Please come out and support your local arts…
Saturday, April 5, 2008 at “Showcase of Authors & Arts — Live!” at Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School, 7130 Leesburg Pike (entrance #5), Falls Church, Virginia 22043. The event begins at 2PM and ends at 5PM. Light refreshments will be available to buy, and it will feature readings by two prominent authors.
I will be in attendance as well, selling copies of my book, The Twelfth Window. I hope to see you there!
The Twelfth Window is now a part of the 21st century! You may purchase The Twelfth Window in eBook form exclusively at www.authorhouse.com.
Happy Easter season! I hope you had a nice holiday. I’ve been busy with work and preparing for a book fair that’s taking place in Falls Church, Virginia on Saturday April 5th. If you’re in town, you should come by. I’m giving away two first-class US postage stamps with every purchase of my book. I found a website that can make stamps out of whatever jpeg you submit to them, so the stamps are the cover-art of The Twelfth Window. Otherwise, the promotion makes no sense, LOL. You may find out more information about this event by visiting www.twelvewindow.com and looking at the calendar section.
I am always glad to remind you that The Twelfth Window is for sale on major bookstore online sites as well as www.amazon.com . I believe that the progress made (as far as publicity of the book) so far is from God.
So, on to chapters 17, 18, 19 and 20 of The Twelfth Window. As mentioned in a previous post, chapter 17 begins Act III of the story. Chapters 17, 18 and 20 were meant to address the start of backsliding (not to be confused with falling away!) of both an individual Christian and the House of Israel. It seems that even when things are going well in our walk with God, something in human pridefulness makes it all go awry. You start to notice that you are not the same you, the world is moving and you seem to be standing still, regardless of the fact that you have never been happier or more filled with joy in your entire life.
The main character’s refusal to talk things over honestly with the right people leads to a widening of the gap. I meant the cold gust of wind to presage the winter of the soul. For a young reader, I wanted to impart the message–without sounding uncool–that being in the “in” crowd is not the be-all/end-all. Let the “in” crowd stand in as “the world.”
Chapter 19 is another purely spiritual chapter where I endeavored to show how perhaps the backsliding of the human soul or the House Of Israel just might parallel the fall of the bad angels from Heaven. Since this is a fantasy story, I took a few liberties but the spirit of the story is still scriptural (references Luke 10:18 and Romans 11:34).
Happy reading, and more next time!
I have great news to share! The Twelfth Window, my first book, has been announced as a Finalist in Foreword Magazine’s Book Of The Year awards, Fiction/Religious category. A record number of books (1600 titles) were submitted before the January 15 2008 deadline.
The Twelfth Window is one of twelve finalists in its genre. Foreword Magazine is a prominent literary trade publication dedicated to independent publishers, librarians and bookstore owners. I am honored that my work has been recognized!
Chapter thirteen has no allegorical meaning behind it, but so that I don’t give away the plot and spoil it for you, I’ll move on to chapter fourteen, where in the final paragraph I am referring to Sirach 32:13. I am also showing the spiritual development of Lisa in contrast to that of her father. I don’t recall if I wrote this chapter before or after reading “Judaism For Dummies,” but it shows how the Divine prays to His own Divinity.
Chapter fifteen is where I was trying to show that God is a God of love; the first time those three words are uttered in the story, they are spoken by the Divine.
Chapter sixteen, includes an allusion to milk and honey and the cafe (decorated accidentally by me in blue and white, the colors of the flag of Israel!) represent the promise from God to an ageing man of faith. The second half of this chapter is the story of the garden of Eden in miniature, Genesis chapter 3. Lisa is tempted by Monty to forget about her new Love, to leave off going to regular worship. “It won’t kill you to miss one lousy day of temple” = “you will surely not die.” Lisa does not take the bait right away but buries the conversation in the back of her mind, the details of which she hid from Michael. That’s a personal commentary from me; perhaps Eve did not eat the fruit right away but thought about it first and then ate. It also leaves me room to show the dire consequences of how she handles this encounter later on in the story.
And that brings us to the end of Act Two. Remember, the chapters are divided by stars and acts are divided by rose windows!
Good evening… Hope you are well. Remember that The Twelfth Window is available on www.12thwindow.com, which lists online stores where it’s available for purchase. Occasionally, when there are online coupons, I post them on the website for your use towards buying my book.
Chapters 7 through 11 have no particular subtext except to mirror the courtship portrayed in Song Of Songs in the Bible. (From here on out, I’ll refer to it as The Song of Songs, since the title The Song Of Solomon usually evokes to mind the novel of the same title by Toni Morrison.) On a human experience level, these chapters represent how a person might first explore Christianity, finding in it something deeper and more wonderful than he or she was expecting.
On a side note, www.12thwindow.com provides a page-by-page Bible reference guide, citing book, chapter and verses that are key to the meaning behind the story.
Chapter 12 is my way of stating two things: first, a new Christian may have atheist friends who don’t understand the first giddiness of the new Christian’s transformation. The new Christian finds new energy and enjoyment and refreshment in abiding with Jesus. Friends without faith see the physical side of this; friends with a dab or two of faith see the transformation as a positive thing, and those friends with faith readily welcome and support the new life. Now you guess who is who in these chapters!
The other thoughts that occured to me in writing chapter 12 stem from the ending sentences of the account in Scripture about the end of Jesus’ fast in the desert. Imagine what the angels–super-intelligent, supernatural beings–must have wondered when they ministered to Jesus, and wondered at how their Almighty King showed respect to His family and His synagogue elders on earth in the same way that they showed Him due reverence?…
Finally, Chapter Twelve stands out as the very first regular-and-italics chapter; it’s where the story begins the long, difficult process of binding together Heaven and Earth.
The Twelfth Window 