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Tuesday, August 30, 2005Romance Novels Were My Isaac Part II of "What Made You Switch From General Market to Inspirational?"I've been a romantic at heart my whole life. My favorite fairy tales all included Prince Charming saving the day. My favorite movies were Sound of Music and Oklahoma. My favorite part of Nancy Drew books were the on-again-off-again relationship she had with dreamy Ned Nickerson. When I discovered romance novels at the age of sixteen, there was no looking back. At that time, the majority of heroines were of high moral fiber. As the years went on, however, the moral bar for these women kept creeping lower and lower until at one point I thought, Lord, what if my baby girls turn out to be romantics? They'll read about these women who live outside our value circle and have no qualms about it whatsoever. Now mind you, I'm not saying I haven't stepped outside that "value circle" many a time. I have. The difference between me and the characters in the books, though, was that at some point, I began to feel remorse over my choice. And would then begin to back peddle (or as we Christians like to call it, "repent"). Yet, these characters were perfectly fine with their choices and went on to live Happily Ever After. So, the Lord challenged me to write a mainstream romance that had all the components of a general market romance, except that both my protagonists were Christians. That's it. Other than that, He gave me full creative license. So that's what I did. In the meanwhile, I was voraciously devouring every romance novel I could get my hands on. You should have seen my collection of novels. It read like a "Who's Who" in the romance industry--many of them signed. This love affair with romance novels went on for about twenty-plus years, until one day the Lord revealed to me that these novels had a stronghold on me. I would literally read one, after another, after another without any break in between. I would forsake my duties at home. No hot meals, no clean house, no clean clothes, no bedtime stories. Nothing was more important to me than my romance novels. And God was a bit annoyed. He convicted me big time (a story too long to tell here, but which I share when speaking to various groups) and the long and the short of it was ... I'd placed my love for consuming those books above Him. They were, in fact, an idol. I had to give them up. Completely. This was a kind of Abraham and Isaac story. You know, where God makes Abraham take his son up the mountain and offer him as a sacrifice? Same kind of thing, except, pathetic as it sounds, my "son" was my consumption of romance novels. You'd have thought I had lost a loved one. I balled. I begged. I pleaded. And before that day was through, I had filled dozens of lawn-and-leaf bags with my idols ... and drove them down the street and put them in the recycling bin. The hard covers. The soft covers. The signed copies. All of them. This all happened while I was doing my chore system thing. Tomorrow, what happened next. Meanwhile, be sure to enter our contest!
posted by Deeanne at 1:14 PM
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6 Comments:
LOL. Great testimony, Deeanne. I have to confess when I got to the recycling bin line, all I could think of was "Why didn't she donate them to the library?"
11:43 AM
Hey Gina--You and I coulda split 'em between us and saved Miz Dee the whole trip! Actually, I'd luv to see a longer discussion of the romance novel thang, if anyone's ever up for it. So Miz Dee--what is your policy with romance novels and your teen daughters? Or am I jumping the gun again?
1:03 PM
True Confessions of a Famous Romance novelist! Dee, you are surprisingly honest.
Blessings,
marvin
1:50 PM
Actually, Gina, I didn't think of the library, but I did think of my the used book store my mom frequents. Think of the credit she could have gotten! But, then, I didn't want books that had been signed to me personally to float around to who knows where and end up back in the hands of the author who signed it--many of whom are dear friends and who write splendidly and whose stories I loved. How would I ever be able to explain?
Still, there were the ga-zillion unsigned copies. But my inner Spirit warned me that to go through those bags and bags of books one-by-one would be way too tempting.
I would begin to question if I'd really heard God correctly and if perhaps just keeping this one and that one would be so bad. So, I closed the trunk and made myself go do the deed.
If it makes you feel any better,though, I'm a member of our local "Friends of the Library" and I donate as often as I can. :-)
2:40 PM
Another good question, Barb, and one I hadn't thought to discuss. Will add it to the list of "things to blog about."
2:41 PM
See the ever practical side of me says "donate." But I understand where you're coming from. In your situation, recyle bin was the wise choice.
gina
3:33 PM
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