Destiny’s Rebel, Interview with Philip Davies

Philip, that title makes it sound like you’re a rebel. Is there any truth in that?

Well, it’s not fair if only young people can have a “teenage rebellion”, so maybe mine has come thirty years too late! I feel strongly that, under God, we can each assert our independence and free will in the world, to make conscious choices instead of mindless conformity. But the book title also hints at the fact that we are all rebels against God’s gracious destiny for us.

You must be so excited to have your first book, Destiny’s Rebel published. Tell us about the book.

It is the story of Kat, a seventeen-year-old girl who is about to become Queen. And she’s dreading it, because of the conflicts and responsibilities it will bring. So she runs away, and the story becomes a race against time for her to return and save her people from disaster, while at the same time struggling to accept her role in the Kingdom.

It’s set in an imaginary medieval world, with castles and kingdoms, swords and sailing ships, because those are the stories I love. It’s an adventure story with a fantasy element of the gods in the world, who interact with the characters. So my heroine wrestles with her identity and purpose, but also learns about guidance, healing, duty, service, friendship, self-sacrifice, hope and faith.

How did you come to write it? I mean, teenage fantasy novels aren’t usually the first thing one expects a minister to write.

I must still be a teenager at heart then, because I wrote it primarily for myself! And one old lady who read it thrilled me by commenting: “It made me feel young again”.

After fifteen years as a Church of England Vicar, I became concerned at the absence of older children, teenagers and young adults from our congregations. If they won’t come to us, then I had to go to them, to where they are. So Destiny’s Rebel is written for the general market, to appeal to young readers of fantasy, who might have no prior contact with the Church or Christianity.

I believe that stories are the most powerful medium we have for communicating the important things of life and death, as Jesus did with His parables. In them we can portray the truths of our human experience, about joy and despair, faith and hope, and about God, in ways we can relate to, and be touched by their power. As Christian Fiction Writers, this is the awesome, crucial and humbling task in which we’re engaged.

What other writing have you done?

I’ve written short stories and poems, for both children and adults, and also the occasional blog post, article and writing tips. I think it’s important to try a lot of things as a writer, to discover where our talent and enjoyment lies. But novels remain my first love, for the scope they offer to develop character, setting, storyline and tone.

Philip, we got acquainted through the Association of Christian Writers, a wonderful group of Christian writers mostly based in the UK, how has ACW helped you in your journey as a writer? What other organizations do you belong to?

ACW has stopped me from feeling crazy and alone in attempting this writing business! Because writing is a solitary endeavor, I have valued enormously the opportunities to compare notes with others, to give and receive encouragement to keep going. I’ve also appreciated the critiques in local writing groups, and the constant striving for excellence in our work.

Because I write for young people in the general market, I’m also a member of SCBWI, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

I understand this is the first book in a series. What’s next for Princess Katelin?

I love reading series myself, to develop a love for characters and places across a number of books, but I hate it when I’m left with an unresolved twist or cliff-hanger at the end of a book. I don’t like being forced to buy another book before reaching a resolution.

So my series resolves properly at the end of each novel, with the next one picking up an existing thread, or starting with a new occurrence for the story of that book. I enjoy reaching the end of one story, like a landing between flights of stairs, for my creative mind then to explore “what happens next?”

So Book Two in the Destiny series, Destiny’s Revenge, is set in the same world, about six months after the end of Destiny’s Rebel. It contains many of the same characters and relationships, and some great new ones. It is due for release in September 2016, and I’m currently writing Book Three in the series, Destiny’s Usurper.

What do you like to read?

I’ve always enjoyed fantasy and science fiction, and feel quite at home in imaginary and futuristic worlds, provided they are well-drawn. I also read recent releases in Teenage and Young Adult fiction, but confess that I find many of these grim and depressing. From this stems my desire to write something more wholesome and optimistic. But I enjoy adult fiction too, and occasional classics, where I feel that my literary education has been lacking (because I’m a medieval historian by degree).

