Every Christmas season, a certain piece of music seems to follow me everywhere—from radio jingles to shopping mall speakers. But it wasn’t until a snowy evening in 2012 that Handel’s Messiah truly captured my heart. That December, I decided to take my wife on a date to see the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s performance. I had always liked classical music, but nothing prepared me for what I would experience that evening.

Daily commutes don’t need to be boring. For the past 14 years (except for a hiatus in 2020), my drive to work has been about 30 minutes. I learned early on to listen to something and have since consumed over 2 months of audiobooks (thanks Audible!). But of course I’m driving, so I have to be aware of my surroundings too.

One feature that captivates me nearly every day is a wide, slow moving river that once represented the border of the colonial frontier. The Susquehanna was the first major obstacle to westward expansion, and it was the route I travel on now that generally follows the same highway on which generations of early pioneers trudged. US 30 crosses the river on the Wright’s Ferry bridge, and just downriver this is the older Veterans Memorial Bridge (currently closed for a few years of retrofitting). On my side of the river (York County) sits Wrightsville borough, and on the Lancaster County side is Columbia, which was once a candidate to be capital until Washington D. C. won out.

1 John 5:7 is probably the most controversial inclusion in the King James translation of the Bible. Often referred to as the Johannine Comma (Latin: Comma Johanneum), entire books have been written about this one verse, either for or against its place in the Biblical text. It is arguably the most concise Trinitarian declaration in the New Testament:

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

To start off 2024, I’m excited to announce Heretics of Piedmont: A Novel of the Waldensians as part of a unique giveaway!

The organizer of this giveaway, Jayna Baas, had such a creative idea to promote an amazing collection of books that literally spans centuries of faith.

As a side note, one of the books in this giveaway, Whose Waves These Are by Amanda Dykes, was one my wife and I read together. It was a favorite of ours in 2022, only to be topped by another Amanda Dykes novel: Set the Stars Alight.

When airport baggage conveyors brought mine and Andrea’s matching black suitcases into a terminal, it was hard to distinguish them from other generic bags rolling alongside them. They were branded as Jeep, but they weren’t extraordinary, and toward the end of their usefulness, I picked them out by their rips, broken wheels, and other scars.

They were part of our marriage from the beginning. My parents bought them from Sam’s Club as their wedding gift to us, and our first trip with them was our downtown Chicago honeymoon. The original plan was a honeymoon in the Yucatan Peninsula, but spring 2009 was the height of the “Swine Flu” epidemic, and with all the flight and hotel accommodation cancellations, we settled for the far less tropical Windy City in May.

My family has about a fifteen minute drive to church. It’s a scenic drive that includes farm fields contoured to the rolling hillsides, thick woodlands, and a small town. Often as my family loads into our car, the bells of a nearby church sound out through the southern Pennsylvania countryside. It’s not our church, but I still enjoy hearing those bells—the ancient call for the community to worship their Creator, Lord, and Savior.

I recently read a blog post by Pastor Tom Brennan titled, “How to Write a Book.” I’ve read two of his books and have been impressed by both the content and quality, so I knew his insight here would be valuable. A point he made in the post that caught my attention was this:

Only write a book if you have read at least twenty-five books on similar subjects.

I agreed, but then I wondered if I had read that amount for my two (almost three) fiction books. I realize nonfiction study is different from researching a novel, but still I think it’s a good standard to hold myself to. Had I done that though?

I’m not sure about everyone else, but for me it’s easy to be pulled into investing in shiny new tools when learning a skill.

When I picked up running, I heard about all the gadgets: smart watches, GPS, pricey shoes, running shirts, running shorts, head bands, wrist bands, armbands for your phone, apps for your phone, app subscriptions, virtual running coaches, and many more. Where do you start?

I’ve found writing to be the same. There are computer programs to write your first draft and others for editing; there are spelling/grammar checkers and analyzers that give you metrics for the whole manuscript (overused words, redundancies, glue words, etc.). But don’t forget about the research, plotting, and planning stages, each having their own array of tools you can choose from.

Continued from Part 1

I sat on a church pew one Saturday morning watching my children practice their Christmas program. It was going to last almost two hours, and I didn’t have anything except a notebook to occupy my mind.

Three days earlier, I had finished planning my first novel, but other than about thirty pages of notes, I hadn’t yet written anything. I wanted to write it, but I needed something to propel me into the actual first draft.

To my brother—
Adam Murdock
#42

In March, my youngest brother, Adam, died in a car accident on his way home from work. I could never describe the feelings in a few words posted on the internet, nor would I want to.

The first draft of The Lord of Luserna was two days from completion when everything happened. Instead of writing a few pages for a novel, I wrote an obituary.