From Texas USA, welcome Author CS Thompson. Currently residing
in Tennessee, CS has a long list of accomplishments. He was an All-State shot
putter in his high school and college years (Ohio University track team), while
pursuing education in classical philosophy and eastern mysticism. CS finished his degree at North Central
College in psychology and then to Wheaton College Graduate School for a Master’s
degree in Clinical Psychology. After graduating, he took a job as a
counselor at Naperville Community Outreach and taught part time at North
Central College. A year later he was recruited by King College to move to
Bristol, Tennessee to be the director of the school’s counseling center.
Through personal experiences and life events, the Epistle of James became a focal point for CS. Between 1995 and 2005
he wrote four applied theology books based on James, designed and taught two college courses based on James; Spiritual Formation and The Epistle
of James and Introduction to
Christian Counseling. His interested in James eventually led him to
write his first novel, The Bishop of
Jerusalem.
Currently CS and his wife, Barb, enjoy their
children and grandchildren, as well as travel to locations like, Tuscany,
Italy, Washington, DC, and New Orleans that provide settings for his Natasha McMorales mystery novels.
What
motivated you to write your first novel?
My
first novel was The Bishop of Jerusalem. It is a historical novel about the last five
days in [the Apostle] James’ life. Up to
that point everything I had written was related to mental health and spiritual
formation, and the last three books were all applications of the first chapter
[in the Holy Bible] of James. These books formed the basis for
a college class entitled “Spiritual Formation and the Epistle of James.”
So
after years of operating in the marketplace with a moderate level of expertise
on James, I came across an account of his death. I was shocked because it is an intriguing
story, but I had never heard it. I assumed most folks hadn’t heard it
either. It had to be written. The first draft took 3 months. It flew out of me. I did quite a bit of research on the culture
of Jerusalem in 62AD for the second draft and that took another year.
Are your
characters based upon your own life scenarios?
Yes. One of my first books was From Mount Carmel to Mount Horeb: Elijah’s Journey
Through Depression which came about because my depression after being cast
aside by a church I was serving as a youth pastor seemed parallel to what I
read about Elijah. I have been writing mystery novels since then. I have 6 Why
Mystery novels (each title begins with “Why?”). The protagonist in the Why Mysteries is a woman detective named
Nattie Moreland and she is a ‘caretaker’ from her dysfunctional family of
origin. The ‘caretaker’ adaptation is
how she solves crimes, because she is so other focused, non-threatening, engaging,
and self-effacing that people open up and tell her things they would not
normally share. She is not based on one
of my clients, but rather several hundred of my clients. She is my homage to caretaking women with
whom I may have spent thousands of hours.
In
Why Now? I tried writing in first
person with a character named Jack who is introduced on a trip to St. Lucia
with his wife. He had several misadventures
and I had each and every one of them first.
One misadventure was when Jack (and I) was told that he couldn’t enter
the restaurant his wife most wanted to attend because he was wearing sandals
without black socks. Jack (and I) had to
beg several newlyweds to buy a pair of black socks.
Please
share an excerpt from one of your novels...
Excerpt
from Martha’s
Story, chapter 27 of Jasper
Lilla and the Wolves of Banner Elk.
Martha is the first person to experience the wolves chronologically
although it is not the first encounter the readers are exposed to. Jasper and Riley go to Banner Elk to hear
Martha’s story because Jasper is having a hard time coping with his encounters
with the wolves. This book has just been released...
The phone
rang, and for a brief moment Martha almost regretted her decision. “It’s easy,”
the Lexus salesman had told her. “You can control almost everything, even your iPhone,
from the steering wheel.” Easy for my grandson, she remembered thinking. Just
after the third ring went quiet, she found the phone button and pushed it with
her thumb.
“Hello,
Mary,” greeted Martha before her daughter could speak.
“Well . . .
how is it?” asked Mary.
“How is
what?” replied Martha, knowing full well what she was being asked.
“Your
graduation present.” That’s what Mary called Martha’s new car. It was really a
retirement present, but since she was retiring after thirty-five years as a
school librarian, it was a graduation from school in a way. It was also the
first and only extravagance Mary had ever seen her mother indulge herself with.
Mary’s father had abandoned them when she was a child, leaving Martha with a
newborn baby and a load of debt.
“It’s too
fancy for me,” declared Martha. “I’m thinking of taking it back.” She wasn’t
thinking of returning the Lexus at all. Although she was still disoriented with
all the gadgets it was equipped with, the driving was exquisite. The seat fit
her perfectly, the steering wheel moved effortlessly, and the gas pedal worked
like it was an extension of her foot. She drove it off the lot and got it up to
ninety-five miles an hour before getting scared. She had no idea how fast it
would go, but clearly it would go faster than she would.
“You’re
such a Martha,” said Mary.
“You’re no
Mary,” came the familiar banter. It was a ritual they began just after Mary’s
adolescence when they became as much friends as mother and daughter. Truly,
each, in her own way, was more Martha than Mary. Both were independent, responsible,
hardworking, and maternal.
“Where are
you anyway?” asked Mary.
Martha
looked around at the winding road with thick woods on either side. “I don’t
know for sure,” she said. “Somewhere between Elk Park and Banner Elk.”
Mary
laughed. “Well, have a good time, Mom. Don’t forget about your doctor’s
appointment.”
“Yes, Mom,”
said Martha as she hung up.
