Books on writing bore me. Either they focus too much on grammatical do’s and don’ts or they exalt the intangible features of good writing that are caught, not taught. That’s why most writing books leave me with a passionate desire to write more – not because they’ve inspired me but because I’d much rather go ahead and write than read another boring book about writing.

Doug Wilson’s brief book Wordsmithy: Hot Tips for the Writing Life is a delightful exception. Wilson only has seven exhortations for us writer-wanna-be’s, and he delivers them in two pages. That’s right. In two pages, you get the gist of the book, but those two pages will whet your appetite for what the rest of the book delivers.

Reading Wordsmithy is a lot like savoring a meal at the same time you are learning to cook. As you learn how to mix up the ingredients that make for good writing, Wilson dons his chef’s hat in order to properly demonstrate all that he is exhorting you to. In other words, you won’t leave the table hungry.

After reading Wordsmithy, I sent Doug a few questions about writing. Here are his answers:

Trevin Wax: When did you first begin to write?

Doug Wilson: I remember wanting to “make books” around the sixth grade. And I think I wrote my first poem around the same time (it was about a sea anemone). But I did not seriously begin to write until after my stint in the Navy, when I was around 22.

Trevin Wax: Have you always found joy in the writing process? Or is joy something that has developed over time?

Doug Wilson: When I began to set myself to writing, my initial efforts were pretty stiff and cardboardy. But I wanted to do it and wanted to learn how to do it.

I think that I knew from the beginning that joy was the point. My wife already had her degree in English Lit, and I was a philosophy major. She knew how to type, and at the time I didn’t, so she would type out my papers for me. I must have set myself to making it interesting early on because I remember her telling me that I couldn’t put things “like that” in an academic paper. I had enjoyed reading lively writing from the time I was in high school (C.S. Lewis, William F. Buckley, et al.), and I knew I wanted to move in that direction if I could figure out how. Other models came later – e.g. Wodehouse, Mencken.

Trevin Wax: One of the takeaways from your book is that writers should know the rules of grammar but also be willing to bend them. Are you a word fusser or a word libertine?

Doug Wilson: I would say I am a fusser on the basics and a libertine around the edges. To illustrate, I think table manners are essential to civilized life, but if the court of Louis XIV demands 22 salad forks, my sympathies move to the antinomians.

Clear thinking and clear writing go together, and the rules of grammar are (for the most part) dedicated to keeping things clear. When they begin to obscure that clarity and become counterproductive, then it is time to remember that man was not made for the Sabbath.

Trevin Wax: What’s the correlation between good reading and good writing?

Doug Wilson: Good reading is foundational. Constant exposure to that which is undeniably good helps train your ear. It helps train you to throw out things that are guilty of no writing “sin” but that are equally free of any virtue. A melody can be dull without breaking any musical laws, and writing can come off like it was written by a committee without parts or passions. Reading good stuff educates a future writer in the intangibles.

Trevin Wax: What’s your take on the current state of the “blogosphere”? Do blogs help us write better?

Doug Wilson: Some blogs are great, of course, but most of that world is just noise. And most of the really good stuff is going to find its way into print. Blogs are a way for a prospective writer to make it in the minors.

The best thing about blogs is that they provide a dedicated writer with an occasion to crank it out in a disciplined fashion. If he gets good, his blog will get noticed, or his writing talents will be. But this only works because this part of our world is like the rest of the world. Cream rises, which only works if it is not all cream.

UPDATE: The website for The Gospel Project has been launched.

A little over a year ago, I transitioned out of pastoral ministry and took on the role of editor at LifeWay Christian Resources of a new small group curriculum for churches.

Beginning Stages

My first two months at LifeWay (November-December 2010) were primarily focused on helping develop the vision for the new curriculum. In conjunction with Ed Stetzer (general editor), I began mapping out what topics this curriculum might cover. We put together some different options – some focused more on systematic theology, others focused on a variety of approaches, etc.

We also began putting on paper the core values we wanted to keep at the forefront of this curriculum. “Theologically robust” (which we renamed “deep, but not dry”), “Christ-centered,” “Grand-narrative-focused,” and “Mission-driven” are the important elements we want to see in every quarter and (hopefully) every lesson. We took these buzz words and fleshed out how they might apply to a curriculum.

Advisory Council

Then we brought together an advisory council to speak into the project, leaders like D.A. Carson, Matt Chandler, James MacDonald, J.D. Greear, Eric Mason, Juan Sanchez, Collin Hansen, Kimberly Thornbury, Joe Thorn, Danny Akin, and Jay Noh. We met with members of the council in Dallas and Chicago earlier this year and received helpful feedback and great insight into this curriculum.

