By Rosemary B. Althoff
See the book below by Quinn & Roach
Better Than You Can Imagine, by Pastor Patrick M. Quinn of Frazer Church in Montgomery, AL with Ken Roach director of content creation, describes how to create an oasis of good in a messed-up world by meeting someone’s unique need with your God-given Life Gift.
Rosemary Names
Her Life-Gift
As an author of three Christian sci-fi novels, I’ve had to think hard and long about targeting my readers. You writers have, too! When I brainstorm targeting and marketing, I search for my Life-Gift. What is it? How can it reach someone’s deep need?
I was a troubled teenager who had rejected the idea of God because of atheistic science and who despised the Christian Church. But through reading Tolkien’s hobbit adventures and C. S. Lewis’s Christian sci-fi trilogy, I was nudged strongly back to Jesus. My Life-Gift evolved out of that teenage and young adult turmoil.
Later, after I had become a Christian and a pastor’s wife but suffered a deep longing to learn to write well, the Lord and a compassionate college professor showed me the way to apply for a graduate assistantship. The assistantship offered a tuition-free education and a part-time job of teaching and research. On the application I had to come up a mission statement.
This is my mission statement:
“I want to offer readers books of adventure with hope of a good ending, the way J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings reached me during a very troubled period of my life, and I want to point readers to the Source of that hope as C. S. Lewis’s sci-fi trilogy reached me.”
The Life-Gift is this:
“I have a passion for writing and teaching about God active in science.”
So who needs my Life-Gift?
People with angst and a love of adventure.
The graduate studies compelled me to write and write and write, and then to teach others how to write. I developed a skill, a vocation, and valuable experience with people who needed my Life-Gift.
Now I can live my dream of being a published author. My books The Hot Marble and The Cave Chamber show a character, Lewis, who experiences trauma and atheism as I did in my young life. The Horned Edge shows recovery from trauma, a return to Christianity, and honest questioning.
As I continue writing, I want to further refine my Life-Gift to reach each unique person with that need.
Learn more about Rosemary and her writing at her website:
Please tell us about your Life Gift and what people’s Need you target in your writing!
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