Literary Banking: Investing In Your Imagination

Oxford Creative Writing Master Class
with author Douglas Bond

How is a literary tour of middle England like making deposits in the bank of your imagination? Let me show you by giving you a window into the most recent Oxford Creative Writing Master Class.

I wrote the first draft of this post while unwinding with Stilton, Hojiblanca olives, and Languedoc, in drenching London after an invigorating week of guiding seven aspiring writers on a literary tour of middle England (or is it middle earth?).

Let me nudge the door ajar and give you a peek at one brief episode of that inspiring week just concluded. Join me as I rehearse our opening day's literary adventure together:

• First stop, Martyrs' Monument, rooting our literary tour in history, in this case, the tragic history of the Bishop martyrs of 1555-56.
• Then off to climb Anglo-Saxon St Michael's Tower (c. 1054) and view Oxford from above, get the lay of things.
• In the 13th c nave of the City Church, we discussed liturgy, the Reformation, transubstantiation, the rediscovery of biblical truth, Lewis's first communion December 4, 1914, where he "ate and drank condemnation to myself," as an atheist coerced by his father to be confirmed in the Church of England.
• Then strolled past Christopher Wren's 17th c Sheldonian Theatre where Lewis, still raw from the trenches of WW I, read his winning essay May 24, 1921, placing him squarely on the rising academic radar of Oxford.
• Dinner at The King's Arms, the eatery with the highest IQ per square inch of anywhere in Oxford.
• Stop over at the doorway of one of JRR Tolkien's houses, and onward to Merton College Chapel for Holy Week evensong, sung by magnificent college choir (ranks with King's College Chapel Choir, Cambridge, in my opinion), music by William Byrd, with texts by Martin Luther, and concluding with our joining the choir singing Isaac Watts, When I Survey (to Edward Miller's Rockingham Old, the proper tune, not the Lowell Mason ditty we Americans sing it to).
• Then country drive (on the wrong side of the road) to Banbury Hill Farm, near Blenheim Palace in the nearby Cotswolds, and cheese and chocolate as we launch into our first of many tutorial times together. 

Each day was filled with wonderful and memorable literary experiences that are designed to give expansive breadth and substantive depth to the writer's mind and imagination. We cannot write well if we do not have a well-nurtured mind, heart, and imagination. I sometimes refer to what we are doing as making deposits in the bank of our mind, imagination, and heart, there to be drawn out as we mature, develop our writing skills, and are presented with opportunities orchestrated by the kind providence of our good God. Think of it as literary banking, and now is the gathering, saving, storing up season of life. What a week of literary banking lay ahead!

After experiencing that first evensong at Merton College Chapel (think Anglo-Saxon scholar JRR Tolkien) with my Oxford Creative Writing Master Class writers (think unforgettable intensive writing experience on location amidst the vaulted splendors where so many greats honed their writing craft), on our second day, I had my scholars settle into the hushed majesty of an Oxford college chapel, rain pattering against the stained glass, and write to a prompt.

Decades of teaching have taught me to require nothing of my students that I don't equally require of myself. Hence, I wrote a sonnet for them to parse and scan, and to use as a working illustration of just what iambic pentameter is and why it is so valuable for a writer to submit to the conventional forms of poetry:

I sensed that there were angels here, 

With awe-filled bowing, wing beats drawing near--

Or is it Merton's chorister that I hear, 

Medieval tiles endure their fickle feet?

Amidst the splendors grand, I take my seat, 

Agape at Gothic grandeur, soaring high; 

My mind awhirl with wonderment, I sigh

As choral songs arise and ancient stones reply.

The tapers bow as lyric praise redounds, 

Mute hearts, yet feeling voices, heavenly sounds 

Of Anglo-Saxon accents, blithe and strong, 

Lift glory, laud the Father, with their song. 

Ennobled for the moment, I belong, 

But it's for endless anthems that I long.

(Oxford, March 24, 2018, after evensong at Merton College Chapel).

I am podcasting more details from the recent OCWMC at The Scriptorium. Browse the archive of The Scriptorium for writing tutorial, vignettes of Church history, interviews with other authors, and more, then follow and share.

