This week I’m hosting Janet Tronstad with Wife Wanted in Dry Creek, Jim Rubart with Rooms and Angela Breidenbach with Creative Cooking with Colitis. If you want to enter the drawings, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week 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 (May 9th) evening.
Interview with Jim Rubart:
1.What made you start writing? Divine design. It’s always been there. I buried the gift for a long time, but the desire was always there. When I read the Chronicles of Narnia as an eleven year old it made start dreaming about being an author.
2.How long have you been writing? I’ve been writing short stories since at least junior high and it never stopped. But I never showed anyone what I wrote till around 2000. When did you sell your first book? June 2008. ROOMS is my first novel and the only one I’ve attempted.
3.How do you handle rejections? At first it shredded me, but I quickly realized it’s part of the dance I had to accept and learn to deal with. People would say, “They’re not rejecting you, they’re rejecting your story. But my stories are me and I’m guessing most novelists feel the same so rejection can be tough. I came to a point when I first put ROOMS out there for critique when I decided, “I’m a writer whether anyone else agrees or not.” That was a turning point for me. Press on no matter what. If God has called you to write, write!
4. Why do you write? Remember in Chariots of Fire where Eric Liddle says, “When I run I feel God’s joy?” I definitely don’t feel it when I run (smile) but I do when I’m writing. Even if I were never published I’d still be writing.
5. What would you be doing with your free time if you weren’t writing? I’d be jumping off more cliffs with my boys, spending more time with my wife, watching more TV, dabbling more in photography, more time with friends … and a long list of other things.
6. What are you working on right now? Book of Days, my second novel which comes out in January 2011. It’s the story of a man who goes in search of God’s Book of Days—described in Psalm 139—which has recorded the past, present and future of every soul on earth.
7.Do you put yourself into your books/characters? Yes, maybe too much sometimes! People who know me well say, “I can see a lot of Jim ROOMS.” I suppose that’s a good thing, you want to pour your passion out on the page, but it can feel a bit vulnerable at times.
8. Tell us about the book you have out right now. ROOMS is the story of a young Seattle software tycoon who inherits a home on the Oregon coast that turns out to be a physical manifestation of his soul. My amazing editor Julee Schwarzburg says it’s “The Twilight Zone meets It’s A Wonderful Life,” which is a pretty good description.
9.Do you have any advice for other writers? It can be a brutal industry. Jesus says count the cost before building the tower. Writing is costly. Time, emotion, energy, etc. Write because you can’t not write. And study the craft like you would any other industry. No one would perform brain surgery with a few years of learning under their belt, writing is no different.
10. How important is faith in your books? I don’t think about faith when I’m writing. I simply write the story that won’t get out of my head. The story that captivates me, the story that plays like a movie inside my cranium. Now since I’m a follower of Jesus and that’s the center of my life, faith can’t help but be in my novels. But I don’t try to put faith in my stories. When I read Christian stories where the faith element could be taken out and few would notice, it bothers me. Faith should be organic to the story, not something tacked on to make it Christian.
11.What themes do you like to write about? Freedom. That’s the gospel, isn’t it? I think some followers of Jesus stop at salvation. What comes after? What should the result of salvation be? Freedom. Paul says it was for freedom’s sake that Christ set us free. Also, stepping into our divine design. God created us for good works, and each of us is made for a different life work. It took me till I was in my late 30s early 40s to step into my divine design because of fear. I want to see others step through their fear and live out their calling strong.
12. What is your favorite book you’ve written and why? Since I’ve only finished one, it would have to be ROOMS. (Smile.)
13.What is your writing schedule like? Life is insane right now, so I tend to write in batches. I might take a weekend and write for six or seven hours each day, then not get back to my writing till the next weekend. Other times I’ll write every night for two or three hours. It is somewhat dependant on deadlines. They are a great motivator!
Thanks so much for having me!
