Thank you for your prayers and encouragement. If life has taught me nothing else, I have
learned that I am less than what I can be if I do not have others working with
me. So I pray y'all will feel free to
suggest how I can improve my story telling, too.
My friends here in the prison frequently ask,
"How long did it take you to write a book?" You realize I am not able to use computers
and modern technology. I wrote the first
part of the first draft on a ’40's or ’50's era Smith-Corona portable. She was sweet but could be temperamental, and
I did not realize how slow the machine was until I was blessed with an upgrade
to a Swintec electronic machine. Anyhow,
Olive U is not a long story. And my
Boss made the writing a real pleasure. Still, what with prison being prison, I
started working on the novel in 2009, had to take a long break when I was
transferred to another prison, and finally picked it up and finished it in
2013/14. All together, I would estimate
I worked on Olive U three months.
Many of those days were 16 hours or more, but I loved every minute of
it. Drove some roommates nuts and still get a death threat or two (not really),
but I had a blast getting out of prison and hanging around with Pastor Best and
Brother Eli and the boys.
Olive U
was inspired by the testimonies of mighty men of God like Peter Fluer of the
Newsboys and Dave Krumpe, a volunteer chaplain at the California Substance
Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison at Corcoran, California (CSATF/SP). Both these men told of serving God before
they really knew Him. We had a great
praise and worship team in the chapel at A Facility back in 2008 and had
included them in a couple of well-received dramas for the brothers. We were praying for inspiration on a fresh
Christmas play in 2008 when God gave me Olive U, the play. After that performance, one old timer as he
was wheeling out of the chapel in a chair looked up at me and said, "I've
been going to church all my life, and that's the best Christmas service
I've-ever been to!" Our praise team was phenomenal--they
really were.
The next year, I had some time and asked God what I
should write next. He told me to make a
novel out of Olive U. And here we
are.
I was a fairly new believer. --Well, maybe. I guess that depends on your doctrine. I had accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior as a
child, joined the Navy at 17, then murdered two men in 1986. My first 20 years
in prison, I was just waiting to die, really. I did not think I would ever get
out. But then 1 came to my senses or He
called me again or He simply called me in 2005. Anyhow, I had been inspired as
a young-in-the-faith Christian by the likes of Sheldon's In His Steps. I loved the evangelistic message and the
simplicity of his prose. In His Steps
and other classic Christian novels are beautiful in their simplicity.
