Rock Stars, Romance, and Jesus

How's that for a provocative post title? No, seriously -- I read a romance I really, really liked (and all of you know I’m notoriously tough to please). HER MINNESOTA MAN is set in—well, Minnesota. Brenda Coulter, author of all this bodacious terrificality, was kind enough to join us on JTTS today.

DK: Describe, please, what factors went into your starting the story 5 days after Jeb accepts Christ.

BC: Well, we see a lot of hero-gets-saved-at-the-end-of-the-story romances, don’t we? I wanted to do something different. I also wanted to show that getting saved doesn’t make a person’s life more comfortable, but less so. I mean, it’s easy to please ourselves, isn’t it? But living to please God . . . that’s a hard thing. Especially if you have never even been to church, how do you know where to start? And how are you supposed to respond when the people around you are laughing and pressuring you to get over your “foolishness” and return to “reality”?

A novelist always wants to open her story at a moment of great conflict for her protagonist, so I showed my hero being pressed on all sides as he struggles to find God’s will for his life. Right out of the box (I hope), readers who might otherwise have been less than sympathetic toward a rock-star hero will find themselves rooting for this poor guy who’s trying so very hard to do the right thing.

DK: I was surely rooting for Jeb! And Laney—she’s a tower of strength, but you show her struggling with faith questions. Do you feel that makes her a stronger Christian, or simply a normal one?

BC: I think she’s like most of us in that her faith sometimes wavers like a candle flame. The reader meets her at a particularly difficult time in her life: While she’s a true believer, she’s frustrated and emotionally exhausted to the point that she has stopped praying and attending church. She knows that’s wrong, and she means to get back on track. But just now, she’s feeling a tad resentful that God hasn’t moved to lighten her load.

DK: I can understand that, with all Laney has to deal with! How did you come to write the Three Graces? Do you know ladies like these?

BC: The Three Graces came straight out of my imagination, but I wish they were real. I would adore having tea with them, and maybe I would even ask them to teach me how to knit. I’d love to hug Millie and trade quips with Aggie and make Big Plans with Caroline.

DK: I’d like just to hang with them and see how triplets really interact! What went into your portrayal of the mainstream rock-and-roll singer’s life? Did you have to do “real-life” research?

BC: I watched a lot of “backstage” videos and read some Rolling Stone articles and also a bunch of on-the-road blogs by members of secular bands. It was fun because I love that music, even though I deplore the frequently unwholesome lyrics and the band members’ hedonistic lifestyles. (Over the course of my life, I have often whispered prayers for singers and bands whose lyrics have disturbed me. I imagine that’s where the idea for this story came from.)

DK: I came of age in the 70s, so I can relate to liking music I shouldn’t. At any time up to your decision to take your book direct-to-reader, did you feel any impulse to water down Jeb’s past life or his current struggles? What made you decide not to?

BC: My former publisher’s market research has repeatedly shown that in general, conservative Christian women don’t want to read about actors, sports stars, recording artists, and the like because those people are widely perceived as “hard-living” and unfaithful. I believed I’d written Jackson Bell in a way that would appeal to readers, but my editor was still compelled to “pass” on the project. Almost immediately, I was struck by the idea of self-publishing. My readers kept asking for longer books, and here was my chance to give them one. I would also be free to subtly depict the physical attraction between my hero and heroine without having to worry about those lines ending up on the cutting-room floor. I broke several more of my old publisher’s rules, and had a blast doing it. I was no longer writing for their audience, but solely for my own, and that was tremendously exciting. So this turned out to be a completely different book than it would have been had my editor bought the proposal. The story is bigger and more real, and I couldn’t be more satisfied!

Since I was previously published by Love Inspired, a huge name in Christian romance, some people have asked why I didn’t hire an agent to shop this story to the other Christian publishing houses. That simply never occurred to me. Self-publishing felt so right that I just never stopped to consider any other option.

I’m glad you made that choice. IMO, this was a story that deserved to be told. Brenda, thanks for two things: for writing such a terrific book and for sharing some of your heart for the story.

Potential fans and good-story-lovers, get HER MINNESOTA MAN at one of the links here:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0086WXN3U/

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/167264

Readers, You Are Blessed

After all, gentle Reader, your job is merely to pick up, in whatever medium suits your fancy, and read what we labor and fuss and obsess about -- BOOKS.

You needn't worry about the industry. You are free not to care about what it's becoming during this time of transition. You couldn't care less about guidelines, imprimaturs, Themes We Cannot Write About, agents, editors, committees...

You get the drift. Your job is to borrow or buy and read, and hopefully enjoy.

Let's just state that it's not quite that easy from this side of the keyboard. Recently a dear friend and mine own mentor submitted a book for approval by a Catholic organization. They declined, for reasons I won't go into in huge detail.

Suffice it to say that because she omitted a minor plot point, it nuked the entire book in their eyes. Something that wasn't even necessarily addressed, but had to be in there because, let's face it...

...Christians are stupid. If every last thing isn't spelled out, we might tear our clothing, set our hair on fire, and run off screaming into the night in some wild midnight ride of apostasy.

Dear readers, all three of you -- Christians are not dumb. If one of my characters makes a mistake in my book, does that really mean my readers will scratch their heads and say, "Oh, Kinnard's character did this -- that must mean it's okay! Think I will go forth and do likewise!"

We're smarter than that. It's high time the industry gave us maybe an ounce of credit for it.