Join me on the next Oxford Creative Writing Master Class. There are two OCWMCs in 2019 but they will fill fast:

Spring: April 2-9, 2019

Summer: June 15-22, 2019

Space is limited so visit  bondbooks.net and contact me today to reserve your place. #oxfordcreativewritingmasterclass

New Biography of Savonarola Off to Publisher (EP)

This is my first co-authored book, and what a delightful experience it has been to collaborate with my friend and colleague, Douglas McComas, founder of INKBLOTS! The book is part of the short biography series published by Evangelical Press (EP) in the UK, with Michael Haykin in the role of series editor (the same series as my biography on Augustus Toplady). We found Savonarola's life fascinating.  He was one of the pre-Reformers God raised up in the 15th-century to prepare the way for men like Luther and Calvin in the Reformation. But it was a rough time for him.

As we read Savonarola, it's no exaggeration to say that we fell in love with this flawed but deeply passionate lover of Christ. How could we not do so with a man who prayed like this,  “O Lord! Arise, and come to deliver thy Church from the hands of devils, from the hands of tyrants, from the hands of iniquitous prelates.”

In his prison meditations the night before his martyrdom, Savonarola wrestled with himself in soliloquy, “Do you have faith?  Yes I have it. Good: this is a great grace of God, for faith comes of his gift, not of your works, that no one may glory in them.” And that from the pen of a Dominican friar. Though not fully orbed in his theology, we found Savonarola not only to be on a trajectory away from medieval synergism, but growing clearer and clearer about the doctrines of free grace in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

One of my readers said after reading a draft, "Your portrayal of Savonarola himself succeeded in that test of a multi-dimensional figure, towering in his allegiance to Christ and cross but yet flawed, a bit irascible yet brilliant, fervent yet failing according to...well, Machiavellian standards. Fascinating!" 

We found Savonarola's life to be exciting, dangerous, and tragic--but ultimately a triumphant one. All by grace alone, with his mind and heart riveted on Christ Jesus alone.

Read an excerpt and learn more. Audio excerpt coming soon...

Author Interview: Another P&R author asked for interview--probing questions

With Sinclair Ferguson in Geneva, 2009

Brock Eastman, another P&R author contacted me a while ago and asked if he could interview me for his blog. He asked a number of good questions that got me thinking and then reflecting on how I began to write, why I keep writing, as well as questions about what I eat or drink when writing and if I listen to music when writing. Fun stuff. Here were his questions and my answers.

 Q: Everyone seems to have a "how I got published" story. What is yours?

It was back in the days before 9/11 when more publishers were accepting unsolicited manuscript submissions. I sent sample chapters and a synopsis of my Mr Pipes and the British Hymn Makers to seven publishers. Eight days later I had a phone call from one of them enthusiastic about the project. A couple of months later I had another publisher call and we chatted for a long time about future book ideas simmering in my imagination. Eleven years later, and somehow, unaccountably, without any childhood burning passion to be an author—I have managed to write a few books (signing my 20^th book contract today, in fact).

 Q: When did you realize you wanted to become a writer?

I always tried to get out of writing when I was in high school. So in journalism class I was the photographer, shooting pictures and working in the darkroom. I tried to make myself indispensible as a photographer in large part so I wouldn’t have to write articles. It just seemed like too much work. Then in college something started to change. I got so I was secretly looking forward to writing those history essays. And then I submitted an article to the college newspaper and started writing more of those. But it would be years later when I was working on my master’s thesis that I began to realize I wanted to do more writing. Then I wrote a few more articles, this time ones that I was getting paid for writing. But there’s a big difference between a 1,500 word article and a 70,000 word book.

My older kids, to whom I regularly read aloud in the evening, began asking me to TELL a story, not just read one. I hemmed and hawed. Then started in on a story of frontier days (not very good, I’m sure, and made up on the fly); it lasted for a month or more. They wanted another, and another. I felt cornered, but there was to be no escaping.

Then one sleepless night in 1999, ideas started cascading about using contemporary fiction as a frame tale in which to explore the lives and poetry of the church’s hymn writers. I sat up in bed, furiously scribbling the ideas on notepaper. And off I went.

 Q: Tell me a little about your books.

I have written primarily fiction for young adult readers, most of which is historical fiction published with P & R Publishing. But I have also managed to write several non-fiction books, biographies with Reformation Trust and Evangelical Press. I call these my big-people books.


 Q: What are some of the strongest influences on your writing (and several other questions combined from the list below, if that’s okay)?

