New Directions

 

As of December 2023, I plan to finish my bachelor's in English and Writing next year and start seminary. I'm going to be starting the MA in Biblical languages, with a thesis concentration. My aspiration with seminary is to go into ministry as an Anglo-Catholic priest. I've been in talks with a friend about starting an Anglican Church in the Knoxville area in the near future. 

In the last few years, I have grown in greater interest in Koine Greek as well as New Testament theology and history. One of my main theological inspirations on the subject has been N. T Wright, a retired bishop in the Church of England. 

In the meantime, however, I'm also learning more about publishing and editing. I have a lot of books that I intend to get published. Thankfully, most of my last classes in my bachelor's degree are in Creative Writing itself. 

Kings And Crusaders remains a priority to my attention and work. At the moment, I've just been wrapped up in many other things. 

I pray that the Lord directs me in His path. I appreciate thoughtful prayers for me moving forward. 

The Fourth Draft of Kings And Crusaders Completed

 

Every generation has new literature to inspire it...every work of writing was produced by some person hidden away in a closet who composed a story that they had to tell. Literature is never dead so long as readers engage with its words and live its message. The best stories are those that most illuminate our minds about the struggles of humanity and allow the reader to live and feel like the leading protagonist. 

Writing is a hard job. However, on July 18, 2023, I completed the fourth draft of the first Kings And Crusaders novel. This means that typing the novel unto my computer will be one of my next tasks. Currently, I'm unsure when I plan to begin this work as I'm tied up with other projects simultaneously. 

I'm a huge fan of historical dramas. I enjoy historical fiction and always have. Sir Walter Scott, often considered the founder of this genre of literature, has been one of my foremost influences. In many ways, it was Scott's Ivanhoe that inspired Kings And Crusaders. 

As I approach the end of my bachelor's in English and Writing, I have been learning more and more about the process of writing a book. Indeed, it is truly a work of art. When approaching history, historical fiction should never be written without literary beauty. Henry V by William Shakespeare and The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, as examples, concern real characters and actual historical events, but these books are also written as good literature. Sometimes, I encounter works of historical fiction that I find to lack this quality. A well-written work of historical fiction is able to balance exciting storytelling with reverence toward history. 

English majors have a grasp of storytelling that others can achieve outside the college classroom, even if this is more difficult. Taking time to read poetry, to analyze drama, and to interpret prose texts allows the reader to learn from the great literature of the past. Through Creative Writing, however, a writer has the chance to learn how to best make new works---to help build a new era of literature. 

Both my English and Creative Writing classes have been beneficial to the composition of Kings And Crusaders. The former has inspired me to make my own stories as successors to those great past works. The latter discipline has inspired me to delve away from all academics and write as I please---to write until my heart is satisfied by the words which lie before my eyes. 

Refining Kings And Crusaders will take time still. After four drafts all written on paper, I still need to get the first novel quite where I want it to be. Thirteen years after beginning its first draft, I am ready to strengthen it as much as I can do. 

One of the challenges of any successful writer is not only writing a piece of worthy quality. Writing requires revision again and again until the work satisfies the writer (if not the readers as well). We can learn from the great writers of the past, however. We can learn that patience was a virtue for both Victor Hugo and Mark Twain in composing a great work of art. 

Weighing The Future

 

So, I've been revising the first novel of Kings And Crusaders for quite some time (began in 2012 shortly after having finished the first draft). So far, I can say that the fourth draft is bringing the novel to where it needs to be: a well-written tale of the Medieval Crusades. 

Whenever historical fiction is written, the writer must balance a high reverence for historical accuracy with a strong passion for the literary aspect of the work. Since I began Kings And Crusaders in 2010, this has been a challenge: writing the work to be both. 

As I've been writing the fourth draft of Kings And Crusaders, I've also been writing an unnamed novel set during the early nineteenth century that I started in 2022. With so many projects in mind, it makes me ask what career do I intend to take my life down? Am I considering fields that I will be satisfied grading the papers of my students in for the rest of my life? If so, which of the following three fields that I'm about to share, intrigues me most? 

History, English literature, and historical theology are three of my main interests. As someone aspiring to academia, I want to teach an area that is going to keep my interest for a long time. At the same time, however, I am also interested in pursuing graduate studies in a field that benefits my potential call to ministry. 

I've been thinking a lot lately about doing a master's degree in history with a specialization in Medieval history. Quite simply, the Crusades is one of my greatest interests. For many years, history was generally my first choice of study. Historical theology, though, is also a strong interest of mine and would benefit me as a pastor/priest as it's a degree from a divinity school. Furthermore, studying the medieval scholastics is ever worth my time; they elaborated on much of the thought that was current in Europe at the time of the Crusades. 

Finally, while on a different note than the other two, Medieval literature fascinates me. I have always loved the stories of king Arthur and his knights since I was young. I'm also a big reader of anything from Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Jane Austen. While English literature is less specific than medieval history is to my interest in the Crusades, broadly speaking, graduate studies in English appeals to me as I will unlikely be writing stories about the Crusades forever. I will, however, most likely always be a novelist. Additionally, much of the reason that I came to love the stories of the Crusades is attributed to great writers of English literature; namely, Sir Walter Scott and Howard Pyle. Likewise, I write stories set during the nineteenth century, which are mostly unrelated to the Crusades, and drawing from Jane Austen to make new romantic novels of my own is also among my interests. 

As previously mentioned, history, English literature, and historical theology are all interests of mine. I often struggle about which of the three I will be doing graduate studies in (though I could do a master's in one and a Ph.D. in another). Generally, when I write Kings And Crusaders I prefer history; when I write something else, English literature; when I think about ministry; I think about theology. 

2023 has started out as an interesting year, at least as far as writing is concerned. As I've done for the last two years, I've gotten back to the vision for the first Kings And Crusaders novel that I begin in 2010. Using my Schleich knights, I've tried to bring the story to life as much as I can. In many ways, revising the first novel I think has more complicated than it will be for the following two. Having been younger when the first was written and less experienced in that field, I made various literary and some historically inaccurate errors that all have been corrected by the fourth draft. Perhaps more complicated, however, is the fact that the fourth draft is not just written better than the first three but cuts out scenes that were unnecessary to the story. Finally, my intentions with the fourth draft are not to just make it a better text, but a classic on its own. Having written various scenes to the first novel out of order over the years, I have drawn from my various texts to compile a perfected edition before I began typing the work up. 

At different points in my writing career, history, English literature, and historical theology have all benefited my writing of Kings And Crusaders. Studying history, for example, has allowed me to understand not just the Crusades, but the Medieval World in which the Crusades movement was born. Reading English literature, likewise, has allowed me to see everything that my work should be; I have learned from the best. Truly, had I never been an English major, I don't think that Kings And Crusaders would have been as good as it has become. For many years, I studied history to get the feeling of the novel right but it was primarily from reading the literature of the past that I came to see the beautiful work that I wanted the novel to become, what I believe it is becoming. On the other hand, the study of historical theology has also benefited me over the years. Understanding Medieval history is more than just remembering the names of kings and queens as well as important dates; it's understanding the Medieval mind; knowing how medievals thought about God and themselves; understanding the importance of the church in their daily lives. 

Whatever graduate field that I do my master's in, my specialization will be in something concerned Medieval Studies.