Frank Peretti in Longview.

Author Frank Peretti was speaking at a fund-raiser for a local Christian school in Longview this evening and my sister and I went.  She had read several of his supernatural thrillers for Christians a few years back and I had read at least one, This Present Darkness around the time it's sequel came out.    I had checked it out at the library.  Then I was unable to get the sequel, Piercing the Darkness at the time because the queue was too long.  By the time the 'new-release-rush' had dissipated my interests had moved on I guess as I never thought to send for it.

I had hoped to hear him talk a little about the writing process and storytelling as a craft but that wasn't his topic.  I suppose because it wasn't his audience.  He directed his themes at the Christian community of the school--parents, teachers, administrators and kids.

Here is some of what I took away from it:

• There is no easy way to get from here to there, from the beginning to the end, from where you are to your goal without going through the middle.
• Failure is good for you.
• Success is the end result of 50% failed tries.  At least.
• There's no such thing as perfection in human endeavor.  The point isn't to be perfect or to make the perfect _____________ but rather to make the effort and and do your best with the given resources in the given moment.
• Don't use 'at' in the same sentence with :'where'.

Those were all paraphrases so I couldn't put them in quotes.  But the gist of the thoughts were Peretti's.

I guess when I get home I'm going to have to order his books from the library.  I'll probably have to read the first one again  before reading its sequel.  Then there have been several more since before the latest, Illusion, for which he is on tour now.