Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q: How would you label Jonah?
A: I would label the two short novels in Jonah as prophetic novels. The short novel, Jonah, has a prophetic message aimed specifically at five West Coast cities: San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. The short novel, Jeremiah, has a message for San Francisco.
Q: Why San Francisco?
A: Jonah was the first short novel I wrote and in its earliest stages, the story took place in another city. But as I rewrote it, San Francisco seemed to fit better with the themes I was writing.
Q: Will you always use San Francisco as the focus of your novels?
A: Probably not. An upcoming novel takes place in Los Angeles.
Q: Do you hate gays?
A: Nowhere in my novels do I pick on gays, but I do point out that homosexuality is a sin which is in line with Old Testament and New Testament viewpoints. Unlike many Christians, I believe gays can be saved, love the Lord and go to heaven when they die. But the problem I see for gay believers is that they will lose many Kingdom of God benefits and may suffer being called “the least” throughout eternity.
Q: Where do you get your ideas about the second heaven, principalities, powers and demons?
A: I study scripture, pray and then I write. Are my portrayals and interpretations totally accurate? Probably only in part and the other part is fictional creation. I guess we will know more when Jesus returns.
Q: Why did you self-publish your books?
A: I sent query letters to approximately forty agents and publishing companies and heard nothing. The facts stared me in the face: I am an unknown with no recognizable platform who writes prophetic books that no publishing company wants to take a chance on. Thus, I now publish my own books.
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Q: Who designed your book covers, wrote the advertising blurbs and prepared the books for printing?
A: Self-publishing means that an author wears quite a few hats and has to learn on the run what to do. I am thankful for Dorothy, my editor, who puts up with me and I am thankful for CorelDRAW.
Q: Who are your favorite novelists?
A: Writing has always been a struggle for me. So, when I felt that I was supposed to write fiction, I read mystery novels. I went to the local library, looked at the mystery section and started checking out books with authors whose names began with the letter A. I read the first ten to twenty pages of a novel and if the mystery writer did not capture my attention, I began reading another book. In this fashion, I worked my way through the alphabet. My favorite novelists ended up being: James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly, Ed Gorman, Steve Hamilton, Ian Rankin, Peter Robinson and William Tapply.
Q: Do you read Christian novels?
A: I enjoyed Frank Peretti’s two great novels – This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness – and the awesome prophetic message in C. Hope Flinchbaugh’s I’ll Cross the River. But for the most part, I do not read Christian novels.
Q: What is your writing schedule?
A: Setting priorities are my biggest problems. Sometimes, I spend too much time writing and thinking about writing and not enough time with the Creator. When that happens, the Holy Spirit has a way of wooing me back to spending time with the Lord. He is the reason I write. As far as a daily schedule goes, I’m all over the place. Sometimes, I write early and sometimes late. It just depends on what else is going on in my life on that day.
Q: Do you believe the West Coast can avoid facing God’s Judgments?
A: Maybe, but it would take a Ninevah type of repentance as seen in the Old Testament book of Jonah, where the whole city from the least to the greatest repented with fasts and prayers, even the animals fasted. The odds of that happening on the West Coast are slim so I’m not wasting my time and energy trying to make that happen. If others feel they can bring repentance to the West Coast, God bless them.
Q: New Wind Blowing and What’s In It For Me are so different from Jonah. How did these two nonfiction books come about?
A: New Wind Blowing came about because Belinda, my barber, told me her story about fleeing Vietnam on a boat as a ten year old girl. She arrived in Malaysia with her younger brother. There she had to fight off robbers and rapists before eventually arriving in America and winding up in a foster home. Yet, even the foster home had its horrible dark side for Belinda. Eventually, her mom arrived in America and rescued her and her brother.
Somehow, the Holy Spirit used Belinda’s eye-opening story to speak to me.
What’s In It For Me came about because of Hope Flinchbaugh’s novel, I’ll Cross the River. Flinchbaugh described the suffering of the people in North Korea and her words grabbed my heart so much that I sought the Lord about North Korea. Out of all this came the revelations for What’s In It For Me.
Q: Are you another a crazy fanatic like Harold Camping?
A: I’d like to be totally wrong and have everyone laugh at me, just like Harold Camping did, because it would mean that there were no terrorists’ attacks. As far as my reputation goes, I have none and what I do have is not worth much. So, whether or not I’m another Harold Camping, we’ll just have to wait and see. But in the mean time, my suggestions in the books are things we Christians should be doing anyway.
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