My Social Media-less Life

Bloganuary Writing Prompt:
Who is your favorite author and why?

Fun fact: already basically answered this question a few weeks back with the “is there a book that changed your life” question. Don’t remember the day or title though… it was toward the beginning though…

Anyway, because Ted Dekker is not really my favorite author anymore because his theology is a little wonky and his writing is less than awesome because of that… (because it is, trust me)

The only other author I’m regularly reading their work (and therefore would be my favorite author because that’s how Erica’s mind works) would be my best friend, Rachel Newhouse.

The answer feels like a bit of a cop-out because I also greatly contributed ideas to her forthcoming book in the current series she’s developing (Red Rain, if you need a push to look up something fun to read 😉 ), but I started re-reading the series from the beginning and realized…

It’s just as good as it was when I read it the first time.

And sometimes when you’re super involved in a thing, you tend to like the thing less because you’re so familiar with it, but it’s not so with Rachel’s series. And that’s really a gift. On her part and I suppose on mine because sometimes I hate my own stuff after a few hours of trying to write. 😛

Of course all gifts come from the Lord, so we’ll just give Him all the credit for that. 😉

But as to the why… the biggest reason is it’s just good storytelling. And if we’re learning anything about Erica over these last 21 days it’s how much she likes stories and storytelling. But I mean, being friends with Rachel also helps, but it was more of an added bonus than it was the main reason I started reading her books.

Because I promise I don’t read all of my friends’ books.

My roommate sent me a book she wrote once and it’s definitely still sitting in my Files folder… wholly unread. She knows this because I’ve told her to her face; I wanted to read it but it was during a different time in my life… since then, she’s changed things about the story so it wouldn’t even be whatever the finished product is now.

Many of my friends have been authors.

One of them (not Rachel) I was very involved in the story-making process. Never got around to reading his stuff. And now we’re distant friends, but we haven’t talked for some time.

Another of my friends started writing but then she found a man and had a child and all that life stuff and decided she didn’t want to write anymore. But she had a pretty decent idea and I actually did read at least the beginning of that story…

Another friend, I think he even published a whole book. At least one. Don’t even know the name of it, what it’s about, or anything about the story.

More fun facts about Erica: I don’t ask a lot of probing questions unless I really feel like it’s necessary.

Because I tend to be so forthcoming with information, I just assume if you don’t tell me when you announce whatever you’re doing, I don’t need to know or you’re self-conscious about it and I don’t want to make that worse. Especially with story and the art of writing.

Because sometimes I don’t tell people what I’m writing because mainly, it doesn’t fit into just one genre and secondly, because I am one of those self-conscious writers.

Rachel is very much NOT that way and I appreciate that about her… and that’s probably how I wormed my way into helping with the new book… and the rest of the series at this point.

Plus it gets my creative juices flowing and then I can redirect that toward my own story…