Release date: June 21, 2016

Blogger’s Note:  After a hiatus of a few weeks to focus on writing and work, I’m back with some final thoughts related to The Athena File.

Nothing about this novel has been easy.  Nothing.

Not that I expected it.  After all, when I went to my writers’ retreat at the end of February, the instructor made it very clear that, rather than be easy, opposition only increases when a novel is in production.

I agree with her.  The whole concept for The Athena File began in March 2013 as I flew home from my first Mount Hermon conference in California.  I developed the novel’s concept, but back then, it centered around David.  I knew it wasn’t complete until I was able to come up with the character of Nabeelah.  And that didn’t happen until June 2015.  I have to thank Gayle Tzumach Lemmon for the hard work that went into creating Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield, which enlightened me regarding how women served in hard combat in Afghanistan, even if they weren’t listed as such.

I worked hard to revise the draft.  During that time, life at my day job and on the personal side went crazy as I helped my parents make a big move from Fayetteville to Cary.  But, I got the draft sent to my beta reader group last fall.  Then I received comments.  The message that came across loud and clear from one of the readers: You need to change the lead character from David to Abigail.  Thankfully, I maintained a teachable spirit and did major surgery on the first half of the novel.

During that time, work at my day job didn’t slow down.  Not a bit.  And sadness hit the Haynie house when we lost Aspen in March.  Naturally, I didn’t feel like writing.  I was exhausted.  Beaten down.  And I had an April 1 deadline with my copy editor.  Somehow, I made it, though it did take me another two or three weeks to completely recover.

So far as the production part, it’s was also a struggle.  Cover ideas didn’t come easily.  Neither has some of the marketing I’ve done as I’ve learned to exercise a new muscle.  And getting the copy edits back and incorporating them wasn’t been easy, either, and consisted of a near-scare that I’d lost all of the changes I’d made.

I say all of this not to whine, but to provide you with an understanding that bringing a novel from manuscript format to what you hold in your hands or see on the screen isn’t easy.  It’s often fraught with difficulty.  But I rest in one thing.  God gave me this gift of writing to use as a blessing.  May this novel impact your life reading it as it did mine writing it.

I have not received any compensation for writing this post.  I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services I have mentioned.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR Part 255:
Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”