The meetings with the advisory council were very helpful. The group helped us refine the vision, make needed adjustments, and craft a three-year cycle that brings together systematic theology within the framework of the Bible’s grand narrative. After both meetings, we went back to the drawing board – affirmed in our general direction yet helpfully challenged in some of the particulars.

The Writing Begins

We went back and forth on a few different names for this new curriculum, finally settling on TGM (Theology, Gospel, Mission), a name that helped us crystallize the three components we wanted to have present in every lesson. Earlier this year, we began gathering writers for the initial quarters. The writers’ meetings have been wonderful. I can’t believe I get to meet and work with such great people!

Some of our writers include: George Robinson (professor of missions and evangelism at Southeastern Seminary who has done extensive work on the evangelistic tool The Story), Jared Wilson (pastor in Vermont, author of LifeWay’s Threads study Abide, and Gospel Wakefulness), Juan Sanchez (pastor of High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, TX), Halim Suh (pastor at Austin Stone Community Church), Jonathan Leeman (editorial director of 9Marks), Geoff Ashley (discipleship pastor at The Village Church in Dallas, TX), etc.

The curriculum launches in Fall of 2012. The second and third installments of the material will take people on a journey through the Bible in 26 weeks. George Guthrie (Union University professor and author of Read the Bible for Life) has been instrumental in helping us think through how best to accomplish this task.

Major Development – “The Gospel Project”

At the same time I was working on editing the adult curriculum, a student team and a kids team were working on similar products for those age groups. A couple weeks ago, Eric Geiger, the new vice president over the Church Resources Division at LifeWay, recommended that we bring these three curriculum options under one umbrella. This change shifted me from being editor of the adult piece to being managing editor of all three lines. My task is now to oversee the gospel-centered content development across all age groups. Ed Stetzer is now general editor of all three lines as well.

These changes also meant we would need to (yet again) change the name, so as to accurately reflect the emphasis for all age groups. We’ve settled on the name “The Gospel Project.” The new name communicates the ongoing nature of this curriculum roll-out. It also communicates that this isn’t just about creating Bible studies. The curriculum itself isn’t the project that’s most important; we are. We are the gospel project. Our prayer is that as small groups of all ages work through these studies, the gospel will work on us. The church is God’s gospel project.

I’d appreciate your prayers for me and for the teams who are working on this new product. We believe “The Gospel Project” has the potential to serve the church in a good way, as it provides a gospel-centered resource for children, students, and adults.

Special thanks to Robbie Sagers for filling in here at Kingdom People last week as my family enjoyed a few late-summer days of rest. I enjoyed looking ahead in the Drafts to see what Robbie was planning to post. Thinking about how bloggers can schedule posts on WordPress got me thinking about the different ways that writers do their work. In my experience, I’ve come across three types of writers:

1. The Microwave Writer: writing well under pressure.

Some writers do well under the pressure of a deadline. They’re like a microwave. Put the ingredients together and – zap! – you’ve got a meal.

How do you know if you’re a microwave writer? Think back to when you were in college. Did you wait until the week the essay was due before beginning work? Perhaps you gathered some materials together beforehand, but you saved the writing part of your work until the night before the due date.

Microwave writers may try to get a head start, but they find they can’t summon the necessary passion. Their best work is done under the gun. Once you know you have mere days (or hours) before you need to deliver a finished product, your adrenalin kicks in. Streams of creativity pour forth from your moistened brow.

I know writers who belong to this category, but I’m not one of them. I tend to question the quality of my work if I haven’t left some built-in reflection time about what I’ve written. Pressure helps me only if the deadline is self-imposed and not “real.” (More on that momentarily…)

2. The Crockpot Writer: writing slowly over a long period of time.

Other writers are like a crockpot. They put all their ideas into the pot and let them stew over time.

Each day, they write a few paragraphs. Their work schedule is consistent. Once they have a deadline, they divide the workload into manageable chunks so they can maintain a reasonable pace.

I have a friend who fits this category. He has been working on his manuscript for more than a year now. His book won’t be very long, but I trust it will be very good.

The crockpot slow-but-consistent method works well for some writers, but not for me. It draws out the writing part of the process, and frankly, I don’t particularly enjoy the writing part of writing. I like writing because I like ideas. Writing is the method by which I communicate those ideas. Putting pen to paper doesn’t thrill me; putting ideas down for others to discuss does.

3. The Stir Fry Writer: writing quickly at the outset, leaving time for appropriate seasoning

This is me. I’m a stir-fry guy. Pour all the ingredients into the pan. Heat them up quickly, but then give the meat and vegetables time to soften.

