My (Unpublished!) Interview with Writers Digest

8/14/2019 My (Unpublished!) Interview with Writers Digest

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My (Unpublished!) Interview with Writers Digest

About three months after my book Penguins, Pain and the WholeShebang came out, Writers Digest magazine contacted me for aninterview. By way of planning for a special Spirituality issue of themagazine, they had asked their readers to recommend a book on thetopic. A lot of people apparently named Penguins, and thats why theycontacted me.

They interviewed me via email. The interview was never published,because at the last minute Writers Digest decided to kill its special Spirituality issue. But heres that interview as it almost appeared inWD:

Q: Your first book, Comma Sense, was a guide to punctuation. Howdid you make the leap from punctuation to spiritual writing?

A: Well, the key to a successful writing career is to build your ownniche audience, right? And one day it came to me: Pastors whopunctuate! Whos writing for the comma-loving clergy? So at first Iwrote a single book, all about God and punctuationbut somewhere inthere (between the chapters Paul: Could He Use Any More Commas? and The Apostrophe Apostasy) I realized that what I had on myhands wasnt so much a single book as it was a single, deeply stupidbook. So I trashed that effort, started again, and ended up with twobooks so unlike each other that very often, if theyre in the sameroom, one of the two of them will spontaneously combust.
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Q: Youre kidding, right?

A: Yes. Sorry. In actuality, my leap went the other way; I finished

Penguins about three months before starting Comma Sense. Its justthat Comma Sense was released first; it came out in August of 2005,and Penguins came waddling along about two months laterwhich, inthe glacial timeframe of book publishing, is, like, four seconds apart.Book-wise, theyre fraternal twins. Which is why they always fight.But, thats just books. Whaddaya gonna do?

Q. How is Penguins different than other spiritual books out there?

A: Well, its humongously funny, for one. (Um is there any way to

make something seem less funny than to say its funny? Is there anyword in the English language more boring than humorist?) And thebooks also really quite dramatically short. And (save for theafterword) all of its text, from the cover flap copy to the dedicationand on, is written in the voice of God. And it very directly and verysuccinctly addresses the eight or nine reasons non-Christians typicallygive for why theyd rather have a thistle jammed up their nose thaneven consider becoming Christian. So: short; funny; voice of God;rationally and completely answers the huge, primary objections toChristianity. Thats the book.

Q: Sound interesting!

A: Well, I was definitely confident that no publisher would say theydseen a book like it before.

Q. What did you learn about the publishing world/spiritual writingmarket in the process of having the book published?

A: Um everything, I think. Penguins had a long, weirdly intense pathto publication, so just through that process I learned a lot. It was first

represented to the CBA (Christian Booksellers Association) market bya Christian-market literary agent. He showed it to all the Christianpublishers, who all responded to it in the exact same way: Fantasticbook! Its got everything! Its hilarious! We love it! Its too secular. Sothen I sent the book to Super Mainstream Market Agent, DeborahSchneider, who, miraculously enough, almost immediately agreed torepresent it. (I have to, she said. My 15-year-old son Charlie lovesit.) She showed it to her friends who run every publishing company in


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New Yorkand they all responded to it in the exact same way: Fantastic book! Its got everything! Its hilarious! We love it! Its tooChristian. So the first big thing I learned is that publishers of any sortare really disinclined to react favorably to any book thats unlike all theother books they publish. They want something they can absolutely

depend upon to sellwhich means theyre pretty exclusively interestedin things as close as possible to something else they have thats eversold. Its kind of a crazy business like that. Publishers are truly stuckbetween We crave creative, new stuff! and Creative, new stuff freaks us out because we dont know how to market it! Editors keptloving Penguins; their marketing people kept balking at it. What Ilearned is that the book business is all about marketing. And I also, of course, learned that Christian and mainstream publishing are entirelyseparate businesses. Theres almost zero relationship between them.Different people, different market, different process.

Q: What are your writing habits, and where do your ideas come from?

A: Sadly, the only habit I have is avoiding work. Unless I really haveworklike, say, a deadline. Then I work like a mule team. Basically,my day goes about like this: Wake up around 4 a.m. Swear to stopdrinking coffee so I can get more sleep. Turn on computer. Makecoffee. Be grateful wife is such a sound sleeper, since Im crashingaround in kitchen like Frankenstein on Vicodin. Sit at computer. Bebummed that I have no e-mails. Sip coffee. Check to see howPenguins is doing on Amazon. Feel either elated or suicidal. Pokearound online version of New York Times online. Feel Can Write Now part of brain kick in. Open whatever document Im currently workingon. Write until wife wakes up at six. Be loving, happy couple until sheleaves for work. Slump into loneliness. Try to work some more. Fail.Take nap. As to where my ideas come fromwhere do anyones ideascome from? You go through life; you process and collect; you sensegaps; something suddenly defines and fills one of those gapsandbang, theres your idea. Then youve got something new on yourhands. If youre a writer, then the question is whether or not that ideais new generally , or just to you? If you see its a new idea, period,

then you just had yourself one good day.

