Back Stage With Freedom's Stand

My youngest child has at last cut the umbilical cord and is taking those first tottering steps in the big, wide world outside my hovering embrace. Not some unanticipated late-life flesh-and-blood offspring [my husband just breathed relief!], though the birthing has been far more prolonged and arduous than any of the four humans who list me as parent on their birth certificates.

No, it just that my latest book, Freedom's Stand, rolled off the press this month. Its exquisite face looks up at me from the pages of CBD catalogs. It holds hands with illustrious neighbors in Tyndale's summer fiction ads. It makes its own way beyond my control into bookstores and libraries. As a parent, I hold my own breath, urging it on to a long and healthy life in that competitive, even cut-throat that is today's book publishing world.

Much has been said elsewhere both by myself and others about the message and story of Freedom's Stand [see Christianbook.com's Fiction Blog], my own heart for Afghanistan and its people, issues of religious freedom and the persecuted church. So I won't linger on the book's contents here. In brief, Freedom's Stand is the sequel to 2010 Christian Book Award and Christy Award finalist, Veiled Freedom, set in contemporary Afghanistan. Veiled Freedom brings together on Kabul's dusty streets a disillusioned Special Forces veteran, an idealistic relief worker, and an Afghan refugee, each in their own personal quest for truth and freedom. Returning in Freedom's Stand, these three unlikely allies soon discover that in a country where political and religious injustice runs rampant, the cost of either may be higher than they realize. Will any one of them be willing to pay the ultimate price?

But one question I've been asked repeatedly in interviews may have value to ICFW readers. "I know you weren't on the ground over there that long nor able to travel widely due to security concerns. How were you able to portray such a realistic depiction of Afghanistan and its people?" Here are a few of my own stratagems in writing Freedom's Stand which any good novelist can duplicate to bring alive a distant place and people:

Google Satellite Mapping: Where exactly does the Kabul Stadium, where the Taliban once stoned female offenders before soccer matches, lay from the Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood, home to embassies, private contractors--and my main character's humanitarian project? What is the landscape around Afghanistan's notorious top security prison, Pul-e-Charkhi, or its interior layout? Can I triangulate a villain's luxury compound, a refugee's sanctuary, and a defensible escape route in the reality of the high, dusty plateau overlooking Kabul where Pul-e-Charkhi sits?

All of this and so much more is possible with today's technology--and those once-classified global satellite maps. Even in Kabul, Afghanistan, zoom will get you close enough to track your characters through every back alley, plot every location, mark every prison access entrance. [Looking for the US embassy? It alone is missing from close-ups. But if you know where to look, what's behind that sudden blur is clear.]. For continual reference, I kept mounted on my office wall a full-sized, fold-out driving map, available quite reasonably on Amazon from Nelles or International Travel Maps, for virtually any country.

Boots on the ground: Yes, I had boots on the ground for every aspect of my book--military, private security contractors, humanitarian aid, medical, pilot, State Department. These were the same who read the manuscript before press to ensure I had no errors. Finding boots on the ground is not as hard as it may seem, thanks to that 'six degrees of separation' principle we hear about. If you don't know experts in the fields you want to write about, you likely know someone who does, or their friends know someone. It is often just a matter of putting the word out. And since human beings do like to share their expertise, you'd be surprised how available most prove to be for input, if only to make sure you get their world right on page!

Blogs: But there is another type of 'boots on the ground' far more accessible and often fruitful. In this day and age, one can find people anywhere on the planet with time on their hands and a willingness to spill their daily lives, post pictures of their environment, vent their opinions and feelings in blog form. During the writing of Veiled Freedom and Freedom's Stand, I followed numerous blogs representing the worlds of all my main characters. Military and private security. Humanitarian and state department. Afghan medical students and journalists.

An embassy security bash with those demining robots for which your tax dollars paid purloined and reprogrammed to serve drinks--all in living jpeg! A UN secretary's chronicle of daily life and romantic liaison with her Afghan driver--including a non-subtle advertisement of his upcoming availability when her contract is up. [No, I couldn't possibly make this stuff up!]

An Afghan journalist's frustrations and hopes for his nation--until he suddenly disappears from internet existence like so many other journalists under the Karzai regime. The frustration of being a female aid worker in a Muslim country. The pride of mission in a Special Forces medic saving an Afghan villager's life. The confusion and anger and curiosity about Western life of a Pakistani medical student.Living on the ground with your character counterparts can add details of daily life, personality, emotion, motivation that I can personally testify the best interview will not produce.

