Guest post: "My Simple Hope for my Debut Novel, SECRET AGENT ANGEL," by Ray Sutherland

I began to write stories when I was in grade school, just for my own entertainment. The earliest I remember was in the sixth grade. I wrote that one on a stenographer’s pad-one chapter per page. I remember being disappointed that when I typed it, it didn’t fill a page.

I continued writing, off and on, mostly off, never finishing anything, until I began teaching. Nearly all of those stories are gone now. I have a couple left and while they aren’t embarrassing, they aren’t very good.

I have always been a reader of fiction with wide ranging tastes: science fiction, mystery, thrillers, historical fiction, whatever caught my fancy. Once as I was reading a Matt Helm secret agent novel by Donald Hamilton, it occurred to me that if angels are God’s secret agents, as Billy Graham said, there must be some really good stories that could be told. So, in Secret Agent Angel,  I told some of those stories from the point of view of the angel. While that turned out to be an interesting challenge and a lot of work, it also turned out to be a lot of fun as well. I also thought that it turned out rather well. I began writing for my own entertainment, and Secret Agent Angel certainly entertained me and my first readers. I greatly hope you will be entertained and uplifted, too.

Since I am a full-time college professor as well as a writer, my writing day begins in the evening after supper. On a typical writing day I spend some time reviewing what I wrote on the previous session, then continue to write. Writing itself isn’t very exciting to write about. I sit at a desk and pound on a computer keyboard. The excitement all comes inside my mind where the creative process happens. That is the part of writing that I really love-creating stories and then putting them into words on paper and watching it all come together. Once a project is completed, there is still proofreading, editing, and corrections to be done. I don’t do extensive rewriting-my goal is to get it right the first time-but neither do I assume that my first draft is perfect. So I read the work with a critical eye, looking for errors, continuity errors, and especially for problems that need to be fixed. Fixing problems is editing, not rewriting.

I also do a lot of reading as a part of the writing process. My favorite writers give me a lot of inspiration. I don’t try to imitate them, but they inspire me to do good work. Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Robert A. Heinlein, Keith Laumer, Tom Clancy, Harold Coyle, Donald Hamilton, Isaac Asimov, Ernest Haycox, Michael Crichton, and-of course-J. R. R. Tolkein, and Shakespeare all make want to do my best. I don’t fool myself that my work is in that league, but I believe that my book is entertaining in its own league.

A standard writers’ adage is to write what you know and in Secret Agent Angel, I followed that advice. I haven’t yet met any real angels, but most of the situations in which Samuel the secret agent angel finds himself  are very similar to things I have done in my own life. I was assigned to tanks in the army. My first job was loading and unloading trucks. The owner of the truck company also owned a truck stop, so I spent some time in it and other truck stops as well. I have visited many hospitals in the course of my pastoral duties. All of these settings appear in my book. One part which does not come from my own experience is the chapter about porters on the Ho Chi Minh trail just before the Tet offensive. I had to do a lot of research for that, but I enjoyed that challenge.

My hope is that you will have as much fun reading my book as I had in writing it.

Ray Sutherland is a Kentucky native who grew up on a farm outside of Bowling Green. He served in the Army, spent two years in Germany, received his B.A. in religion from Western Kentucky University, and his PhD in the Bible from Vanderbilt University.  Ray has served of Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of North Carolina-Pembroke for over thirty years, pastored a small church for nine years, and is retired from the Army Reserve. He and his wife Regina live in North Carolina. They have two sons and four grandchildren. Visit him at www.raysutherland.com. Find out more about his book on Amazon.