I would need to go back to my childhood to answer this one. My father was a mathematician and engineer, but more importantly, an earnest, godly Christian man, a man who, because of his dyslexia, had a difficult time reading aloud. Nevertheless, he daily read Scripture aloud with us at our family devotions, slow, methodical, one-word-at-a-time slogging it sometimes was. But I came to appreciate deeply his reading because I think it represented just how much attention he was determined to give to every word of that great Book, every jot, every tittle.

Meanwhile, my mother, a college English professor, loved great literature and read aloud to us from Shakespeare and many other classic authors, including Chaucer in Middle English! We loved it. My mom would take us to children’s theater and even adult plays. I’ll never forget, “A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!”

In college I began reading serious theological books, works of the Reformers and Puritans. Honestly looking back on it, I was too often motivated to do this because I thought it made me a big shot, a heady, erudite dude. But, as is God’s kind way with me, he was mercifully feeding me, often in spite of my flawed motives, with important foundational understanding of the nature of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. These truths are the most important influences on my writing, and if they ever cease to be so, may I give my energies to crocheting pot holders. They are also the most important truths that I want my writing to adorn and that I want to make attractive to my readers.

I have been influenced by many great authors, mostly dead ones, but not all dead. Writers of imaginative literature like Lewis, Rosemary Sutcliff, Chesterton, Arthur Ransome, and poets like Donne, Cowper, Rossetti. But always I come back to the great theologian preachers like Spurgeon. If I can borrow from two of my all time favorites (Augustine quoted by Calvin), “I count myself among those who learn as they write and write as they learn.” I regularly read and listen to the best of the not-dead proclaimers of the good news today: Sproul, Ferguson, Piper, Begg, Horton, Tullian T., Driscoll, and others.   

 Q: How do you write? What’s a normal writing day like for you?

I write my fiction after a bike ride or a good walk to a quiet location where I’m not likely to be interrupted. Sometimes that is a dark corner in the library of the university not far from my home. Other times I write in the loafery, a room downstairs that used to be the bedroom of my oldest son. With caution, I also write in the summer in my classroom, especially when writing non-fiction biographies where I need to be near piles of books that don’t pack around real well on my bike. But this can be a problem, because well-meaning colleagues poke their head in for a chat. I’m a social sort of guy so I always like the interaction, however totally it derails my train of thought and sets me back sometimes hours.

 Q: What was your favorite book as a teen?

Maybe Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates and Great Expectations.

 Q: Describe your feelings when you opened the box and saw the first published copies of your very first book?

It was really thrilling to open the box and pull out my first book, that shiny new book called Mr Pipes and the British Hymn Makers—and then to see my name on the cover, but it also carried with it considerable anxiety: will this book only be the proof that I am an utter failure as an author, the badge of my literary ineptitude? We authors, many of us, are miserably insecure, but that’s when I am looking to myself and my skills (real, perceived, or longed-for) and efforts. It is so liberating to refocus my energy and purpose in writing. Stunk and White in the final chapter urge writers to write for an audience of one—themselves. But the Christian author wants to write for an audience of One, Jesus Christ, plus nobody. The best writing results when I disappear—I must decrease; Christ must increase; only then I’m starting to get things right.

 Q: What can you tell us about any future releases you have planned?

There are a few new books of mine scheduled to release in 2012. In May by new biography with Evangelical Press, AUGUSTUS TOPLADY, Debtor to Mercy Alone will be available. In June THE THUNDER, my adult novel on John Knox releases along with my 8^th-century Anglo-Saxon tale, HAND OF VENGEANCE. And in September my biography with Ligonier’s Reformation Trust, THE DOXOLOGICAL GENIUS OF ISAAC WATTS will be available. Just signing a contract for a biography on Girolamo Savonarola, an amazingly passionate, fearless forerunner of the Reformation in decadent Florence, the birthplace of the Renaissance.   

I have several other things in the cooker, both fiction and non-fiction, including a childrens picture book in verse that explores themes from the book of Job

  Q: Coke or Pepsi?

Neither, thank you very much. They upset my stomach, as does—unforgivable as it is to admit this living as close to Seattle as I do—coffee, yuck!

 Q: Soft shell or Hard Shell tacos?

Soft

 Q: Favorite place to vacation?

We love sailing in the San Juan Islands north of us in Washington State. My wife’s favorite city on the planet is Strasbourg, France, and I think I agree with her on this one. Marvelous city with charming old-world sites and lots of church history connections—and good food and drink!