Research: And of course there is no substitute for just plain research. Before starting to write, before even traveling to Afghanistan, I literally saturated myself in the country. Histories, biographies, country studies, political commentary, regional literature, travelogues, I had easily read 30,000 pages material before I ever picked up a pen or computer keyboard. I kept a Google Alert to follow daily news happenings there. I explored Afghanistan's streets, food, art, culture, restaurants, hotels through such expatriate resources as Lonely Planet, Bradt, Essential Field Guides. I studied its setting through watching on-site films and documentaries. Here is just a small sampling of my bookshelf from this project alone:

Ghost Wars-The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden by Steve Coll, Charlie Wilson's War by George Crile, First In by Gary Schroen (the Pakistan CIA field agent who was first into Afghanistan after 9/11), Kabul Winter by Ann Jones, The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad, Inside Afghanistan by John Weaver, Opium Season by Joel Hafvenstein, Prisoners of Hope by Dana Curry and Heather Mercer, The Sewing Circle of Herat by Christina Lamb, The Hunt for Bin Laden by Robin Moore, Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Along with many, many others. Empathy: In the end, there's no substitute for empathy with a country, culture, and people group to bring it alive on page. And that can't be taught. I have personally learned empathy in part by walking the streets of more than thirty countries on five continents, getting to know and love people from countless different backgrounds, listening to their viewpoints, identifying with their pain, burning with their injustices. And coming to see through their eyes as well the beauty in very different landscapes, cultural practices, social styles than my own.

But some of the best novelists I know have such a natural gift of empathy, they bring foreign places alive without ever leaving home [check out ICFW member Kathi Macias' international fiction titles like No Greater Love and People of the Book for a great example]. Bottom line, empathy with others learned in any circumstance and background can be applied to any setting with enough good research.

And for that, just follow the tips given above.

At Whom Am I Really Angry?

I've been angry recently. Nothing personal. My teenage daughter has been remarkably civil. My adult sons are doing well. I have a wonderful husband. My bank account is in the black. I am warm, fed, clothed, and free to go about my business.

No, the anger seething in my veins is for others. For Afghan Christian Sayed Mossa, who sits on death row in Kabul for the crime of freely choosing a personal faith in God. I grit my teeth for his wife and six children, ages eight and under, who no longer have a husband or an income in a country where there are no food stamp programs. I clench my fists that Sayed's employer of fifteen years, the International Committee of the Red Cross, did nothing to defend or intervene for Sayed until pushed by media pressure to do so. I feel like screaming that my own embassy has agreed to bring up Sayed's case in private conversations with the Afghan regime--instead of trumpeting to the skies that Western free governments don't hand out aid and arms to regimes that murder people for their faith.

Read World Magazine coverage

I am angry for Pakistani mother of five Asia Bibi, arrested when she refused pressure of Muslim female neighbors to convert from her Christian faith to Islam. She's finally had her day in court, only to be condemned to death under Pakistani blasphemy and apostasy laws. I stomp my feet for her husband and children, separated from wife and mother for eighteen months now. I am furious that those unjust laws are not some historic dictate, but were penned scarcely a quarter-century past by dictator General Zia al Huq, setting Pakistan on the path of Islamic extremism. Even as he penned them, his greatest ally, my own government, was pouring billions in military aid into his coffers without raising a voice in protest. A precedent that has continued to this day, encouraging oppression of religious minorities in Pakistan. I am angry that Bristol Palin's dancing receives more media attention from such injustices. I fume that neither the ideological left nor right across the Western 'free' world has taken any definitive stand against arming and supporting regimes that deny basic human rights to their citizens. There's plenty more to stir my anger. Children starving in the streets across Latin America, Africa, Asia while their wealthy rulers waddle from mansion to Gulfstream jet to the Riviera. Warlords who turn machetes and AK-47s on innocents in their lust for power. The world seems increasingly filled with darkness and hate and cruelty. Or perhaps we simply have more knowledge.

