove spirituality from my books. That goes against everything I believe in as an artist, as a Christian, as a person. Books are written by people. I am the person writing my book. It's going to have me in it, and I have Jesus in me.

I never set out to write "Christian fiction". If anything, I did my best to avoid it. But I wasn't trying to write a book without God.

I was trying to write a book that I would want to read. And the books I want to read are secular stories. About God. Sometimes the authors do it intentionally. Sometimes they don't. But I always find God in them.

Writing that way causes problems. But I wouldn't want to write any other way.

That's one reason that I'm self-e-indie-publishing. I don't fit in a box. I can't get secular enough to satisfy the secular market. I don't want to be clean Christian enough to gain entrance to Bethany House. I'm not trying to find a medium. I'm not stupid enough to sit on the fence. That's a disaster for all involved.

I'm just trying to write the way I read.

What about you? Have you found run into problems with your spirituality {or lack thereof} infusing your writing? What was your solution? 

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