Decision Made

I've been working on my present WIP wondering what kind of novel it would be. Specifically, I was wondering whether I would deal with religion again. I think I've made up my mind and honestly, it has freed my soul.

I guess this big decision resulted from my latest experiences with the Christian Tour. Frankly I am traumatized. Or rather, retraumatized. We fibro folks are all very easily stressed and wow, this was seriously stressful.

Basically, I had forgotten how judgemental Christians could be. I'm a recluse; what can I say? Hubby and I got majorly trampled pretty nastily by some racist ministers who didn't like interracial marriage. It certainly turned me off church people. So my avoidance of Christians (except for those in my lovely spanish-speaking Ecuadorean church) is not easy judgementalism...just a desire for mental safety. God understands this.

I remember a visiting minister walking over to me in church one day and saying, "Do you know why you are here? Because it is safe for you here." He didn't know me, but God had told him all my heart. The holy spirit didn't come up to me and say, "You're here because you judge christians." The holy spirit doesn't work like that. The holy spirit knew that the reasons for my avoidance of Christians was that I needed a safe haven from Christian cruelty.

But by allowing my book to be judged by Christian reviewers I had unwittingly entered into the kind of Christian church I regularly avoid. I wrote Wind Follower as a kind of deal with God. Anything to heal my son, anything to heal my body. And no doubt, writing Wind Follower probably kept me alive. I truly believe that doing God's will can prolong one's life. So I don't want to not write Christian books if that's what God wants me to do. But I will definitely never ever again put myself up on a Christian reviewer torture rack again. For ten pages of sex in a 380 page book, I was treated like a sinful person leading people into sin. So, whether or not I ever write a Christian book again, I've realized that my audience -- my readers-- are not Christians. Christians are not going to be buyers of my book or give it a good word of mouth.

I am grateful for those who did the tour for me. Grateful for those who loved Wind Follower, and grateful to those who feel I dragged their pristine souls through filth. But I am especially grateful that I remembered again what it is like to venture into the christian world again and why I had sought out my safe Hispanic haven. I had truly forgotten all the stuff I went through because of judgmental Christians and wow, I feel almost as if I've been retraumatized. I'm just not healthy enough to deal with any more Christians. When one isn't sleeping one doesn't need to be up thinking about some Christian reviewer behaving as if you've written porn....simply because of ten pages in a 380 page book.

No, I don't need that.

The funny thing is right now I'm in a big battle with some atheists and muslims on a minorityspecfic group. Notwithstanding what atheists such as Stalin and what suicide bombers are doing, they're blaming me for the war in iraq, for killing homosexuals, for bombing abortion clinics, for the slave trade. If fibromyalgia didn't get me all sickly and stressed out, I'd think this was all so funny. Getting slammed by fundamental Christians at the same time I'm being slammed for being one. Well, I know you can imagine. From now on, I'm gonna do what my editor says and stop calling Wind Follower a Christian book.