Soul Yearning Q & A

I was recently tagged by fellow fantasy writer Elaine Baldwin on a blog hop. It consisted of a few questions about my current book, Soul Yearning. So, here goes. I hope you enjoy 🙂

I met Elaine at my first writer’s conference (ACFW) in 2011. Many of us speculative folk were first timers, so we banded together for the weekend and have kept in touch since. You can read Elaine’s answers about her book, If One Falls, here. It comes out in April of 2013!

What is the title of your book?

Soul Yearning – Book 1 of the Godslayer series.

Where did the idea for the book come from?

While teaching a leadership class based on the life of Moses, I came across Exodus 12:12. It states that God executed judgment against the pantheon of Egypt by the hand of Moses. I wondered what that concept might look like if it happened in a fantasy world, and the Godslayer series was born.

What genre does your book fall under?

Epic Fantasy

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I’m not represented yet, but I also don’t plan to take the self-publishing route. I’ve only been pitching it for a year and am waiting for responses from an agent as well as an editor of a small publishing house.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Technically 10 years, since I began it in 2000. I chose to pursue my writing career seriously in June of 2010. I finished the first draft in November 2012.

Give a one-sentence synopsis of your novel: 

When a young priest is marked by a mysterious entity as the prophesied Godslayer, the pantheon unites to destroy him.

What other works would compare to your story? 

I’ve been told it’s a cross between Lord of the Rings and This Present Darkness.

Who or What inspired you to write this book? 

Although the Godslayer series doesn’t resemble the life of Moses, his story did inspire the ideas behind it. It fascinates me that God used a man to bring a nation to its knees.

What else might pique the reader’s interest?

Sometimes I think Christians assume that faith should make sense to someone who doesn’t believe. We might even dumb down the arguments of someone who doesn’t believe the way we do. People are a bit more complex than that. Instead of building up a straw man just to tear him down, I tried to accurately represent the problems that an unbeliever might have in believing there is one God worthy of following. Soul Yearning is a grand adventure on an epic scale, but I think it might give the reader a thing or two to think about as well 🙂