How about “the last few pagans on earth, running desperately from legalistic zealots who hope to capture and “convert” them.

It begins in Atlanta on a routine Monday morning, but the story will move to Florida and perhaps even to the Bahamas at some point. Those zealots are pretty tenacious!

Put it this way: If you multiplied Stanley’s personality by a thousand, you’d have a proper perspective of these people.

Ever heard of a zealot-owned gas station charging non-converts $6.66 per gallon for gas?

Yes. I was fortunate to have several publishers interested in acquiring this one, but Time Warner Book Group (now called Hachette Book Group) seemed the “best fit.” I love working with the editorial staff there. But then I also had a great experience working with Baker Book Group as well. I’ll always have special memories of working on my first novel, Flabbergasted, with Jeanette, who is now with Waterbrook.

You have no idea. But through it all, I’ve somehow kept my own name. Praise the Lord.

I’m giving that a lot of thought. “Possibly” is my best answer for right now. However, I can tell you that two of the characters may make a small guest appearance in the book I’m working on now. A certain car may show up as well. This story will be set in Charleston, one of my fave cities.

But of course!

The international emails are always fun. I’ve received an Aussie flyswatter from Perth, Australia, testimonies from both married and single people, pictures of lime green stuff, notes from missionaries, and even a miniature toy kangaroo. But the most surprising event happened at a book signing here in Greenville. A self-proclaimed ”Number 1 fan,” who lives in the Midwest and is all of 16 years old, was vacationing with her dad on the coast of North Carolina, and the two of them drove five hours each way to make it to the signing. I had never met them before, but we all went out to get burgers after the signing and had a big time. That a family would drive that far to meet me was quite flattering.

I think the largest group is the 20 – 50 age range. It’s a pretty diverse group. I’ve been blessed to get emails from grandmothers and grandfathers, a number of college students, married couples, lots of singles, and some high-schoolers as well. Oh, and one 11 year-old from California who claimed that she “read above her age level.”

I’m giving that a lot of thought. “Possibly” is my best answer for right now. However, I can tell you that two of the characters may make a small guest appearance in the book I’m working on now. A certain car may show up as well. This story will be set in Charleston, one of my fave cities.

Not always. But I’m pretty disciplined about keeping to the schedule. Then again, I think it’s healthy to leave room for some “play time.” Which, for me, often involves my nephews, my brother, my dad, and a golf course.

The best would have to be the freedom to create, allowing my relationship with God (the ultimate creative mind) to work in and through me to try and produce work that is original and entertaining. The worst is reading a review from someone who just doesn’t “get” my stuff.

Metaphors be with you.

Ray Blackston – A Delirious Summer
A Perspective From The Author

Two fears were paramount: that I would not be able to wiggle my way back in to the corporate world if I failed, and that no woman would want to date me because I was now in the category of "unstable." Leaving the corporate cubicle was a decision that was made over a long period of time, after I had worked seven years in jobs that were not fulfilling. From these jobs I was able to save a little money month after month and invest it with the knowledge that these funds would one day provide the sustenance I'd need in order to take a risk. It just so happened that the 1999 and early 2000 run-up in the stock market paralleled my timing to begin writing. This, of course, was really God's timing, working in and through my decisions. I prayed hard and long before making the leap. But with two or three years of living expenses salted away, I figured this was the time to go for it. So I did.

It took me a lot longer to CRAFT the book than it did to write the first draft! The art of writing really is in re-writing. Studying some world-class novelists and learning technique, then applying some of those techniques to my own bucket of nouns and verbs, was how I learned. I'd write for five hours in the morning, then read and study good writing in the afternoon. I just immersed myself in the world of sentences. That's the key right there—you gotta love sentences, the building material of a novel. For with good sentences one can build a paragraph; with good paragraphs, chapters; and with good chapters, books.

Prior to Flabbergasted I had written um, emails and whatever papers were assigned in high school and college! Really, no short stories or articles for me. I just jumped in with both feet, kind of half-blind, half ignorant of what I was getting into. I felt like I had exhausted my other vocational options, so I just thought back to what my second grade teacher had told my parents: that I had a knack for stringing words together. Took me thirty years to heed Mrs. Kretzer's advice. But then, those thirty years contained the raw material from which I would draw ideas for the novel. I'm currently in the early innings of book three, which is the final book in a loosely connected "Flabbergasted Trilogy."

My advice is this: Make sure that your goal is to improve as a writer, not to gain the status of "getting published." That's what I hear at so many conferences and writers groups—"How do I get published?" or "How do I get an agent?" To me, those are the wrong questions. You first want to compare, as objectively as possible, published works with your own. Look for every possible way to note what you are doing wrong. Believe me, you are doing some things wrong. We all are. Too many passive sentences? Unrealistic dialogue? Introducing too many characters too quickly? No sense of "place?" Cardboard characters that are mere mouthpieces for your message? Those are five of the most common errors I see. So start there. If you will devote yourself to the task of being the best writer you can be, and always but always continue to learn, and only submit a manuscript after you honestly cannot think of a single improvement, then, and only then, might some agent or publisher notice you. This is a very competitive business, and the monies that it takes to bring a new author and his book to market are only going to get risked on manuscripts that sparkle and impress and entertain. Perseverance is key.

I learned that each book is a marathon run on a new route, and the fact that you completed one marathon earlier does not impress your laptop. In other words, you have the feeling of "starting over," but with that comes the knowledge that "I did it once, and I can do it again." Working with some of the same characters in the second book helped too, as I already knew their quirks and mannerisms.

