A Novel Story

Well, I’ve missed two Monday Memories in a row, now, but I’ve got a good excuse, and a pretty novel one, at that! First of all, our last couple of weeks have been pretty full of family things. It’s been great to have my aunt and uncle staying with us!

On Friday an idea for a group writing project exploded and took over my life. LOL! I now have about thirty Christian authors working under me. This will be the second Peculiar People project, and I’m probably going to get a business license for PP and make it official.

As most of you probably remember, the first Peculiar People project was a Chat-A-Book sci-fi, where a group of Christian authors gathered once a week to “act” out a storyline, ad lib. I am working on editing the rough draft of that into a radio drama format, and eventually we’d like to see it become a movie.

This new project will be a novel with each chapter written by a different author, and from a different character’s perspective, yet all the chapters will follow one story-line. We decided to use ourselves as the characters! Hehe! So our characters will have our names and have some similarities to us, but really not be us at all…if that makes any sense. ;-)

We got the idea on Friday, and the authors were ready to go right away. So I spent much of the weekend writing up a story-line, outlining it, detailing how the project would work, drawing up a contract, and contacting all the authors and answering and asking questions. *pant, pant* Here is a synopsis of the book.


A Peculiar People novel is coming in Winter 2006 to a bookstore near you!


A story of mystery and rumors, suspicion and betrayal.

Struggle Creek is a poor town. The people make enough to get by, and not much more. They are content to be who they are, where they are, hidden deep in the hills of Tennessee.

Their world is shaken when a huge silver...something…is found in the woods. Rumors fly as thick and wild as the mosquitoes…It’s a UFO, or a nuclear bomb, or a mad scientist hideout! It doesn’t help matters much when a group of young adults come meandering into town--clearly up to no good, and asking questions about The Thing. Strangers aren’t appreciated in Struggle Creek. The people keep pretty closed-mouthed about their own business, and the gang sure doesn’t much appreciate that.


A story of silence and pain.

Right in the middle of all the trouble, a single mother moves into town with her deaf son. The people aren’t too willing to accept yet another newcomer, especially after the boy seems to get mixed up in something to do with The Thing. It doesn’t help that they are unable to communicate much with him. About then, the mother finds out that she is dying. Only an expensive medical treatment in a far away state will save her.


But more than that, this is the story of a community. The story of faith drawing a town together, making them stand stronger than ever before.

In the midst of their troubles, the townspeople realize one thing. They can cross their arms and scowl. Or they can reach out, reach up, and let peace enter their town.

The local theater company owner decides she is going to do something new. The result is a production of faith and beauty that can be enjoyed by the hearing and deaf. The result is a community coming together to touch lives.