And because I can do nothing to stop these things, I find myself angry at the only One who can. How can a heavenly Father described as all-powerful, compassionate, merciful so calmly sit in the stands as the Asia Bibis and Sayed Mossas suffer, children starve, war destroys? I know all the proper theological answers. I've heard them, even taught them, throughout my life in Christian ministry. God permits free will. This fallen world is product of human choices. God will bring ultimate good out of human evil. But I am still angry for those I love who are at this moment battered by dark storms while I sit warm, free, safe.
Yes, I love them, Asia Bibi and Sayed Mosa, my brother and sister in faith, and too many others in their situation. The homeless children with whom I've worked on dirty Third World streets, longing to scoop them up like so many stray puppies and take them all home. Abused, despairing women sold as possessions whose eyes look at me with such hollow distance I ache to put my arms around them and tell them all will be well, even though I know that isn't true. Families in my own birth country undergoing sickness, unemployment, broken relationships.

If such love can burn like a fire through my limited being, does not my heavenly Father, Creator of every living soul, love far more? Does He not have the power I lack to reach down and rescue? If God's love is immeasurably greater than mine, how can He not intervene? Even if this unjust world is an unavoidable consequence of human free will, why should the righteous, the innocent suffer while perpetrators walk free?

I've really tried not to be angry. It's not spiritual, I know. I'm not even sure why this particular set of injustices in a world filled with them has burned so hotly in my veins. Even as I've prayed for Asia Bibi and Sayed Mossa, shared their plight with others, I've screamed out my protest to the One who permits this to happen. And maybe our heavenly Father doesn't really mind when His children cry out their anger and confusion and pain to Him. Because this week, unexpectedly, even oddly, He gave me an answer.

It came through a Scripture passage so obscure I'd never noticed it before. I've been reading through the Major Prophets, currently Ezekiel with its strange angelic beasts and fiery living wheels. Ezekiel too was angry. As angry at the idolatry and perversion of his own people as at the devastation of Jerusalem under Babylon's battering ram. Ezekiel begged Israel's remnant to be spared even while he demanded God judge his compatriots' wickedness.
God did not answer by stepping in to set all right. On the contrary:
"For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem my four dreadful judgments—sword and famine and wild beasts and plague—to kill its men and their animals! Yet there will be some survivors—sons and daughters who will be brought out of it. They will come to you, and when you see their conduct and their actions, you will be consoled regarding the disaster I have brought upon Jerusalem—every disaster I have brought upon it. You will be consoled when you see their conduct and their actions, for you will know that I have done nothing in it without cause, declares the Sovereign LORD." (Ezekiel 14:21-23).

What value does the Creator of the Universe place in the storms of injustice, tyranny, violence that I cannot grasp? What does His foreknowledge see emerging from the furnace of human pain and suffering that I do not? Certainly we are told that as fire refines gold to absolute purity, so suffering refines and purifies the human soul (Isaiah 48:10; James 1:2-4; 1 Peter 1:6-7).

I still don't know why brothers and sisters in faith should sit undeservedly in prison, even be martyred for their faith. But as I read God's answer to Ezekiel, I find myself consoled. Because my heavenly Father, Sayed and Asia's heavenly Father, does know. And this particular page in mankind's dark and dirty story is hardly the final chapter, not for Sayed Mossa and Asia Bibi, not for me. One day I will meet sons and daughters of the Kingdom whom God is redeeming through the very storms of disaster and injustice against which I fume. And I will see at last clearly what I must now take only on faith. That nothing God has done with His creation is without cause.

Until then I will trust that my Creator really does know what He's doing.

Investigative Techniques From The Trenches

Your writing can only breathe reality and authenticity if you know intimately what you’re writing about. Is it true, I am frequently queried by would-be writers of international intrigue, that I have been able to write fiction about counternarcotics operations in Bolivia, guerrilla warfare in Colombia, the Islamic militant threat south of the Rio Grande, or today's Afghanistan with enough authenticity to have government sources demanding to know where I got classified information?

Yes, it is, an interesting tale in itself (bottom line, any place on the planet government intelligence can send an agent to dig around, some missionary or humanitarian worker will already be there and know more than they do). It helps to have lived in six countries and traveled thirty or so. But what if one doesn't have those travel opportunities? How to learn to see, hear, smell, touch, taste and understand a wider world to bring it alive for readers? Here a few of my top tips I shared recently on a radio program for writers:

1. Collect experiences: The wider your base of experiences, the greater variety of situations on which you will be able to write with authority. That doesn't just mean how many places to which you’ve traveled. My life experiences have allowed me to know jungles, deserts, mountain precipices, hurricanes, earthquakes, drought, fire, cold, heat, thirst, hunger, riots, coups, roadblocks, personal assault, and death--with all the sights and sounds and smells and emotions attached. Much was not pleasant at the time, but all are invaluable to my writing.