Seat of the pants, seat of the gym shorts, seat of the blue jeans. I wing it like my friend Sandy makes gumbo—just toss things in and see what works. I've never plotted anything beyond writing on a single sheet of paper, "This is where I might like this story to go between now and seven months from now." In this second novel, A Delirious Summer, the character of Alexis just leaped out of the screen of my laptop and told me that she was going to steal every scene she's in. And she does. She's the most high-energy girl I've ever met, and the story's narrator, Neil, can barely keep up with her.

Why not both? My CBA-published novel is on the shelves of Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, Wal-Mart, and Target Stores, so God in his grace has allowed it be a crossover novel. I wrote Flabbergasted as real as I could write it without offending my Biblically based values and what I determined to be the CBA's parameters. I can't stand cheesy storylines and characters who are just mouthpieces for doctrine. My sensitivity to this is very high, and so red flags go up when anything like that creeps into the narrative. There were one or two CBA insiders who told me that a story of a guy going to church to meet girls would not make it in their markets. But God lined me up with the right publisher. The Revell staff is a fun bunch, highly focused and willing to take a risk when others were not. I've felt a loyalty to them as I wrote the second book, and now again as I begin the third. (By the way, "Flabbergasted Trilogy" is my unofficial name for this entire project.)

I wish I had known that Flabbergasted was going to sell 36,000 hardcover copies in its first five months. Then I would have gone ahead and put in my new kitchen floor earlier! Seriously, I'm glad I jumped in half-blind and ignorant, as that made the journey a lot more fun. Kinda like swimming in the ocean at night.

One would be that people who own lots of "stuff" are not necessarily the ones who are having the most fun.

"A Delirious Summer"

I wrote 300 pages in seven months, then spent three months polishing and cutting and polishing some more. My editor’s advice (she usually points out something to expound on and basically tells me to "write it in my own voice") was crucial in the later stages. My editors at Revell have steered me wisely.

Flawed singles trying to find their way in the world, all of them traveling at blazing speeds through the intersection of Faith and Impatience.

The minor characters from the first novel are now major, and the major characters from the first novel are not quite as major as before, yet very much a part of the story. And a new character, Neil, is introduced very early and will narrate the rest of the story. All of the geography from Flabbergasted—Ecuador; Greenville, S.C.; and the Carolina coast—are part of the background again, though in different quantities.

Hey, when you have flawed singles traveling at blazing speeds through the intersection of Faith and Impatience, what more theme do ya need?!

Actually I saw two books after finishing the first. The strange part is that I envisioned the third book, which I just started, more clearly than the second. So it took lots of "think time" to plan it all out.
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Any Christian bookstore or mainstream chain should have it.

I thought the word "Flabbergasted" best summed up Jay's experience at the end of the novel. As for A Delirious Summer, well, after the situations these characters get themselves into, there is really no other way to describe their journey.

"Flabbergasted"

To be honest, I had no idea what "conventional CBA fiction" was when I started. I just knew that no one had written a novel from the perspective of a non-Christian going to church to meet girls. Also, I knew that it had to be written in first person because only then could a reader be inside Jay's head to an extent where they could sense his alarm bells, enjoy his slightly irreverent perspective, and relate to his attraction to the missionary girl who is very much his opposite. As for being "not easy to pigeonhole," well, Jay Jarvis and Allie Kyle and Darcy Yeager are just too unique to be pigeonholed. They would never allow it. Neither would Maurice the janitor or Preacher Smoak. Ditto for Ransom the surfer dude. They are all very much anti-pigeon hole. As for the appeal—I'm just guessing here—the reader gets to see church through unchurched eyes, and romance through a guy's perspective.

About 34%. Most of the beach scenes are fairly close to the truth.

Well, in a community where the churches outnumber the bars by a 20 to 1 margin, word of mouth spread quickly that there was a novel out that began in their fair city. I've had lots of encouraging words from the home crowd, and a few concerns over whether a certain character is really someone they know. Trust me, it isn't.

I heard from the father of the missionary pilot who flew me into the Ecuadorian jungle. Dan Osterhus, the young pilot, was killed three years after my visit, while he was in the midst of a rescue mission in some very mountainous terrain. In the acknowledgements of Flabbergasted I noted his help and asked that God "send blessings to his widow and young daughter." (she was three at the time). So Dan's father wrote me and told how Dan had sat in his lap as a child and learned to fly, and that he (Dan's father) had also flown with Mission Aviation Fellowship. Then I found out that Dan's wife, Phoebe, has since remarried to a youth pastor in Wisconsin, and just had a new baby. In the hospital, before she went into labor, someone gave her a copy of Flabbergasted and she got to read how her first husband was used by God to fly me into remotest Ecuador and help inspire the book. I doubt anything will ever top those emails. Brought me to tears.

1. Hobbies outside of writing? Beach weekends; fishing; golf; reading; volunteering at a coffeehouse; coaching my nephews in T-ball and Little League.
2. Book you’re currently reading? The Four Loves, by C.S. Lewis
3. Music you’re currently listening to? Third Day, Allison Krauss, and Duran Duran.
4. Film you’ve most recently seen? Hidalgo.
5. If you could invite two people to dinner, who would they be and why? Billy Graham and Bono— two men who believe the same things but handle themselves (and fame) very differently. The three of us and a pot of my mom's shrimp creole would make for an interesting evening, methinks.

For more information, interviews, photos, etc., contact: Rick Hoganson, Hoganson Media Relations, 615-459-9870, Hoganson@Comcast.net.

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