What else do you want our readers to know about you?

I’m thrilled to share my life with my wife, Ann, who is a hospice nurse, and our two wonderful children, Mark (12) and Rachel (9). My study looks out on fields and across a valley in Oxfordshire, such that sometimes I have to pinch myself to believe I’m living this particular dream.

Where can our readers find you and Princess Katelin online?

Website: www.philipsdavies.com

Find Destiny’s Rebel on Amazon.com: here.

And on Goodreads: here.

Find Philip Davies on Facebook: here.

And on Twitter: here.

Posted by Donna Fletcher Crow. A Newly Crimsoned Reliquary, set in Oxford, is the latest in her Monastery Murders series

Long Distance Writer Friends

Shall I tell you what it is like to have friends in other places?

I live in another country, half a world distant from you, my jungle shores, your Midwest corn or Southern heat or European je-ne-sais-quoi. We have spoken often yet, frequently, we’ve never met. I’ve read the writings that let me into your mind, stories all the richer for knowing the person who wove them.

Shall I tell you how it is to visit those long known thusly?

There is the clash and hubbub of arrival, a bus terminal or airport maybe, a first formal meeting. We keep distance carefully. We are familiar, but how will this work in person?

In the first days we discover mannerisms and personality that could never transmit digitally. We laugh, nervous to begin with, then more easily. We play games, and walk, cook and eat shared meals, shop and dine a little. This, then, is your life—with me strangely in it for a little while.

The corn is your ocean, swaying in the wind, rippling over gentle hills in long waves. Oh, land—beautiful, but not my own. Straight roads and flat places and signs in mileage and odd-to-me driving rules, peculiar naming words, everything custom order, and many other things I’ve never experienced before. I pack it all into my head. I’ll write about it later.

Shall I tell you how it is to leave?

Sadness crests like a tsunami just out of sight. One more departure. One more teardrop gem for my collection of ephemeral jewellery. I won’t really be gone, not with all the connecting we do almost every single day. We’ll talk richer now for having breathed the same air awhile.

~ Grace Bridges, currently trekking around the USA, but also quite keen to get home to New Zealand in a couple of weeks!

Bare Friendship

Bare friendship. 

~ * ~

What does it look like for ourselves? For our characters? How do we become a friend who will stand the test of time?

Some little friends in my house. :)

Below are some of the facets of a what a solid friendship, a bare friendship, looks like:

Honesty

This is the friend will tell me that a certain item of clothing *cough* makes me look fat is unflattering. 

They will point out sin in our lives and gently guide us into a deeper relationship with Jesus. Will say the hard truths even when we might not want to hear them.

~In a story, how could this be played out with a secondary character (the ultra extroverted friend who is honest to a fault, or perhaps a quiet older friend who says something at a low point of a main character's journey to pick them up), or how could the main character develop this trait and show it to someone else?~

Forgiving

We're human. Broken. Flawed. Sometimes, even with the best intentions we can hurt someone else--and they can hurt us.

Colossians 3:13 NIV "Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you."

Doing this requires of us, requires of our characters, to strip away those layers and bare ourselves, to say "hey, I'm wrong. I'm sorry. Please forgive me?". The friend who can live this out can stand the test of time, trials, and silly squabbles.

~What character in your story needs forgiveness? What would it take for your main character to forgive that person? How can you make it harder for them, push those bitter roots to the surface to be dealt with?~

Sacrificial

2 Samuel 24:24 NKJV "Then the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price; nor will I offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God with that which costs me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver." (emphasis mine)

A solid friendship sacrifices for the other person. That sacrifice will cost them something, whether it be time, effort, prayers, money, or resources. 

~What can your character sacrifice for someone else? What is one thing they would never give up--and what would force them to make that sacrifice?~

Generous

This goes hand-in-hand with being sacrificial. This is the friend who shares their chocolate biccy's (cookies to non-Aussies), shares their troubles--and your own, and would more than likely give you the shirt off their back should you need it.

