Christian
Q/A
Up Close &
Personal with Earma
Q: Tell us your Christian
testimony?
Answer:
At five, I met God through a salvation prayer in the back
of a Bible story book. I loved God as a child and served him
passionately. I answered a call to teach at 10 but during
my teenage years I drifted away from God following a path
that took me much farther than I planned to go and of course
stayed longer than I ever anticipated staying. But in His
grace, God found me in the year 1987 recently divorced from
an abusive husband and struggling to put my life back together
again. Later that same year, I re-committed my life to God
in September.
Q: How did you get started as a writer?
Answer:
After re-committing my life to God, one day as I listened
to the parable of talents, I felt convicted of not developing
and using my childhood passion of writing. I repented and
enrolled in a writing class to begin developing my craft.
After many classes later, I volunteered and offered my writing
as a gift in every place God led me.
Q: Where do your book ideas come from?
Answer:
I used to say often, I'm going to write a book one day but
I'm waiting on the Lord to release me and tell me what topic
he wants me to write on. Finally, one day he did call me saying,
"Go now write it down and publish it in a book so that
it may be an everlasting witness to generations to come."
Q: With the variety you have shown in your
work, do you have a favorite topic?
Answer:
For now, I enjoy all of my work so much that I find it hard
to choose a favorite. I believe I have not written my favorite,
yet. Perhaps it will be when I get to write my novels...
Q: Why was "In the Spirit of Armorbearing"
your first book?
Answer:
Before God released me to write books, I found myself constantly
writing notes about things in my life I was passionate about.
Armorbearing in the church was one of those things. I developed
a lot of those passionate notes into class curriculums and
began to teach them. Finally, I received the release to write
books and started on what I thought best. But I kept feeling
unmotivated and did not sense the anointing on my material.
Feeling pretty sure He had released me, I went to God about
this lack of anointing. My answer came quickly, "When
you go back to what I first assigned you, there you will find
the anointing." I did and it was. I learned a valuable
lesson about how serious God takes us following his leading
through the Holy Spirit.
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Advice and Goals
Q: What advice would you give a new writer?
Answer:
Work hard to develop your skills and talent. Pray a lot over
your work and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. Be willing
to start small with whatever the Holy Spirit leads you to
do. I begin developing my craft by taking a lot of classes:
college and writer organizations. Then I felt led to use it
every chance I got by volunteering with my family, my church
and friends offering it as a gift to them. For me, God led
me to write a lot of newsletters for numerous church departments
and ministry organizations. Additonally I wrote newsletters
for my family. It was a lot of fun and I endeavored to do
them in excellence.
Q: What are your goals and mission as a Christian
writer?
Answer:
My goal as a Christian writer is to glorify God with my gift.
I want to be one of the ones that my Lord says, "Well
done, my good and faithful servant." I want to offer
my gift back to Him multiplied many times over. I feel my
mission is to strengthen the Body of Christ through the Word
of God and reach for God's lost sheep of the Church.
Q: What would you like to see happen in your
writing career in the next 5 years?
Answer:
I plan to work hard with writing down the ideas and concepts
God has given me to teach. Then sometime within the next 5
years, I would love to write novels.
Q: Yes, I heard you wanted to do a novel,
what category and why?
Answer:
I would enjoy writing Christian Romance or Inspiration novels.
As a teen-ager I read romance novels voraciously and always
imagined one day I would write one. When I became a new Christian
at 27 because of my call to teach, I read only the Word of
God and selected Christian books. But, for the last 5 years,
periodically I would dream these elaborate stories with lots
of detail. At first, I discounted them as too much pizza.
But now that I'm back in my passion of writing, I've recognized
them as novels and began recording them for later development.
When the time is right, I will be excited to work on them
as my ministry permits.
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Christian Literature Market, Publishing and Family life?
Q: What do you think of the Christian
Literature market these days?
Answer:
I am happy to see the increased availability of the gospel
of Jesus Christ and written Christian material. I don't underestimate
the power of the written word. It still has the ability to
travel to far and unusual places in the form of a book. Right
now, I hear the Christian market is enjoying a brisk pace
in the midst of economic turmoil. That tells me, people are
searching for answers in the right place. I feel Christians
should have the right answers at the right time for we know
our Father God holds all the answers.
Q: Why did you use POD (Publish on Demand)publishing
for your first book?
Answer:
One day, I was feeling discouraged as to ever seeing my work
published. Surfing the internet, I stumbled upon a POD plan.
I then prayed about it and researched each company that I
could find and compared their opportunities. I chose the one
I felt best fit my needs and considered it an opportunity
to see my work published.
Q: What advice could you offer another aspiring
writer about the POD publishing world?
Answer:
I would tell them to examine as many companies as they could
and make a choice based on their individual needs.I wanted
my work to be as professional as possible, so I included hiring
an editor to review my work and did my own layout. Poorly
edited work has made it hard for self-published writers to
gain the respect and attention needed in the publishing industry.
After my editing, I then began looking at the companies based
on their cover design work, exclusive rights and royalty payments,etc.
Q: Tell us about your family?
Answer:
I am a wife and step-mother. Varn and I have been married
over ten years. Our two sons are Varn, Jr. and Khrystopher.
VJ is 18 and Khrys is 13. They are good sons and I am really
proud of them both.
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