CSFF Blog Tour – Randy Ingermanson and Double Vision, Day 2


I hate messing up. Especially at someone else’s expense. Yet, when I do, I so often see God’s grace at work. Just last week I messed up getting the March blog tour started, but I’ve seen God’s grace extended through a great group of bloggers who are making this tour great.

I’m particularly glad because, of all people, this was Randy Ingermanson‘s tour.

Randy has played a significant role in my writing. I mentioned yesterday that he is key for all Christian speculative writers because he broke a barrier that had been in place. Yes, the debris is still blocking a lot of progress, but more and more writers are stepping beyond it, something that would have been impossible had Randy not started pounding away at the structures that barred SFF from Christian publishing houses.

But Randy also has made a difference in my own writing. When I first attended the Mount Hermon Christian Writer’s Conference back in 2004, he and Brandilyn Collins co-taught a major morning fiction track for beginning and intermediate writers. Somewhere between 100-150 of us enjoyed 8 hours of excellent instruction. Imagine my surprise when I realized they both also manned a critique table in the afternoons and that I could have these knowledgeable, proficient writers actually give me feedback on my manuscript.

Our appointments were supposed to be 15 minutes in length, but Randy took the approach that he’d spend as much time as needed. My appointment was quite looooonng as I recall. 😀 Also invaluable.

When the 2005 Mount Hermon Conference rolled around, I discovered that Randy was teaching a mentoring clinic, meaning that he moderated and taught a group of 12 or so. Each of us submitted writing ahead of time and received critiques from the others, and from Randy. What a boon. I’m happy to report that a number of those writers have since had a novel or novella published. I know this because Randy went one step further and set up a Yahoo email group for us so we could stay in touch.

And now Randy has expanded his teaching to online helps. Even in 2004 he had an extensive section on his website dedicated to writer helps, but his work has grown.

I personally have subscribed to two of his e-zines: The Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine and The Mad Genius Writer E-zine. The first is self-explanatory. The second I’ll let you discover what it’s about on your own. 😉

There’s one point I don’t want to slide past. All of Randy’s writer helps would be nothing if he hadn’t first established his credibility with award-winning writing. If you have yet to discover Randy Ingermanson, the writer, I suggest you start with Double Vision.

As some of the other blog participants have pointed out, Randy’s character Dillion is one of the truly unique, memorable characters in Christian fiction. If nothing else, a writer can learn a great deal about “voice” by studying this novel. But apart from all the learning, this is an enjoyable story.

From yesterday’s posts, let me recommend a few you shouldn’t miss. Sharon Hinck posted her tribute to Randy and his influence on her writing (and hers is much more impressive than what I shared, because she has contracts for 7 books, after all! 😉 ). Both Karri Compton and John W. Otte have reviews of Double Vision.

I’d also like to welcome to the tour the Tsaba House Authors. Be sure to stop by their blog and leave a comment. And enjoy exploring the rest:

Published in: on March 20, 2007 at 9:14 am  Comments (8)