2. Collect contacts: You don't need to know all things about every subject you want to write about. You just need to know someone who does. I always have my eyes and ears open for people with expertise and experience in a background where I do not yet have contacts. For my last novel, Veiled Freedom, set in Afghanistan, I tapped Special Forces, private security contractors, counternarcotics, humanitarian aid workers, embassy personnel, bush pilots, and so many more who have been boots on the ground in Afghanistan. Nor are they as hard to approach as one might think. But that is a subject for another day.

3. Collect characters: People are not only your best source of on-the ground intel, but of color for your writing. Along with an interesting profession, I always have my ears pricked up for an interesting life story or just eccentricity of character. Again, the wider the sphere of people with whom you allow yourself to interact, the greater the pool you will have from which to draw characters, whether a jungle chief facing off with a condescending environmentalist (The DMZ), a cartel heir racing around in a red Ferrari (CrossFire), or a supercilious Special Forces sergeant determined to intimidate a female civilian--me! (Veiled Freedom). And don't avoid the unpleasant ones. My motto as a writer when eccentric, annoying or even nasty people cross one’s path is simple and effective. Don’t get irritated or even. Just write them into your next book!

4. Immerse yourself in your subject: It isn’t enough to collect interesting experiences and interview people. These must be tied together with thorough research so that you understand the implications of what you have seen and heard. Before I tackle a book set in a new country or political environment, I saturate myself in that place. Histories, biographies, political commentary, regional literature, travelogues, video documentary--I will have easily read 20,000 pages material before I ever pick up a pen or computer keyboard. Now the people I’ve met, the bits and pieces of what I’ve heard, seen on the news, etc. make sense and I’m ready to write the book.

5. Use the Internet as the invaluable tool it is: The Internet is an invaluable tool—how much information is out there really is enough to make any law enforcement nervous. Want to make that Colombian guerrilla commander in your pages real? Try reading his actual speeches posted to his website. Want to know the weaknesses of Hanford Nuclear Reservation security (FireStorm)? Read studies and blueprints posted by environmentalist groups protesting the place. For every place I write about, I keep a Google Alert set for daily news digests. I follow blogs and travelogues of 'boots on the ground' whose lives and professions mirror the characters I am writing about.

6. Combine experiences you do have with thorough research to create a reality you can’t experience: The secret is to develop a wide frame of reference in which to fit your research so that you can describe as vividly as though you’d really been there. ‘A jungle is a jungle is a jungle’. So is a desert. Whether an earthquake, the bitter cold of a blizzard, the vertigo of a thousand-foot precipice, terror of a mugging, the adrenaline tension of a military roadblock, once you’ve gone through any experience, you can use it in any similar setting on the planet. The secret is to research carefully those details unique to the setting in question. Again, those blogs and travelogues as well as Lonely Planet and other tourism guides can be invaluable.

7. Have experts read it afterwards: On the other hand, I have often had plot holes caught and details corrected just by having an expert on the subject read it—often details I wouldn’t even know to ask ahead of time. On a recent novel, I had Coast Guard, DEA, counter-narcotics, military intelligence, weapons and nuclear experts, fire marshal, experts, clinical psychologists, former ambassador. That they found only a handful of errors was confirmation that I'd researched well. But I'd have hated for the specs of a certain air battle to have made it into print as I originally wrote it, even if few readers would ever know the difference.

The ultimate compliment for an author is to get fan mail from those who are or have been in the field of which we write that say, "You really get it; I can tell from your writing that you’ve been where we’re at." Fiction or not, that should be our ultimate goal as a writer.

Writing What You Know

As an author of international intrigue, I am often asked why I write what I do. Why such controversial subjects as the international counternarcotics war, Marxist guerrillas, Islamic fundamentalist threats in Latin America or the war on terror in Afghanistan?

It's actually simple. As writers, we are told to write what we know, and this is the world in which I have spent my life.