I blog this way. I may write three or four posts in one day. But putting the ingredients into the pan doesn’t mean the meal is ready to be set on the table. I need time for the ideas to cook, for the writing to be seasoned. And time also gives me veto power so I can toss out overcooked posts and start over if I realize my idea isn’t worth sharing.

I also write books this way. In May, when I found out that I had a September 1 deadline approaching for my next book, I self-imposed a deadline of July 4 for a full manuscript to be ready. The self-imposed deadline worked well for me. I finished an initial draft in several weeks, but I had a full month to mold that initial burst of writing into something publishable. I then spent one more month tweaking and seasoning the publishable product into something I could be happy with.

What about you?

Some writers need a deadline to push them to action. Others need to space out their work over a long period of time. For me, it’s best to make serious progress up front and give myself plenty of time to work out the kinks later.

What about you? Do you fit one of these descriptions? Or would you describe yourself differently? How do you work best?

This is one of my favorite sections from one of my favorite books on writing, Words Fail Me: What Everyone Who Writes Should Know about Writing.

I love how the author breaks many of the pseudo-rules in this section.

If grammar is supposed to help us make sense, why do some of the rules seem so nonsensical? Well, maybe those aren’t real rules, after all.

You’ve not doubt heard them all your life:

• Don’t split an infinitive.
• Don’t start a sentence with and or but.
• Don’t end one with a preposition (of, to, with, and so on).
• Don’t use contractions (including don’t).

None of them are true – including the one that says none is always singular.

These misconceptions, which serve only to make writing clunky and convoluted, are not real rules and never have been. Since the 1300′s, writers of English have gotten along fine without them. So where did they come from?

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, classics scholars set out to civilize the English of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton. They took a language that’s essentially Germanic and tried to clothe it in Latin grammar. No wonder the shoes pinched.

For generations, our most eminent grammarians have tried to lay these myths and Latinisms to rest, but they keep rising again like Jason from his watery grave. And like Jason, they’re not real, so feel free to ignore them. Our best writers do. George Bernard Shaw once complained to the Times of London about an editor who hadn’t gotten the word:

“There is a pedant on your staff who spends far too much of his time searching for split infinitives. Every good literary craftsman uses a split infinitive if he thinks the sense demands it. I call for this man’s instant dismissal; it matters not whether he decides to quickly go or to go quickly or quickly to go. Go he must, and at once.”

Occasionally, I receive questions from blog readers who are curious to know how I wound up writing a book. Many bloggers have similar aspirations of writing for a larger audience. So questions inevitably come up:

“How did you get published?”

“What kind of proposal did you do?”

“What is the key to getting a book deal?”

Of course, the questioners are not merely interested in my personal story; they want to follow the same road and get published themselves.

The only advice that I can give about publishing comes solely from the author’s standpoint. I usually recommend that you try to get published in some magazines first. Building a blog audience is a good idea. Try to get your work into other places (whether there is a financial benefit or not). Sometimes, I will tell someone to consider self-publishing, especially if they have many traveling and speaking opportunities.

Of course, all this advice is from the author’s standpoint. The best thing you can do is hear the editor’s point of view.

The world of Christian publishing differs quite a bit from the world of non-Christian publishing, but enough of the same rules apply to non-fiction that one can glean important insights from editors of secular non-fiction. Thinking Like Your Editor: How to Write Great Serious Nonfiction–and Get It Published (W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2003) by Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato is a good place to get started.

Aspiring authors need to know what editors look for when they see a book proposal. They also need to know a little about the decision-making process. I learned from experience how to craft a book proposal, but it would have been helpful for me to have known some of the suggestions in this book before starting the proposal.

For example, when I first began speaking with an editor of a Christian publishing house, I quickly came to discover that although my editor really liked my proposal, the decision was not his alone. He was going to have to “sell it”, so to speak, to the board of editors that makes these decisions.

It’s a little like American Idol. The first major step forward is simply getting your work to an editor’s desk, just like the thousands of Idol contestants hope they will get the chance to audition for the judges. Once you have an editor who is in your court, you move pass the initial round of going “solo” and now must compete against all the other proposals. (It’s like Hollywood Week.) It’s no longer just you and the editor. Now your proposal has to stand out in a room with lots of other proposals, each of which has support from other editors. If you pass this test, you’re on your way.

If you want think like an editor, I recommend this book. It comes highly recommended by my friend, Justin Taylor, editor at Crossway. And no wonder. This book takes you through the thought processes of a non-fiction editor. The five big questions that every editor wants to answer are:

1. What is this book about?
2. What is the book’s thesis and what’s new about it?
3. Why are you the person to write this book?
4. Why is now the time to publish this book?
5. Who makes up the core audience for the proposed book, and why will they find it appealing?