 Q: Favorite season?

Autumn

 Q: Do you have a particular drink or food you consume when you write? Like coco, raspberry tea, animal crackers?

I sometimes munch on trail mix and often drink tea. My all-time favorite tea drink is a London Fog Latte, made with Earl Grey tea. For herb tea I love Licorice spice—yummy and fuels the imagination.

 Q: Do you have a favorite Bible verse?

Too many to narrow it down really, though Psalm 93 and 16 are two of favorite Psalms.

 Q: Favorite pasta dish?

Smoked salmon fettuccine

 Q: Do you listen to music while you write? If so what are some examples?

I am a lover of great music! Just recently listened through Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion, following the libretto with my 8-year-old son. Though that may seem like a stretch to some (and like child abuse to others), he loved it and asked to listen some more after we’d finished it (we played chess some of the time while listening too). But I generally only listen to music in the editing and revision stages of writing and then I’m pretty selective. Then it would be Bach or Handel or maybe even Alison Kraus and some bluegrass to mix things up a bit.

I do, however, intentionally listen to music that is part of the story, as when my protagonist was in Paris with John Paul Jones in Guns of Providence and they heard Haydn’s latest symphony, or when writing about the Anglo-Saxon harp being played with Beowulf in the mead hall in Hand of Vengeance, or when writing about Toplady or Watts and their hymns, or bagpipe music when writing the Crown & Covenant Trilogy (which could be played live by either of my two eldest sons) that sort of thing.

PASTORS & WIVES RETREAT, Olympic Refuge

My wife and I had such a delightful time at the conference. Jim and Robbie Edgrin are some of the most gracious visionaries I have ever met. And the Olympic Refuge is an absolutely beautiful location tucked in the mountains bordering the Olympic National Park; the lodge and all of its rustic splendor is the result of many years of labor and of partnership with many Christians in the region. There was a variety of folks there (about 70), from many different churches, from community churches to Christian Reformed churches. And there were chaplains, active duty and retired, Dr. Edgrin among them; I think I counted at least four colonels in the gathering. The result was many warm and edifying conversations and prayer together.

The Hastings family ministered to us with their family music. How a family of nine can all play the violin so well I will never know! And the banjo and guitar. The final sung Amen in the great hall was a fitting finale to a wonderful day of the Lord's presence and blessing--for us, and we trust for all who attended. [See video below].

I was asked to bring two messages. The first from Luke 18:15ff on the difference between being CHILDISH and CHILD-LIKE. And the second from Zechariah 4:6-10 on not despising the day of SMALL THINGS and that it is God by his sovereign and gracious Spirit who builds his church, and he does so using small, weak, insignificant folks, like Rutherford, Bunyan, and Knox.

Here's the audio on each message for any who care to listen:
Luke 18:15ff CHILDISH or CHILD-LIKE
Zechariah 4:6-10 SMALL THINGS 

Join us for the HYMNS FOR ALL TIME TOUR, August, 2012!

Interview today with KNOWING THE TRUTH talk radio 660, Greenvile, SC

Just finished an interview with Kevin Boling on Knowing the Truth radio in South Carolina this morning (our time). We talked about THE MIGHTY WEAKNESS OF JOHN KNOX, and especially about how Knox was a man empowered not by his or personality, or methods, or technology, or erudition, or status--he had none of these. Knox was a nobody in his world, a timorous and fearful nobody. Of the Reformation in Scotland, Knox wrote, "God raised up simple men in great abundance." And he considered himself one of those simple men. "I quake, I fear, I tremble," he said of going into the pulpit to preach Jesus and his free grace in the gospel.

For any who would like to listen in on the interview, here's the direct link to KNOWING THE TRUTH RADIO.

Off to Scotland! Crown & Covenant Tour begins (for us)

After a flurry of final packing, checking on reservations at hotels and restaurants, making sure we have every piece of every day of the tour in order, we're about to hit the sack. We invite you to follow the tour on this blog (begins officially June 28th, though we may do a post or two before then). We appreciate your prayers for the tour, for the families that are participating, young children to senior travelers, for safety, good health, enriching experiences, life-long memories, inspiring connections to our spiritual forebears, fellowship and conversations with believers in Christ from various places in the US and Canada, but most of all that King Jesus would high and lifted up, and known and loved more intimately by each of us.