1.
Your
brand is “Writing with a Romans 8:28 attitude.” How does that come through in
your books, etc?
I’m so glad you asked. Long ago, I
learned that God is always in the details of our lives. In my writing, I try to
show that even when we make our biggest mistakes, God is true to His word. He
makes all things good for those who love Him. God even gives us an example of
this verse in His own suffering—as both God the Father and God the Son when
Jesus took our sins upon Him at the cross. That horrible death, the separation
of Father and Son, it happened for my good. I want my readers to realize how much
God does love them.
2. How has your work with the American
Christian Fiction Writers Critique Groups helped you as a writer?
My work with the critique group began
when I questioned a mentor about networking. I wasn’t sold on the process of
approaching someone for what they could do for me. This wise woman turned the
tables on me.
She said, “You don’t network for what you can get. You find out
what you can give. Get in and serve and don’t expect things to happen—but they
will.”
I enjoyed my work, but it was the best
thing to happen for my writing career. Critique partners at every state of
their writing put their two-cents into my works in progress, and those pennies
were worth a million to me. Likewise, as I critiqued others, I reinforced my
knowledge of the story elements that I feel are so important to writing
fiction.
I miss the large group, and I’m trying
to get back into it. I have remained in critique, though, as I have some
amazing critique partners in three separate groups.
3.
Your
books have interesting themes, subjects and characters, such as Stalking Willow. Have you even known a
stalker? How does a person handle the fear of such a person?
I have never been stalked, thank the
Lord. My mother was, though, by a man who’d robbed the store in which she worked.
He shot her in the face, but my mom was a survivor. She continued to work in
that store for years until the man who shot her went to prison, but he was
released only eight short years later. The first place he came was to our front
door. I was a teenager, and I was at home with my mother. I recall my mother’s
bravery that night, but I also remember my fear and that’s what I gave to
Willow.
Fear can be paralyzing, but God can work
through it if we allow Him to do so. I can’t imagine facing anything so terrifying
without the Lord.
Though my mother had a breakdown after
the man’s return, her weakness allowed God to be her strength. I’ve never
really thought about the chain of events, but I was saved as a young child. I
didn’t get baptized until the year of the breakdown, and my mother was saved
just before that and baptized on the same day with me.
This goes back to your first question
about Romans 8:28, and I’m just now realizing it. That man intended to kill my
mother on the night he shot her, but God turned his evil into eternal life for
her, and I now have the hope of seeing her again.
4.
You
caught a hold of a monster when you decided to write about bitterness. Did you research
legitimate reasons why many people are bitter; the consequences. and how did you use research in your books?
This is going to sound as if I don’t
care about research. I truly do. I didn’t have to research bitterness, though.
I had it inside of me. I know it from the inside out.
That old adage that says, “write what
you know” is one I follow. When I write issues, they are ones that I have
battled. I have worked hard to overcome bitterness. I’d like to say that I’ve
conquered it. I haven’t. But when the roots start to grow, I pray, and God
plucks them up. He reminds me that bitterness puts a wall between me and those
I love. It can even cause me to say I hate someone, and God does not call us to
hatred, but to love. He does not call us to isolation. If the roots grow deep
enough bitterness becomes a hefty hedge that keeps others out. And if they do
that, how can I be an effective witness for Him?
5.
Is
bitterness something we release or do we need a miraculous touch from God? Can
we get away from it by ourselves? How does a person begin the process?
A miraculous touch to eliminate bitterness
once and for all would be wonderful, but I think that the description of roots
is applicable. When bitterness seeps into our hearts, it burrows in, and the
more fertile the soil, the heartier it grows. Bitterness is a weed, and we know
that weeds can grow anywhere. Weeds choke out healthy plants (love, patience,
forgiveness, longsuffering).
I can’t imagine conquering bitterness
without God, and I believe that as in all things, the process of eliminating it
begins with prayer, asking God to help you to see the evil in harboring
ill-will or grudges against others. Ask His forgiveness, and every time that
the bitter thoughts ravage your mind, pray and ask God to take them away from
you. Then, gradually, as God works in your life, add the person you hold a grudge
against to your prayer list. Pray good things into their life.
6.
Your
next book in the Amazing Grace series is titled Better than Revenge. Is revenge almost part of the DNA in some
families like a disease? What is the cure to stop it from going through the
generations?
The need for revenge is actually rooted
in pride. Revenge says you did something to me, and you deserve to pay. Revenge
doesn’t take into account that I did something to Christ for which I deserved
exactly opposite of what He gave to me, despite my wrongdoing.