They never give up. Never give up extending the hand of friendship. Are kinder than they need to. Listen without judgement. Love without ceasing.

~What act of generosity can your character perform to highlight a strength/weakness? At a low point what generous action would give your main character/s the courage to get back on their feet and face their trials?~

Christ-filled

We are all at different parts of our journey with Jesus. A faith-filled friend will be growing in his/her own faith--and will encourage us in our own journey. As iron sharpens iron, they will sharpen us.


Through all of this, Jesus is the perfect friend. He loves us in all our weakness, through all of our trials. His love never fails us. The music clip below shows this.

I leave you with "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" sung by Alan Jackson. May we focus on Jesus, thank him for His hand of friendship, and strive to maintain bare, Christ-filled friendships. :)

Lucy Morgan-Jones is a stay-at-home mum to four precocious children by day and a snoop by night, stalking interesting characters through historical Colorado, and writing about their exploits. She enjoys meeting new people from all over the world and learning about the craft of writing. When she can be separated from her laptop, she is a professional time waster on facebook, a slave to the towering stack of books on her bedside table, and a bottler, preserving fruit the old fashioned way so she can swap recipes and tips with her characters. 

Her home is in country Victoria, Australia where she does not ride a kangaroo to the shops, mainly because four children won’t fit.  Represented by Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary, she is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, and Romance Writers of America.

Soul Mates by Marcia Lee Laycock

I have always secretly believed in soul mates, not just in a romantic sense but in the sense that sometimes you are touched by someone in a way so deeply that you know there is something far more going on than the one small act or look that may have happened. You know you have connected, not just with a person, but with something startling, something breath-taking, something perhaps even eternal.

I walked into the gymnasium of a high school one day, late in the day, completely unaware that such a moment, such a soul mate connection was about to happen. The gym was full of women from all over Alaska and the Yukon. Being from a small community in the north, I was amazed to see so many. Knowing these women were all Christians astounded me. Our group back home was tiny and I had not yet experienced a setting in which the wider church was real and powerful. I felt that power as I walked among the women that day.

I saw her almost immediately. In a sea of native women who were stereotypically short and stocky, she was tall, slender and stunningly calm. Our eyes met and smiled at one another. She turned and I went on for a while, then looked for her again. I could see the back of her head now, its gray-streaked braid lying soft on her neck.

That first night I was asked to give testimony. I had never spoken in front of so many before, but I knew what God had done and wanted to tell it. Several came and spoke to me afterwards. She came from behind me, placed her hands on my shoulders. I felt her prayers go in and out of me, a breeze, a knife, a swelling river. Another woman held my attention until I was aware that she had moved away. Again I looked and saw her back blend into the crowd.

For three days I watched her – in prayer, at table, wrapped in worship. I wandered among those women, always aware of her, but we did not move to speak until the last day, the last hour. I was at the airport, waiting to board the six-seater that would carry us back to our small community of faithful and blind. I saw her sitting in the waiting area. When I sat down she smiled and took my hand.

I asked her name and she gave it. I asked where she lived and she said, “On the River.”
“The Yukon?” I asked, and was delighted to know that she lived on the same swift flowing ribbon that gripped my heart each day.

She nodded. “When I wake up each day I look out and see the River and I think about Jesus. I pray to Jesus and think about my family too.” She turned to me, her gray eyes so gentle it hurt. “Now I will think about you, too.”

Sometimes I feel her hands on my shoulders again. I feel her prayers, going in and out of me like the flowing of a mighty river. And I do believe in soul mates.
****

Marcia Lee Laycock writes from central Alberta Canada where she is a pastor's wife and mother of three adult daughters. She was the winner of The Best New Canadian Christian Author Award for her novel, One Smooth Stone and also has two devotional books in print. Her work has been endorsed by Sigmund Brouwer, Janette Oke, Phil Callaway and Mark Buchanan. The sequel to One Smooth Stone will be released in March, 2012. A collection of devotionals for writers has just been released here. Visit Marcia's website