Yeah, I know it’s been a while….
I should explain why I haven’t posted anything since . . . I’d rather not check. My plan was to take a “month off’ from writing the blog, and that turned into this. Because everybody loves excuses so much, I thought I’d share some of mine:
- I’ve written a lot of posts. For those of you rolling your eyes (I’m looking at you, dad), check out my “old posts” catalogue. I’ve written a bunch on evangelicals and cynicism. And so, so, much on Trump. I got to the point where I wanted to write about literally anything else. Plus, I had a nice fiction project I’ve been toying with.1
- Writing took a lot of time. As you may have noticed (and if you didn’t, don’t tell me), my blog posts were carefully-written. They had logical flow, were polished to a varnish, and were far longer than blog posts should be. They also took a long time. Time that I, as a lawyer, husband, and father of two, didn’t have in abundance (come on Dad, stop rolling your eyes!).
- Most significantly, I’d started losing confidence in my topic. I’ve written about this before,2 but after Trump steamrolled to the presidency, and seemed to confirm every negative stereotype about evangelicals in the process, writing nice things about evangelicalism became a slog.
This was all made more complicated by a not-so-hidden secret about this project. The reason I started this blog in the first place was…
*Looks over left shoulder*
Because….
*Looks over right shoulder*
Well, the thing is….
*Leans in and lowers voice*
I’ve been working on a book deal. I have an agent and everything. And part of getting a book deal is developing your “platform.” Read: blog.
But here’s the thing about books. They take a long time. I first pitched it in 2015–before Trump was even a thing. That already seems like a quaint forgotten era. But Trump got me worried that if I kept writing a book about resisting cynicism toward evangelicals, I would get lumped in with the Robert Jeffress and Jerry Fallwell Jr.’s of the world. Then I’d end up like Josh Harris and have to do TED talks about how super wrong my old book was.
*Shivers, and stares into the horizon*
But here’s the good news. I’ve given my topic a looooooot of thought, and I’m confident I can still say something both true and valuable. I hope.
I’ve also decided to change the format of these blogs. Rather than the long, carefully-crafted narrative essays that took forever, my new blogs are going to be:
- Pithier (somewhere around 200 words on average)3
- Contain only one or two key thoughts
- Be (gulp) only lightly edited.
That editing part is especially terrifying, but it has to be done. It’s the standard practice for these sorts of things.4 And hopefully by the time it’s all said and done, I’ll have a real book with a real message.
So in the meantime, I’d ask you to please…
- Follow the blog. I’m learning that publishers care a lot about this.
- Tell all your friends. Please. Also, please clap.
- Pray. And yes, I’m serious. Ever since this project started, I’ve been startled by how much of a terrifying responsibility it can be to have a “platform.”
One last thing–expect a new post once a week at first. Maybe twice a week if I get faster at post-writing.
Thanks!
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1 Yes, I’ll tell you about the fiction project. But be prepared–I’ve done a lot of world-building for it. And it involves dinosaurs.
2 At least, I think I have. It’s getting hard to keep track of those posts…
3 Yes, I know that this current blog is way over 200 words. But give me some time to adjust, all right?
4 He whispers to himself in the dead of night.
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