When does a book begin? I thought I had written on the pages of this blog something about how I came to write Doctor Luke’s Assistant. I said so publicly the last couple of days. But earlier today I checked my posts, and discovered I didn’t. With this post now I begin the story.
I do this because I just finished a five-day free promotion of DLA, and on the day after the promotion it has been selling. After 5,039 free downloads, today (as of 9:30 p.m. Central Time) I sold 31 copies and had one borrowed. That’s a good number for one day, especially after selling a grand total of 1 copy in the 2 1/2 months previous. It’s not “quit yer day job” money, but I’m excited. Based on today’s sales it stands at #33 and #45 on its two genre Amazon bestseller lists.
But I prate. On with the story.
It must have been around 1998. I was engaged in some personal Bible study, reading through the gospels one after the other. I read Matthew and Mark and moved on to Luke. At some point I realized that Luke described something differently than M&M did. I think it was the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. So I turned back to the other two gospels and did a close reading and comparison. Then I checked the gospel of John, which had yet some different information.
This was about the time in my life that I had become interested in creative writing. In my career as a civil engineer I had done a lot of writing: construction specifications, business letters, technical reports, construction site reports, marketing materials. All of it dry and monotonous. Well, maybe with the marketing stuff I had to get a little creative, but still on dry subject matters.
But I started writing some humorous work-place pieces, spoofing our company. I posted a couple of them anonymously on company bulletin boards, but I was exposed within a couple of days. Having the creative writing bug, I joined a writers critique group in the next town over, and began sharing pieces. But maybe I’m prating again.
Back to the gospels. Somewhere in mid-1998 I decided to write a harmony of the gospels. Not a parallel column type, but an integrated text type, where the information in all the gospels is woven into one seamless narrative. I’m not sure exactly when I started this because I didn’t date the papers, but the first sheet is my handwriting on the back of some scrap paper from my office, which has a date 6/28/98. That’s pretty close to when I started.
As you can imagine, that’s pretty big project. By the middle of 2000 I was well along. I’d filled a steno book with my handwritten text of notes and harmonies, sometimes working verse by verse with the four gospels side by side, all the time thinking about how these gospel writers wrote their books. Matthew and John were eyewitnesses, so I didn’t worry too much about them. Mark is thought to have recorded the teachings of Peter, who was an eyewitness. Assuming that was true and that Mark was a faithful witness of what Peter wrote, I figured Mark’s gospel was fairly close to an eyewitness account.
But Luke! He wasn’t an eyewitness. I began to wonder how he learned some of the stuff he learned. He must have found and interviewed people, I figured. During the second half of 2000 I thought about this more and more. When I encountered some piece of information in Luke’s gospel that wasn’t in Matthew, Mark, or John, I began to work scenes in my mind. I imagined Luke finding a witness, interviewing him, then going off to some lodging somewhere to write a fraction of the gospel, but having Mark’s and Matthew’s gospels as reference documents.
All this time my interest in creative writing was increasing. The workplace humor became a series called “The Gutter Chronicles: The Continuing Saga of Norman D. Gutter, E.I.T” (Engineer in Training, now changed to Engineer Intern). That’s a long story I won’t get into now, and I only mention it to demonstrate how my creative writing interest and, hopefully, skills were being honed.
Finally, somewhere around October 2000, I kept thinking over scenes, and it suddenly occurred to me: Why not write a novel about how Luke wrote his gospel? About the same time it occurred to me that Luke, being a Gentile, would have been severely hampered if he went to Israel in the First Century and tried to talk with Jews, let alone enter the temple. AGH—ain’t gonna happen. So I knew he would need a Jewish man to help him in the work. The general outline of the novel came together quickly.
I see, however, that this post is already long. I will end there, and continue in the next post. While I was writing this I had one more sale of DLA, and it went to #31 and #42 on its genre bestseller lists, and is now at #4787 on the overall Amazon paid Kindle store.
