The good news is the sequel to my novel Hope’s Motel is well underway. What’s interesting is how the process is different from writing the first one.
My how time flies! Hard to believe it’s been six years since the publication of my debut novel, but here we are. Graduation from nursing school and entering that new career surely contributed to the delay. These landmarks show the way along the path of trusting the Lord, listening in prayer and doing/obeying the instructions by His Holy Spirit.
All of this has brought growth. And another novel, not to mention. From this vantage point, I am receiving ideas for the sequel. As my readers should know by now, I write what I am led to write, not what my soul’s creativity shows me. In this way, God harnesses the creativity He has put in me for His purposes.
Confirmation has come forth. The astounding accuracy of the prophetic tone of my second novel is one example, which not only predicted much of what happened in 2020 but also was rushed (by the Holy Spirit) for publication in 2019.
So it is that I’m noticing how God is weaving my current WIP into the times. A new movie featuring the wonderful brother in the Lord, Jim Cazaviel, is telling the world about human trafficking, sending this issue into high relief on the world’s list of concerns (as it should be). My sequel is featuring this theme, as well, has been for months before we could know how important the theme would become this year.
But what I want to talk about is the process of writing this book. No longer plagued by doubts or anxiety about my ability to complete a novel, I find myself confident in the face of the many obstacles which are encountered in telling a full novel story. I’ve been here before, and God has always provided. I know I’ll have the answer to plot tangles and character glitches. It’ll be good once God and I co-write this thing. I say this after seeing it starting to take shape.
The sequel, I’ve come to realize after much prayer, will be different in one salient aspect: It will no longer be exclusively told from the first person.
First person writing was new for me when I wrote Hope’s Motel. The issue with it was how to tell a story involving lots of other characters without switching into their heads. This is what we know as point of view, by the way, affectionately called POV in writer’s jargon. With Hope’s, there was always a way to get the story across by putting Hope where she could tell it from her perspective. Dialogue filled in where her own understanding was not enough.
In the sequel, for which I still have no working title, I will delve into the point of view of the other characters. This is really different. There will be whole chapters dedicated to another character’s thoughts and actions. I’m not sure how much this will change the character of the book. I do believe it will give depth to it.
What I am sure of though is that the book’s tone will match the first one: The beautiful perspective of a life of faith, lived in full confidence of God’s love and His leading, without fear, and without compromise with the world’s confusion and drama. Because, after all, it’s Hope’s sequel.
One snippet which may or may not make the cut into the novel describes how Hope has been doing all this time. I don’t wish to give a spoiler but as you readers know, she is now a married lady, very happily, too. She has also grown.
God gives you a dream. Like a suit or a dress that’s been tailored just for you that hangs in your bedroom. You look it over, deciding whether you want to wear it, admiring it, thinking maybe it’s too much, or maybe it’s not enough. After awhile, though, you try it on and you love the fit. You love how it moves with you. Pretty soon you are calling it yours. But really, it was God’s dream to start. Now it’s both your dream, God’s and yours, because God has shared it with you. He knows you can fulfill it, in fact, He’s created you with all the potential for it from your inception. So when God gives a dream, and it becomes yours, He touches it with fire and your whole being lights up with it. It becomes yours just as if it always was. God is good like that. He shares. Soon the dream is carrying you as much as you carry it. It can carry you through all the world’s love and all the world’s sorrow, until you understand you are free. Yet, like the horse that needs no bit or bridle, your heart returns again and again to serve the will of the master, the dispenser of every good dream.
Hope is back.
The world is confusing. Hope has it sorted out.
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Author Danyelle Wolfe Read 