I'm still finding out what I do best, as far as genre. I'm better at dialogue than anything else in writing. (It's not easy to write a story with dialogue only, but I have done it.) I hope, though, to be remembered as a writer who enlightened while she entertained.

I'd like to be remembered as someone whose prose conveyed a real sense of place, someone whose milieux were absorbing, as real as the everyday world in which we spend our days. And who still managed to write exciting stories, that touched on serious points of politics, religion, philosophy and morality without being heavy, or preachy, or tedious.

A liberal friend of mine (I'm libertarian), well, we can't talk politics, because he tells me I ask him questions to make him look stupid. We don't talk religion, because he's got this defense that everything depends on interpretation, so it's all too slippery to talk about. OTOH, his beliefs about Bush are not subject to interpretation, they're just right. Obviously I'm showing my own biases here --!

Fiction, however, is in one way a more intimate experience. It's less intimate because the characters aren't real and anyway are just on a page, but it's more because you can really get into the thoughts of the other. I want to show my readers that being Christian is not synonymous with being despicable, idiotic, eager to re-enact the Inquisition, etc. I also write about people in other religions or groups, and I also want to show that _their_ POV's are not (usually) despicable, idiotic, etc. If these barriers come down and minds are open, I believe that the truth will often out -- and since I believe in Christ, I think that means people will come face to face with Him, and make a decision rather than avoiding one. May the best belief win!

Obviously this is not the main thing I think about when I'm writing; I think about what would be fun, or exciting, or scary, and what characters would be likeable or interesting. My WIP has 1 Christian among 6 major characters, and she doesn't think about God much when she's on-screen. Maybe I'm being a coward. But in this case I was trying for openness not toward Christians but toward American Indians -- people don't hate them much, I think, but they think of their beliefs as quaint and outdated and not worth considering -- and you can't do everything at once.

I do note that I haven't said a thing about presenting God himself in fiction. I think showing God can be too much for a nonbeliever, and anyway, it's hard to write for someone who already knows the ending. I put a smiley, but it's a real difficulty. I've put him in 1 story, and God had to be coy to keep from spoiling it.

You know, like a super villian. Only not one that gets defeated by the hero because of some stupid egomania thing. The one that the hero never finds out about, ever, even after he loses everything and gets run over by a milk truck on his way home from the local whorehouse. Never.