On August 1, I'll start work on my next project. I've boiled it down to two ideas and I like both very much. One of them has about 7,000 words in it already, the other is barely an outline. I burned through the last novel so hard that I don't know what to expect this time around. If I write it at the same pace I was writing the last five chapters of Joy & Carnage, I'll finish it in a month and a half (I have no intentions of doing so).

The first is called Tinker, and I imagine it could be described as The Italian Job meets about 1% of Chronicles of Narnia. Weird? The idea is that a thief stumbles into a restaurant where the saints in Heaven dine, and he meets a converted burglar who wants Stanley to find and return a lost treasure.

The second is tenatively titled Vigilante, and retells the story of the prodigal son as a vigilante that is loved by his city, but leaves it after being offered a television program about his life.

Come Friday, I'll probably flip a coin and start.

The torpedo is away. I sent my proposal off to my agent last night. I'm glad I waited those few extra days because a couple happy surprises made it into my inbox at the last moment, allowing me to polish the proposal a little bit more.

Here's an interesting tidbit, by the way: I spent the past week with my youth group at Youth America, a church camp in Oklahoma City. In addition to teaching teens, they provide leadership seminars for the youth pastors and leaders. Better yet, they provide free coffee and a quiet "leaders' lounge" for those of us who have paperwork to do. I took advantage of the lounge to get the synopsis done.

As some of you may know, my novel, Joy & Carnage, is (in a very general sense) about school shootings and revenge. While I was finishing up the synop, a guy came and politely asked what I was writing about. I told him and was completely surprised to find out that he was first pastor on the scene in Littleton, after the Columbine shootings. I received some terrific feedback from him, and he's made himself available to me if I have any questions.

Neat, huh? For more on the novel, click HERE.

My agent and I are preparing to send off the proposal for my newest novel, Joy & Carnage. So that I have something to show, I photoshopped this picture for my MySpace and Blogspot. On the former, it doesn't display so well, but here it is for you to see. The girl is Mercedes, and though I wasn't able to put a scar across her face as she has in the story, I'm fairly happy with this rendition.

A modified version of the proposal goes something like this:

More than a year before the tragedy at Columbine, there was Shadow Valley. Three teenagers, driven to the extreme by the painful jabs of their peers, conspire to murder their entire school in one day.

Mercedes was one of the most popular girls in school. Attractive. Smart. Loyal to her best friend, Becca. All of that changes one rainy night, when a crazy stunt leaves her disfigured and her best friend, dead. Tossed from her elite circle of friends, she’s adopted by Eli and Damien, a pair of misfits who devise the terrible plan. It takes only one cruel prank, at her expense, for Mercedes to decide to join them. Ultimately, their plan fails because Eli, their mastermind, betrays them.

Ten years pass and the three students receive invitations to the Shadow Valley High School reunion. Damien and Mercedes have been planning for this night for almost a decade. With thousands of dollars at their disposal, and a burning desire for vengeance, the two believe that nothing can stop them. The only person who stands a chance at dissolving the danger is the original ringleader, Pastor Eli Shepherd. Can a poor, haunted, and troubled man of God, stop two determined monsters?

Joy & Carnage is a forked tale—two stories, told in chapters that alternate between 1998 and 2008. It follows the movements of Eli, Damien, and Mercedes during the week preceding each attack. The unique layout of this story highlights how each tale parallels the other. The preparation for one attack is followed by preparations for the other. Torment is followed by torment and escalation, by escalation. The two stories fuse together in Chapter 18, which begins with the header “1998 & 2008” and features a chapter that can be fit into either timeline. The climax and turning point of both stories occur in this chapter, and are settled in two very different ways as the twin storylines diverge onto their original tracks.

Over the course of 93,000 words, the reader is introduced to Mercedes, a broken girl whose hollowed heart becomes filled with poison and thorns. They meet Eli who, though once a hellion himself, now stands as Mercedes’ only chance for redemption—if she can forgive his earlier betrayal. And readers will watch as Damien, who appears and disappears like a phantom, acts as the diabolical tempter of both. Their emotions, motivations, and conflicts are laid bare for the audience to feel. No one will deny understanding the characters’ longing for vengeance, but Joy & Carnage reveals a better way.

My Online EarlyWarning System (OEWS) has informed me that several publishing houses are hacking their way into my hard drive in an attempt to stake a claim on my next publishable work. I suppose I could just e-mail them with a copy, but I don't want to seem desparate.

While they get right on that, let me share with you what's going on with my writing. Many of you may already be aware that I am publishing a monthly newsletter. What you are only now just finding out is that in the next few weeks, I'll be posting those articles here, on a one-month-delay-basis so you can share them with your friends after you've read them yourself. This ought to cause some discussion as anytime I mention the words "election" and "theology" together, I get some kind of response.

I've got three long-term projects on my desk, at the moment:
~Joy and Carnage: a thriller about a deadly ten-year reunion. This is the main thrust of my efforts, and the next book to be sent to my agent.
~After Me: A new and hopefully scarier twist on the old zombie tales. There's very little "Christian" message in this one. More than anything, I wanted to show what an awful thing it would be to be deprived of one's free will.
~Back In A Week: The Book For People Whose Testimonies Suck. The title says it all. Raised in church, as many are, I have a boring testimony. I've tried making up a better one, but it failed. This is my attempt to tell it as it is, with pointers on why a boring testimony is okay. It's also a book for those who have grown weary of church, wonder about coming back, but can't make up their minds to do it.

I'm also looking into doing some freelance writing for Home Journals. It's not exactly my genre, but I might make some spare cash doing what I love.

As I get more of my online commentary posted here, I'll be building a Table of Contents to make things easier for you.

Lastly, welcome to my friend Ray and Good Night.
~Jeremiah