Have you ever thought about a friend or acquaintance and wondered “Now, how did I meet that person?” It doesn’t happen often to me, but it does happen. Linda Olin is one of those people for me. It was at an on-line writing site, I know that much; but whether it was a writing blog, a writer’s site, or something else, I don’t remember. But when I saw the types of books Linda writes, checked out her website and saw the many things she’s been involved in, I decided I wanted to interview her. Posting this has been somewhat delayed due to my website hacking, and making sure everything was good. Here’s the interview. I see Linda even caught a mistake in one of my questions to her. Rather than sanitize it, I’ll give it to you with the error and the correction.

David: Your website says, “I’m excited to tell you about my writing, art, ministry, and life in general.” You have subpages that read: Hymns and faith songs; Poems; Church skits and longer dramas; Bible studies; Devotions; and more. And that’s just under writing. Sounds like you’re staying busy.

Linda: Busy is right! My writing time has to be shoehorned into spaces between other obligations. I’m retired from full-time employment, but I still handle all the bookkeeping, payroll, tax work, etc. for our dairy farm. And life tends to insert unexpected demands, like taking care of my husband during his months of recovery from a serious accident in 2016.

David: Under books, I see five different ones. Some have to do with songs or hymns; all have to do with Christian ministry. You must see your writing as a calling.

Linda: Absolutely. It was that call that led me to leave my salaried job to concentrate on writing. My prayer group had encouraged me to pray for my heart’s desire (Mark 11:24; Matthew 21:22). Seemed pretty iffy to me, but I took it to God. My heart’s desire? To write something with eternal significance, like the great hymns that continue to touch lives long after the writers are dead and gone. I didn’t ask for fame and fortune, or even to be published. Just that God would use my writing to accomplish his purpose. He answered my prayers with a promise to grant my heart’s desire, provided that I would write according to his daily direction. Needless to say, I agreed.

My “Holy GhostWriter” has led me along a squiggly path in the ten years since we made that covenant. As you mentioned, my little body of work includes quite a few different genres. Writing instructors advise you to stick to one genre, to establish your “brand.” Evidently my HGW didn’t attend that class. J

For the past several years, my main writing focus has been hymns and faith songs. I write the texts (lyrics). I’ve written tunes for some of them, but mostly I set them to public domain hymn tunes.

David: What is Then Sings My Soul about?

Linda: Ha! You picked up on the reference to “How Great Thou Art”: “Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee.” The title of my book is Now Sings My Soul: New Songs for the Lord. It’s a collection of over a hundred of my new texts. I chose to emphasize “Now” because the songs speak to, and for, our souls wherever we might be on our walk with the Lord. Maybe right now we’re in a place of joy and praise and gratitude. Maybe now we’re in a place of pain, or penitence, or loss, or questioning. Like the psalmists, we can take all those things to the Lord in song.

David: Now Sings My Soul is your newest book?

Linda: Yes, it came out the end of November. A few months before that, Were You There When They Crucified Our Lord? Meditations on Calvary was released. Several of the songs in Now Sings My Soul were originally written to accompany the devotions in Were You There.

David: Your books seem to show a special interest in Lent and Easter themes.

Linda: That’s because they originated from several series of weekly Lenten soup-and-study programs put on for my local multi-denominational group of churches. I figured, why let all the work of writing studies, dramas, devotions, and music go to waste after one presentation? Better to polish them up into books for other churches, small groups, and individual readers to use. Were You There, Transformed: 5 Resurrection Dramas, The Sacrifice Support Group, and Giving It Up for Lent came about that way.

David: Your website mentions novels-in-progress. Tell me about that.

Linda: Mystery novels are my reading of choice, so those were the writing projects I started with. One cozy mystery and a women’s fiction manuscript, both with a light spiritual element, got pushed to the back burner by other projects. (Actually they’ve been shoved right off the back of the stove onto the floor with the dust bunnies!)

David: What are your writing/publishing plans going forward?

Linda: That’s up to my HGW. A Christmas Eve cantata is waiting to be completed. Dramas from another year’s Lent program haven’t made it into book form yet. And a how-to book about personal puppet ministry (based on my experience with my son and his puppet pal) is finished and edited but not yet published. Who knows? Maybe my HGW will plop one of those projects onto my plate tomorrow.

Meanwhile, my soul’s ear is always open for new song ideas. It still amazes me to be given the gift of a new faith song. Never imagined I would write music, having zero music training. The power of the Holy Spirit in action!

The publishing process has been a major undertaking for me, far beyond writing the material in the first place. My smaller pieces (devotionals, poems, hymns, short fiction) have been picked up by regular publishers, but my books are all independently published as Kindle ebooks and/or print-on-demand paperbacks. The song book, especially, was a huge effort to compile and lay out. I don’t recommend do-it-yourself book production as a rule, but that’s where God’s “daily direction” happened to lead me.

I post extra goodies like audio files, PDF scores, and other online resources on Faith Songs http://LindaBonneyOlin.com. Maintaining that website is a big job too.

David: Can people buy your books there?

Linda: No, Faith Songs is geared to information and ideas, not selling stuff. All my books are available on Amazon.com. The easiest place to start is my Amazon Author Page. http://www.amazon.com/Linda-Bonney-Olin/e/B0079M4OMW

Thanks very much for inviting me to your blog, David. I really appreciate your helping get the word out about my books and songs. God bless!

David: And thank you, Linda, for being a part of An Arrow Through The Air. I hope my readers give you some sales.