This week I’m hosting Marti Pieper with Escape the Lie (non-fiction US only). If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on your post with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (Sept. 28th) evening.
Interview with Marti Pieper:
1. What made you start writing?
I’ve loved to write since I was a little girl and was published in my elementary and junior high years. I turned away from writing in high school, however, believing I wasn’t a “real” writer but only someone who could put words together well. After I came to a saving knowledge of Christ, He made it clear He would use my writing someday. I didn’t jump back into writing for publication, however, until the midst of my childrearing years when a friend encouraged me to write for a homeschool magazine.
2. How long have you been writing? When did you sell your first book?
I wrote the first poem I can remember when I was seven years old. Since I typically write for others as a ghost- or collaborative writer, “I” haven’t sold a book. But in 2007, I rewrote a book proposal in nine days for Dr. Walker Moore that resulted in a book and workbook contract with Thomas Nelson. And every proposal I’ve written since has sold (eight books in all). I’m grateful.
3. How do you handle rejections?
I have a pretty high view of the sovereignty of God, so rejection hasn’t been a big issue for me. I just assume He knows best. So far, His track record is pretty good.
4. Why do you write?
I can’t not write (double negative intentional). Writing is one of the things God created me to do. I do see it as both a gift and a calling, and I’m honored to have the privilege of doing what I love.
5. What would you be doing with your free time if you weren’t writing?
Perhaps finishing the sewing projects I haven’t touched since I started writing and editing full-time. I love to garden and still do that when I can, but that hobby has also taken a back seat to writing.
6. What are you working on right now?
I just finished a set of devotionals using excerpts from my November 1 release with Avis Goodhart, Out of the Dust: Story of an Unlikely Missionary. I’m also editing a long narrative nonfiction manuscript for a client.
7. Do you put yourself into your books/characters?
Yes. Although my books all carry someone else’s story or message, they all have special creative elements or content that is uniquely Marti.
8. Tell us about the book you have out right now.
Escape the Lie: Journey to Freedom from the Orphan Heart carries the teaching of Dr. Walker Moore and is our third book together. The book helps explain how to escape the lie that says our heavenly Father doesn’t love us and we don’t matter to God. So many of us have bought into this lie without realizing it. This teaching has changed my life, so I was honored to have the privilege of putting it into print.
9. Do you have any advice for other writers?
Be willing to learn from others, but stay true to the writer God has called you to be. There are all sorts of reasons to write that have nothing to do with publishing.
10. How important is faith in your books?
Very. All are faith-based and inspirational.
11. What themes do you like to write about?
I have written on a wide variety of topics for others. Memoir (personal history) is one of my favorite genres, and my loves (missions, passion for Christ, parenting) have bled over into my work as well.
12. What is your favorite book you’ve written and why?
That’s like asking me which of my five children is my favorite! I love them all, including the two 2014 releases, Escape the Lie and Out of the Dust. I will say that I Would Die for You by Brent and Deanna Higgins (one of my ghostwritten projects) will always be special to me both because of the book’s subject (a young man who some describe as a modern-day Jim Elliot) and because it became a young adult bestseller and missions classic.
13. What is your writing schedule like?
That depends on how tight the deadline is! It varies greatly from season to season and book to book. In addition to writing nonfiction, I write and edit for Sisterhood Magazine (Christian teen girls), write for two nonprofit organizations, and do freelance editing. I try to write every morning and do my editing work in the afternoon. When I was still homeschooling (my youngest child graduated in May), I often worked late into the night, but I’m hoping to do less of that now that I’m no longer teaching. So I guess the answer is that I’m still figuring out my schedule.
