Now that I’ve finished a first draft on my first novel, I’m working on outlining the second. As the first passes around to a few readers, and the plot develops in the second, I’ve become concerned about the track I seem to be following. Don’t Stop Believin’ wanders through the adult entertainment industry – exotic dancing. Sad Girl is heading down an even darker path: human trafficking. Are these really topics that belong in Christian fiction, I asked myself, several times. Am I really glorifying God?

I posed a version of that question to my friend/editor Joy, and she pointed me to several authors: Brandilyn Collins, Dee Henderson, Terri Blackstock, among others. I’ve read a few of Dee’s works, and just finished Terri’s Cape Refuge (and liked it a lot). Dee’s O’Malley series involves a violent stalker. Cape Refuge opens with a double murder. Collins writes Christian suspense. Can I do this?

Brandilyn had a great post the other day about a great fan letter, which in turn linked to a not-so-great fan letter, and that one was the one that really moved me. It was especially heartening to get an encouraging comment from Brandilyn on Facebook.

So I’ve been reading Brandilyn’s blog on a regular basis lately, and today there was a link to Mike Duran’s excellent blog, Decomposing. He’s got some great posts about some topics I’ve really been struggling with, so I’ve got some reading to do. Between his and Brandilyn’s blog, and the AFCW reading lists (social issues and author comparison, I’ve got a lot of reading to do.

Two thousand, five hundred and twenty-four days.

Three hundred and sixty weeks.

101, 380 words.

Actually, no. I’m off by two words. Forgot to count “The End.”

Yes, roughly 60,576 hours later, Don’t Stop Believin’ is done, or at least the first draft is. Time to back up that file, and start thinking about another story or two before I start rewriting this one.

It’s been an interesting week, quite honestly. My mother-in-law passed away Friday, on her ex-husband’s birthday, which turned out to be the day after I wrote the last words. The moment itself was…humbling, and surreal. My first thought was, “Holy crap, I’m really done.”

It was certainly an intriguing journey. In the real world, I’ve changed jobs twice, and added a child to my family. In the book, two people have died, one gave her life to Christ, and another is almost there. It took me almost seven years to tell a story that only spans 65 days. That worked out to 151 days of actual writing, spread out over the aforementioned 2,524 days, or about once every 16 days. When I was writing, I was cranking out an average of about 670 words a day. But there were long stretches of no writing, for different reasons. Most of the time, I blamed my muse for no longer speaking to me. In her defense, I didn’t really try speaking to her, so it’s fair for her to keep quiet, I suppose. Ah well.

For the next few days, no more writing. Visitation is Tuesday, and the funeral is Wednesday. It’ll be a long week. I’ve already got the basics for the next story in mind. It’s a short I wrote a couple of years ago, and I think it’s worth turning into a novel. At least I hope it is.

This story was inspired by the Steve Perry, Neal Schon, and Jonathan Cain song of the same title performed by Journey on the album Escape. The lyrics about a small-town girl and a city boy from Detroit, the loneliness of the smoky room have always created vivid images in my mind. When I finally decided to do something about the stuff rolling around in my head, this story came to mind.

Here’s the first chapter. There’s a lot more of it done – over 14,000 words right now. I probably won’t post any more for a while, but this should give you a taste.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, trying to pry them open to comprehend the scene around me, yet trying to block the sunlight streaming through my bedroom window. I really needed to remember to close that curtain at night. The phone trilled again in my ear.

“Hello?”

“Scotty, it’s Mike. Are you awake?”

I considered several possible responses to the question, none of which would leave me in good standing with my pastor if he heard them. “Yeah. Basically. What’s up?”

“What’s the name of that girl you’ve been seeing?”

“You mean Samantha? Why?”

“Have you talked to her lately?”

I paused for a moment, still rubbing smoke from my eyes. “Uh, no, not really. Why do you ask?”

“Is her last name Taylor?”

This was going to annoy me at this rate. It was early in the morning, I had been up too late last night, and Mike wasn’t answering my questions. “Yeah. Look, Mike, it’s not even seven yet. I was up late covering a fire last night, and I’ve gotten all of about two hours of sleep. Unless you’ve got a Pulitzer-grade story for me to chase down, I’m going back to bed.” That wasn’t exactly the truth. In reality, I hadn’t gotten out of bed, so I couldn’t really go back to bed, but Mike didn’t need to know that.

“CPD arrested a Samantha Taylor for murder last night, on that guy they found by Cooper Stadium, the stabbing. I’m reading the Dispatch now.”

Suddenly cold, I punched the “Off” button, tossing the phone on the bed as I scurried over to my laptop and opened the Dispatch web page. “Ex-Prostitute Charged In Brutal Stabbing” was the lead story. I scanned the article quickly at first, then went back for a longer look, trying without much success to avoid looking at the photos accompanying the article. The crime scene was familiar to me since I had covered it as a stringer for the paper. The girl listed as an ex-prostitute and ex-stripper who was accused of the murder was also familiar to me, or at least I thought she was. Samantha had apparently skipped a couple parts of her resume on our late afternoon dates.

The article didn’t tell me all that much about the murder. About three days ago, some guy named Victor James had been found next to his car behind Cooper Stadium, with his throat slashed. Not much was known about Mr. James yet, although they had apparently found his next of kin, since they were identifying him. The cops weren’t saying what led them to Samantha, but they did say they had pretty conclusive evidence tying her to the crime scene.

The information about Sam was much more enlightening. She had a record, having been arrested about eight years ago for soliciting. She was also an ex-stripper, and according to the story, had a string of adult businesses in Columbus and surrounding counties. It looked like she owned a couple of clubs, and about half a dozen bookstores. Well, that would certainly explain why she was never free during the evenings, now wouldn’t it?