If you can satisfactorily explain all five of these things, you have at least a shot at getting published.

The book also includes a couple of chapters on how to write well. The authors give tips on writing, using narrative tension, and treating other arguments fairly, etc. There is also a good deal of advice for authors once they have a book proposal that has been accepted. What can an author expect from the publisher? What can an author expect in terms of marketing?

Reading this book after going through the publishing process was especially enlightening. Looking over my initial proposal for Holy Subversion, I can see some of the things I did right. And thinking ahead, I can see some things I will do differently when making future proposals.

Thinking Like Your Editor is what I’m going to start recommending to people when they ask about being published or how to be published. You really don’t need to talk to an author so much as you need to talk to an editor. If you don’t know an editor, this book is the next best thing for writing non-fiction and getting it published.

In just a few short months, my book, Holy Subversion: Allegiance to Christ in an Age of Rivals will be published by Crossway. Over the course of the next few Saturdays, I plan on posting endorsements from those who have graciously given of their time to read Holy Subversion and put their name behind its message.

These endorsements (often called “blurbs”) are important for readers. Whenever I pick up a book in a bookstore or consider buying a book online, I usually look to see who has endorsed the work. Key endorsements matter most when I am unfamiliar with the author.

Blurbs have their place. They help the reader discern the stream in which the author swims.

For example, if I see endorsements from Mark Dever, Al Mohler, C.J. Mahaney and John MacArthur, I can safely assume that the author is part of the young Reformed, Together for the Gospel movement. If I see endorsements from Dan Kimball, Scot McKnight, and Erwin McManus, I can safely assume that the author might run in the more conservative circles of the Emerging Church. You can see how blurbs help readers “locate” the author within one stream or another.

As an author who has solicited endorsements, I can tell you that the desire for book sales has not been my primary motivation in determining who I should ask. When I finished my initial manuscript of Holy Subversion, I made a list of people whom I respect, have benefited from spiritually, and whose opinion matters to me personally. Only two or three of these people on that list would be considered “key” endorsers (meaning, their endorsement would translate into book sales). So I could have contacted two or three “key” people and stopped there.

But for me, the blurbs for my book mean much more than book sales. They represent a personal stamp of approval from the people whose opinion matters to me – people whose theology or ministry has influenced me. That’s why I asked several Southern Seminary professors to review my work. Their feedback and approval means something to me personally.

I did not ask Paul Negrut (president of my alma mater, Emanuel University of Oradea) to write a recommendation, hoping his name might convince thousands of Romanians to purchase my book. No… Bro. Paul has had a significant influence on my theology, and he is the pastor who married Corina and me almost seven years ago. In choosing to ask him for a blurb, my personal and professional respect for his ministry come together, and I receive encouragement from his words of affirmation.

I asked Tullian Tchividjian to consider writing a blurb because I consider him a friend and because we see eye-to-eye on a great number of subjects. Since he wrote his endorsement, he has become pastor Coral Ridge Church in Fort Lauderdale, FL, but I certainly wasn’t anticipating that when I first sent him my manuscript.

I asked Christian George to consider writing a blurb because I love the way he writes. The same is true for Wheaton professor Nick Perrin, whose recent popular level work on the reliability of the Gospels serves as a great introduction to the transmission of the Gospel texts. Likewise, I wrote Marvin Olasky because I am a long-time World reader and my thought has been shaped by the contribution of World to evangelical thought. These are just a few examples.

A handful of people have declined to write a blurb. Some are unable to devote the time to reading my work. That’s certainly understandable. Others may look over the book and not find it consonant with their own vision or thought. That’s fine too. If everyone likes your work, you might not be saying anything of substance.

So… here are some suggestions for book readers who see a number of endorsements for a certain book.

First, see who the “key endorsers” are (usually on the back cover). Those names will tell you what the target audience is.

Next, look at the endorsements that are on the inside first pages. Sometimes the interior endorsements tell you more about the author than the main blurbs, because they show you who the author is reading and benefiting from.

Another reason you should look at the “inside” blurbs is because there is only so much space on the back cover. Sometimes the endorsement is shortened for the back cover and the full endorsement is on the inside.

You might also watch to see what kind of language the endorser uses. Recommending a book for “consideration” is different than saying “this is the best book on the subject” or stating full agreement with the author’s thesis.

Don’t rely exclusively on blurbs when trying to decide whether or not to buy a book. But use these endorsements as a way of figuring out where the author is in the overall scheme of things.