Horse Sense
And Becoming an ACFW Semi-Finalist

Dear Reader,
            How I treasure your sticking with me on the road to publication. I learned this month I’m a semi-finalist in the Genesis Contest for unpublished authors. Winners will be announced at the ACFW Annual Conference on September 5^th, 2024, in New Orleans. There are six semi-finalists in my genre, which is speculative.
            Whether I become a finalist or an overall winner, I will get to mingle with literary agents who are searching for the next great author as diligently as I am pursuing them. Finding the right agent is my goal; winning the contest wouldn’t hurt.
            How delightful to receive an evening phone call from a contest organizer. (They don’t call you when you lose!) The first time I got such a call was in 2023 when Clay Stafford told me I was a finalist for the Killer Nashville Claymore Award. I went to the Awards Banquet, as instructed, but that was the end of my luck.
            Fundamental to acquiring an agent these days is developing a readership—people like you who care about my progress, who are interested in my work, and who will encourage friends to follow along. Thank you.
             What do I write? Song lyrics and poems and silly stuff, like my children’s book “Wide-Legged Troll.” I also write about serious things, like chronic pain and the road to maturity, but, I hope, in a delightful, irrepressible way. How dearly I desire to help my readers find purpose through their hardship and victory over despair. It better be fun if I’m going to write about pain.
            Why do I write, and what are my dreams for all this labor? I want my fiction to be enjoyed across generations and across lifespans. I want to give to others what I received from the greatest of writers, from those who influenced me in my childhood, whose works transformed me. How many books do you know that a parent can read and reread at the dinner table, with captivating content for everyone—boys and girls, young and old? How many such books do grandparents keep front and center on their shelves for the day their grandkids are old enough and mature enough to read them together? That’s what I’m writing.
            Last week I read Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen. Her themes of marriage and good moral character have resonated for two hundred years. My deepest themes overlap with hers—marriage and maturation—and I hope my heroes compare favorably to hers.
            My first 120,000-word volume is a romantic adventure in the Stone Age. In the prime of life, my Juliet and Romeo respond to a divine call. They escape their dystopian homelands, overcome obstacles, acquire fame through hardship, develop loyal followers, and enter their promised land. Once there, (Book II), they hope to defeat an ancient curse, set many captives free, and become the mother and father of a new people. Theirs is a Sarai and Abram story, full of song, and action, and the fulfillment of prophecy, but with roles reversed. Sarai is called first. She will have twelve daughters, the mothers of twelve tribes.
            The heroes’ adventures are as physical and swashbuckling as Horatio Hornblower’s in the eponymous CS Forester series and equal to Shackleton’s in Endurance. Like Tolkien’s hobbits, who are guided by Gandalf, and Homer’s Odysseus, who is driven by love, the heroes venture far for a serious purpose. Their feats of greatness and their discoveries are immortalized through epic song. There’s gravity to their calling—to the integrity of their marriage and to the defeat of ultimate evil—and yet there’s a lightheartedness, a silliness. Think of The Princess Bride. Kids laugh.
            Dear Reader, now you know. I’ve attached a humor column by Dave Barry for your amusement. Four times I have emulated his technique, trying to write a post as good as his. Perhaps two weeks from now, if I find the courage, I’ll show you one of my attempts. I’ve been told by caring readers that my humor tends toward the serious side—perhaps because I know too much about life, death, and suffering—and yet I do love to laugh! It makes me feel better. So I keep trying.
            Enjoy “The Story of Roger and Elaine,” and thanks for bearing with me. Tell a friend, if you’d be so kind, to follow along. My first two epic adventures are almost ready, Books I and II, where only those who suffer the most save the day.

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Dave Barry: Roger and Elaine
(from Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys)

            Let’s say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named Elaine. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them is seeing anybody else.
             And then, one evening when they’re driving home, a thought occurs to Elaine, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: ”Do you realize that, as of tonight, we’ve been seeing each other for exactly six months?” And then there is silence in the car. To Elaine, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: “I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he’s been feeling confined by our relationship; maybe he thinks I’m trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he doesn’t want, or isn’t sure of.”
            And Roger is thinking: “Gosh. Six months”.
            And Elaine is thinking: “But, hey, I’m not so sure I want this kind of relationship, either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I’d have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily toward . . . I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really even know this person?”
            And Roger is thinking: . . . “so that means it was . . . let’s see ….February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer’s, which means . . . lemme check the odometer . . .Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil change here.”
            And Elaine is thinking: “He’s upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I’m reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed — even before I sensed it — that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I bet that’s it. That’s why he’s so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings. He’s afraid of being rejected.”
            And Roger is thinking: “And I’m gonna have them look at the transmission again. I don’t care what those morons say, it’s still not changing gear right. And they better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It’s late spring, and this thing is changing like a damn rubbish truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600.”
            And Elaine is thinking: “He’s angry. And I don’t blame him. I’d be angry, too. God, I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can’t help the way I feel. I’m just not sure.”
            And Roger is thinking: “They’ll probably say it’s only a 90-day warranty. That’s exactly what they’re gonna say, the scumballs.”
            And Elaine is thinking: “Maybe I’m just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I’m sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my self-centred, schoolgirl romantic fantasy.”
            And Roger is thinking: “Warranty? They want a warranty? I’ll give them a damn warranty. I’ll take their warranty and stick it right up their…. ..”
            “Roger,” Elaine says aloud.
            “What?” says Roger, startled.
            ”Please don’t torture yourself like this,” she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. ”Maybe I should never have . . Oh God, I feel so ….’ (She breaks down, sobbing.)
            ”What?” says Roger.
            ”I’m such a fool,” Elaine sobs. ”I mean, I know there’s no knight. I really know that. It’s silly. There’s no knight, and there’s no horse.”
            ”There’s no horse?” says Roger.
            ”You think I’m a fool, don’t you?” Elaine says.
            ”No!” says Roger, glad to finally know the correct answer.
            ”It’s just that . . . It’s that I . . . I need some time,” Elaine says.
            (There is a 15-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one that he thinks might work.)
            ”Yes,” he says.
            (Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand.)
            ”Oh, Roger, do you really feel that way?” she says.
            ”What way?” says Roger.
            ”That way about time,” says Elaine.
            ”Oh,” says Roger. ”Yes.”
            (Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse. At last she speaks.)
            ”Thank you, Roger,” she says.
            ”Thank you,” says Roger.
            Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when Roger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of chips, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechoslovakians he never heard of. A tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it’s better if he doesn’t think about it. (This is also Roger’s policy regarding world hunger.)
            The next day Elaine will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification. They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it, either.
            Meanwhile, Roger, while playing tennis one day with a mutual friend of his and Elaine’s, will pause just before serving, frown, and say:
            ”Norm, did Elaine ever own a horse?’ 

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