{"id":5988,"date":"2013-09-19T07:42:54","date_gmt":"2013-09-19T12:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/?p=5988"},"modified":"2013-09-19T07:32:50","modified_gmt":"2013-09-19T12:32:50","slug":"who-are-all-those-beautiful-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/?p=5988","title":{"rendered":"Who Are All Those Beautiful Women?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I thanked God that political correctness has not yet completely ruined my workplace. No names, but one of my coworkers said that they’d shared my recent Facebook<\/a> posts with someone in the office. That someone, a female, asked who all the beautiful women were in my photographs. \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Please follow me on Twitter<\/a>, and “Like” the Facebook author page<\/a>. Don’t forget to subscribe (the box is on the right side of the page) to be eligible for free e-books and other benefits!<\/p>\n

Those beautiful women (and it seems that all of my male friends were either average or invisible in those photos) were my fellow authors at the American Christian Fiction Writers<\/a> conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. I spent three great days with some of the best authors in fiction. \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There is a mistaken perception that all Christian fiction is romantic, pedantic, or just ick. Not so. And the authors are a scream. I know that’s hard to imagine in our culture, but it is often said that any comedian can be funny for a while if they work dirty. Only the brilliant ones can keep it clean and keep you laughing.<\/p>\n

That describes my fellow authors perfectly. From Amy Matayo<\/a> to Rajdeep Paulus<\/a>, they are fun to hang out with and listen to for hours at a time. Throw in Donald Brobst<\/a> and Kare Skuland<\/a> and you’ve got the full range of intellectual pursuits, great writing, and interesting histories. <\/p>\n

I’ll skip the name dropping at this point and tell you instead that a couple of the “big guns” at the conference are exactly the kind of people you’d like to hang out with as well. I sat with them in the bar (yes, some other Christian authors drink and smoke, but don’t tell the publishers about it) and laughed a lot over their great tales, engaging personalities, and snide remarks. \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What differentiated this bunch from any other group of fabulously handsome and brilliant people? All of them served the same master: Jesus. All of these exceptional people write for him. We opened the conference with a worship service. How many organizations do that? I was in need of it after the previous six weeks getting ready for the conference. I was running on empty before I stood in that room with 500+ of my colleagues and lifted God’s name up high. Tears of joy ran down my face and my heart was light. I stepped outside myself and my own little problems and got ready to work for His glory.<\/p>\n

It’s interesting how something like this can impact you as a writer. This is my third conference with that group, fifth in all. Each time I learn something about my craft. Sometimes it’s in a class. Sometimes it’s from one of their conversations – and sometimes it’s just from the spirit of the association. It is a major blessing to go to something like this and learn about your craft with people who share so much in common with you. <\/p>\n

I spent my final day wandering the streets of Indianapolis with Kare Skuland. We walked a few miles in our quest to find toys for his children back in Norway. We shared a cab to the airport. And we talked for hours about our lives, our faith, our writing, and the influence of evil on the western culture. I had a new brother that grew up on the other side of the Atlantic but was next to me all that time. <\/p>\n

It’s an honor to be in that group. And to fully answer the question of my coworker – those are my sisters. I love them all.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I thanked God that political correctness has not yet completely ruined my workplace. No names, but one of my coworkers said that they’d shared my recent Facebook posts with someone in the office. That someone, a female, asked who …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,7],"tags":[281,2442,2149,284,167,431,2443,68,2441,162,2444,2440,1247,216],"class_list":["post-5988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-writing","tag-acfw","tag-amy-matayo","tag-bar","tag-christian-fiction","tag-commotion-in-the-pews","tag-conference","tag-donald-brobst","tag-facebook","tag-indianapolis","tag-joseph-courtemanche","tag-kare-skuland","tag-norway","tag-rajdeep-paulus","tag-writing-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5988"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6007,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5988\/revisions\/6007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}