A brief introduction for this blog. I grew up daughter of American missionaries (Bob and Dawn Archer, TEAM) in rural areas of Colombia that are now guerrilla hot spots. My own childhood memories include canoeing up and down Amazon rivers, crossing high mountain passes to boarding school just across the border in Venezuela (now closed because of guerrilla activity), hiking up the Andes and slogging muddy jungle trails. I was six when I wielded my first machete, a necessary instrument for climbing the path to the outhouse.

I met my husband Marty, a missionary kid from Bolivia, while attending Prairie Bible College in Three Hills, Alberta. We spent 16 years as missionaries in Bolivia with Gospel Missionary Union (now AVANT), an interdenominational Christian mission organization. Three of our four children were born there. While my husband served as field director, I worked with women and children at risk. My husband and I moved to Miami in June, 2000, where my husband served as vice-president of Latin America Mission.

In January, 2006, we moved again to Lancaster, PA, when my husband became president of BCM International, once the Bible Club Movement, which includes 700+ missionaries and thousands of volunteers from more than 40 nationalities working on five continents. I head up the BCM communications department, edit a magazine and continue to teach writers conferences and mentor Christian writers in a number of countries around the world along with writing the occasional international intrigue title. To date, I have lived in six countries and traveled in thirty from Latin America and Europe to Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Kenya.

I have always written, whether thesis papers, journals, or communication to family and constituency, publishing my first short story in college. But my first book was written literally out of boredom. We were living at the time in Tarija, a southern Bolivia town. While my husband was touring rural Andes churches for two weeks at a time, I was stuck at home with three preschoolers, no car, TV, radio. Once my children were in bed, I had only the handful of English-language books I’d read dozens of times. I finally decided if I had nothing to read, I’d write a book instead. That became Kathy and the Redhead, a children’s novel based on my growing-up years at our missionary children's boarding school in Venezuela.

From there I began writing Spanish-language material for women and children at risk as well as articles for a variety of international and Christian ministry publications. That was followed by the Parker Twins Series, juvenile suspense set in a multi-cultural background, and a teen novel, Jana’s Journal. My first adult fiction release, CrossFire was set in the counter-narcotics war we were witnessing first hand in Bolivia. This was followed by The DMZ, (Colombian guerrilla zones), FireStorm, (Islamic terror ties in Latin America), all published by Kregel Publications, then my first Tyndale House Publishers title Betrayed, (Guatemala), released in 2008.

My ultimate goal in every book I write, however much a "thriller," is to share with the reader my own heartfelt conviction that, for all the turmoil and conflict and pain in our world, this universe does make sense and has both a purpose and a loving Creator. If I did not have the absolute assurance that the course of human history and current events as well as my own life lie in the hands of a loving heavenly Father, I would not have the nerve to research, much less write, the stories that I do.

My most recent title, Veiled Freedom, set in Afghanistan, was released by Tyndale House Publishers this past summer (I have recently finished the sequel and am waiting for publication date). Again, I have been asked: 'Why Afghanistan?"

That answer is not so simple. Like so many reading this blog, I rejoiced in the post-9/11 overthrow of Afghanistan's Taliban, believing it presaged new hope for freedom and peace in that region. Neither freedom nor peace ever materialized. Instead today's headlines reflect the rising violence, corruption, lawlessness and despair. The signing of Afghanistan's new constitution, establishing an Islamic republic under sharia law--and paid for with Western coalition dollars and the blood of our soldiers--tolled a death knell for any hope of real democracy.

And yet the many players I've met in this drama have involved themselves for the most part with the best of intentions. The more I came to know the region and love its people, I was left asking, "Can outsiders ever truly purchase freedom for another culture or people?"

That question birthed Veiled Freedom. A suicide bombing brings together a disillusioned Special Forces veteran, an idealistic relief worker, and an Afghan refugee on Kabul's dusty streets. The ensuing explosion will not only test the hypocrisy of Western leadership and Afghanistan’s new democracy, but start all three on their own personal quest. What is the true source of freedom--and its cost?"

The answer with which I came away from Afghanistan is again simple, if neither easy nor cheap. True freedom will come to Afghanistan, or anywhere else in our world, only through the love of Isa Masih [Jesus Christ] transforming individual hearts. When enough hearts change from hate to love, cruelty to kindness, greed to selflessness, their society will never be the same. Change a heart, change a nation.

For more, visit my website: http://www.jeanettewindle.com/ and primary blog, From the Eye of the Storm: http://www.jeanettewindle.blogspot.com/.