In Better
Than Revenge, Christ-like forgiveness is explored, and I truly believe that
the greatest “revenge” is to see our enemies come to Christ. The emotion that
it will evoke (love) is much stronger than the hatred that it would replace.
7.
In
another novel you write of home repossessions, an education ended because of
lack of finances, but this story, Charisse,
also has bitterness and revenge after a murder. How do you satisfy readers with
the resolution of these huge problems?
Again, I think it goes back to my Romans
8:28 perspective. Charisse is a young widow who loses her husband to a hit and
run driver. She can’t believe that her old high school buddy, now a judge,
would enter a directed verdict, which means the judge has decided the state
does not have enough evidence to bring the charges, and the matter should never
have been brought to trial. Charisse wants retribution, but she discovers that
her heart has the ability to forgive. She never would have realized that had
she not been allowed to face off with the hero, Judge Gideon Tabor, and with
the accused, proving that God had Charisse in His arms all along.
I also like to add humor in my books. In
Charisse, Gideon provides a lot of
laughs, and he lightens the mood quite a bit. I think that when we can see the
humor in situations, it provides a satisfying ending whether it be in life or
in story.
8.
You
also have a book, The Art of
Characterization. How long had you written and how many novels did you
write before you could teach about creating great characters?
I’ve been writing since I was five years
old. Now, we know I wasn’t writing well all those years.
I truly got serious
about the talents God has given me and my need to study the craft when I was in
my early twenties. I’m a bit older now by thirty some years, and I didn’t get
published until 2010. I had three novels published when I wrote the tutorial on
characterization and a fourth one was scheduled for release. I have also been
teaching workshops over the last few years, and
The Art of Characterization was born from one of those workshops.
9.
What
is the biggest obstacle you face when you begin a novel?
The first chapter. Literally. If I can
break through that first chapter and have an idea where the story is going,
keep the characters corralled and not trying to come on stage at once, and if I
can get the characters to open up to me, I’m good, but sometimes that takes me
awhile. I occasionally use an index system, but I can’t outline. I bristle at
outlines, though, I’d probably get a book written quicker with one.
10. What are you working on now?
I have a few projects in the work. My
novel Storms in Serenity, the first
book in the Serenity Key series will be released in early 2015. I’m writing the
third book in the Amazing Grace series, entitled Everybody’s Broken. I am also working on a multi-author
collaboration, a Valentine’s Day novella entitled The Love Boat Bachelor. This story is a sequel to last year’s A Dozen Apologies. Also, the next book
in my The Ties that Bind series, Hope,
will be released in 2015.
Ada,
thank you for allowing me to share with your readers.
By Fay Lamb
He wants a family. She
wants retribution.
Charisse Wellman’s
husband has been gone a year, and she’s about to lose the only home her son,
V.J., has ever known. She’s quit law school but the money just isn’t there. Her
only option is to work as a law clerk for her ex-friend, Gideon Tabor. The only
problem: Gideon is the judge who let her husband’s killer go free, and Gideon
doesn’t know the connection.
Gideon Tabor can’t believe that the woman
interviewing for the job is the girl he loved in high school. Charisse is
hesitant about accepting his job offer, and when she does, Gideon makes every
attempt to apologize for his relationship-ending blunder in high school.
Charisse accepts his apology, but she keeps him at a distance. When Gideon
learns that Charisse’s anger actually stems from his release of the man who ran
down her husband, he tries to explain, but Charisse doesn’t want Gideon’s
excuses or the love he has to offer. She wants her husband’s killer to pay.
Stalking
Willow
By Fay Lamb
Bitterness, a stalker, and a neighbor to die for.
What's a girl to do?
Trailed by a stalker in New York City, Willow
Thomas, a young ad executive, scurries back to her small North Carolina
hometown and the lake house where ten years earlier a scandal revealed her
entire life had been a lie, and a seed of bitterness took root in her soul. The
cocoon of safety Willow feels upon her arrival home soon unravels when she
meets opposition from her family, faces the man she left behind, and the
stalker reveals he is close on her heels.
Can Willow learn to trust God to tear out her
roots of resentment, reunite her family, ferret out a deadly stalker, and to
rekindle the love she left behind?
Fay Lamb is an
author, editor, and writing coach.
Future
releases from Fay are: Everybody’s Broken
and Frozen Notes, Books 3 and 4
of Amazing Grace and Hope and Delilah, Books 3 and 4 from The Ties that Bind. Also, look for Book
1 in Fay’s Serenity Key series entitled Storms
in Serenity.
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