Dancing to God

Interesting observation (to me): my novel The Baby Dancers has a religious background to it. Literally, when I started typing the first new chapter (in which the old first chapter became chapter eight-ish), it just spilled out as if it was some grand design from my carefully put together outline.

Only it was not. The outline for this novel runs about… fifty words. Ha.

I would like to think my inner spiritualism is shining through to my writing and I have something profound to say.

Only I do not.

Here is what I believe happened. I am quite disgusted with the Political Correctness movement. Oooo, do not talk about religion because, yanno, you might offend someone. This contempt and disdain for the PC movement bled through to my writing.

Placing a monastery in Northern Idaho without some type of religious context defied belief, so when I wrote chapters one and two I went hog-wild. In the modern theme of who we are as Americans, I made my two (awesome) protagonists religious boys. Their academic teacher is a Catholic Sister, and their parents share her Catholic roots. Their martial arts master is a Korean Christian. Big Jim, their woodsman teacher, is a Presbyterian minister Native American, while their uncle is an unapologetic Baptist. This motley group belongs to a monastery in the mountains, and they train to fight the subversive forces of evil in overt and direct ways: mainly, by hacking it with a sword. Repeatedly. Far from a forced ‘we must be diverse’ setting, this group is certainly not perfectly harmonious—but they do respect each other.

I have no idea where I am going with this now.

But as a Young Adult speculative novel it rocks.

Rocks hard.