Q: Why did you write Penguins in the voice of God?

A: To cut out the middleman. There are a zillion books out there bypeople talking about God; I just couldnt write another one. For aperiod of nearly five hundred years that ended only recently,Christians universally considered Thomas a Kempiss The Imitation of


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Chris t to be the great companion to the Bible: No Christian waswithout it. The last two-thirds of that book consist of words put intothe mouth of Jesus by Mr. Kempis. So I figured, what the heck: timefor an update. Also, it was not a little unsettling, after the freakishconversion experience I talk about in the afterword of Penguins , to be

stuck being the very kind of persona Christianthat before then Idalways held in such disdain. And I very much, then, needed some wayto show the non-Christians in my own life that, in converting, not onlyhad I not lost my mind, but that Christianity is, if nothing else(surprise!) supremely rational. And I figured, why not let them hear itright from the source? Basically, I wrote the book that I wish someonehad given me during all the years before God finally zinged me in asupply closet at my job.

Q: As a humorist, did you worry that readers might be offended by the

irreverence in the book?A: Worry? No. I mean, I didnt want to offend people, of coursebutthe only way not to offend anyone is to never do or say anything at all.Its a given that if you do anything even slightly newmuch lessanything having to do with religion, of all thingsyou will offendsomeone. Its just the cost of doing business. But the bottom line isthat if youre a Christian, and the Holy Spirit is telling you what towrite, its not like youre going to start typing out handy-dandy tips forsacrificing cats, or anything like that. You just start writing. I know

just about nothing about anything, but Im positive Gods okay withPenguins.

Q: How do you make humor come across in writing?

A: Well, Ive found that the best way is to actually be funny. Har. No,but you know what I mean: obviously, youve first got to have a joke,or a funny way of saying something. After that, its all about thetiming. You miss one beatyou draw out or clip a phrase by oneheartbeat too long or short either wayand you just dropped that ball.Humor is timingjust like all of writing is timing. Life is timing.

Q: How has Penguins been received thus far?

A: To tell you the truth, Im almost freaked out by how well its beenreceived. Its just been phenomenal. And unless you live near anEpiscopal bookstore that happened to order the book in, you canteven buy the book except through online stores like Amazon or Barnesand Noble. Theres no question but that word-of-mouth is the primary
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means by which anyone has heard about the book at all. Andapparently people are talking about it, because, little by little, itcontinues to sell. Which is great, of course. Mostly, though, what Icare about, and what about all this has most affected me, are thestories that reach me of peoples lives being genuinely changed by the

Penguins. Its such an impossible thing to even say. Every day, I cantbelieve it. I very recently heard from a guy who read the book, andthe following Sunday went to church and took his first communionever. I got a note from a woman who told me that after bitterlyturning her back on the faith for seven years, the book moved her toturn around, and again embrace it. A woman who works with my wifecried and told her that even though shed been a Christian for forty-two years, Penguins gave her the first clear understanding shed everhad of the Holy Spirit. Ive actually, now, lost track of all those sorts of stories: impossibly enough, theres that many of them. Its beyondfathoming. I just this morning got a letter from a woman saying that afriend had given her a copy of the book; after reading it, she wantedto order ten copies to give to each of her grandchildren for Christmas.Its just astounding, and not a little humbling, to realize the effect thatprinted words can still have on people.

Q: What are you working on right now?

A: Ah. Well, oddly enough, Im afraid its all quite hush-hush, justnow. (Its so weird, not being able to just say what youre working on.And fun, imagining that your upcoming book really is just that hot.)[This was when everything was happening around the proposal I'dwritten for the book that eventually turned into Midlife Manual for Men,with Steve Arterburn.] But, as I say, Ive got two books due this year,and Ill write the proposal for a third. So in about two years, Im goingto either be wildly famous, or wildly wondering whether or not youguys might need a freelance proofreader. Im also thinking aboutstarting a blog.

Q: Any tips for spiritual writers who are just starting out?

A: Sure: be honestand I mean, ugly honestabout who you reallyare, and what youre really doing. Because the moment you in anyway position yourself as a spiritual writer is the moment thatarrogance becomes the worst, craftiest, most charming enemy youever had. Beware the horrible onus of believing that youre wise.Youre not. Im not. None of us is: Essentially were all just children outhere, trying to make sense of a system that only works if it remainsprofoundly and eternally mysterious. Continuously sacrifice who you


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want to beand especially whom you want others to think you arefor who you actually are, warts, insecurities and all. Always think of your reader as your friend, not your student. And good luck.

You can read about how I recently reacquired all the rights and

remaining copies of Penguins in my recent post, Penguins, My Blasphemous Christian Book, Finally Returns Home.

My ebook How to Make a Living Writing is available on Scribd.com

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My (Unpublished!) Interview with Writers Digest

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