Accelerating
through the next turn made her giggle, but then something caught her eye and made
her jam on the brakes. Her tires squealed, and the rear end wobbled as she
screeched to a stop.
Parked on
the side of the road was an old red pickup truck with the rear passenger side
up on a jack. A man lay face down next to the jack.
Martha
pulled her car behind the pickup and jumped out. “Are you okay,” she said,
rushing forward.
The man
didn’t move as she knelt down next to him. She knew immediately that something
was strange when she touched him. There was no warmth in his body, but he felt
more like a stuffed animal than dead. Her hand recoiled. A sick feeling in her stomach
swelled as she slowly retreated from the body, only then noticing the absence
of exposed skin and the unnatural curve to the elbows.
A dummy, Martha told herself as she backed
farther away without taking her eyes off the scene. Who would play such a cruel joke?
The answer
she didn’t want came suddenly as a strong arm draped across her from behind,
clamping her against someone who was much taller and much stronger than she.
“Thanks for stopping, darlin’,” said a deep voice that made her shudder as she
flailed.
He just
laughed and tightened his grip, lifting her off her feet as if she were a rag
doll.
She wasn’t
strong enough to loosen his grip, so she dug at his forearm with her nails. His
denim jacket repelled her efforts to claw at him as easily as his strength had
repelled her attempts to wiggle free.
“Help me,”
she screamed as he began lugging her into the woods.
She went
quiet as her terror sank into something well beyond panic.
As he
walked he carried her on his left hip, still using only his left arm to subdue
her. Then he stopped suddenly and slung her to the ground. She was jolted as
she landed on her tailbone.
“Why are
you doing this?” she pleaded.
“I’m a
lion,” he said, “and you’re a lamb.” He retrieved his cell phone from his back
pocket. “It stinks for you, but that’s the way it is.” He placed his right foot
on her left arm, pinning her to the ground while he typed something on his
phone.
He’s talking; that’s good. Talk to him. Make him
see you as a person. She wasn’t sure where in her memory that strategy came
from, but she had no other options.
“I’m
Martha. Martha Bonhoffer.”
He watched
her talk, but his expression didn’t change. He pressed his foot harder on her
arm.
“I have a
daughter named Mary and a grandson named Frankie.”
He kept
watching expressionlessly as he put his phone away.
“I’m a
librarian.” Her voice trembled. “Actually I was a librarian, and now I’m
retired.” She swallowed hard. “I’m a retired librarian.”
“You’re a
lamb,” he said flatly. He bent down beside her head and tried to grab a handful
of her hair.
She pushed
at his hands, but he easily gathered her wrists and clamped them together in
his huge right hand. Then he reached again for her hair. Once he had a firm
grip on her hair, he let go of her wrists. Standing, he lifted her halfway up
his thigh.
“Please
don’t do this,” she blubbered as she struggled. “I was trying to help you. How
could you do this to me? I was trying to help you.”
She was
sobbing so hard that she could no longer see. He began dragging her along the ground.
Her head banged against his knee when he stopped abruptly. He lowered her to a
seated position and then went rigid. Martha wondered if he had heard something.
She couldn’t see anything. Fear stopped her from crying out for help again. She
wiped the tears from her face. That’s when she saw the wolf standing at the
edge of the clearing directly in front of them—the biggest wolf she had ever
seen. It was all white, and it just stared at them.
Once she
could focus again, Martha noticed that the wolf’s eyes were fixated on the man
standing behind and above her. The man slid his hands under her arms and lifted
her up, holding her there between him and the wolf.
Coward, she
thought.
She nearly
jumped out of her skin when she heard a high-pitched growl directly behind
them. The man swung her around so that the two wolves were now on either side
of them. The first wolf was still standing in the same place at the edge of the
clearing to her left, and the second was on her right. Martha felt the man’s
grip tighten as a third and fourth wolf emerged from the underbrush in front of
them. Pushing her forward, he began creeping backward.
Everything
was happening in slow motion now. She noticed that none of the wolves were
baring their teeth, which would be a sign of aggression. She also noticed that
none of them were paying her any mind at all.
Standing
perfectly still she gathered her arms around herself. Now there were six
wolves—three sets of pairs, and the man was backing away from them.
Without so
much as a glance at her, the wolves directly in front of her moved past her.
Once they were beyond her, she began making her way toward the road.
“Hey,” her
assailant called out to her. “Aren’t you going to help me?”
She looked
back over her shoulder. The man was in the middle of the clearing, completely
surrounded by what were now four pairs of wolves. The wolves were all in wider
stances—heads bent forward, their back hair standing on end, all clear signs of
aggression.
“I don’t know
what to do,” he begged her.
He looked
as pitiful as anyone Martha had ever seen. She felt sorry for him until she
remembered. Then turning away, she said, “Tell them you’re a lion.”
Why is the
Apostle James intriguing to you?
Had
you asked me what my go-to Bible books were, I’d have told you John up until about 1990. That’s when I came to King University as the
Director of Counseling. I was asked to
speak during chapel a couple of times a year and I tended to pick my topic by
going about my normal counseling duties until something occurred in the therapy
room and a light bulb would go off in my head telling me that what my client
and I just said to each other is what the campus needed to hear as well. After several years of this I noticed that it
was almost always James, and not John, that I used as my text. It was then that I realized that my go-to
Bible book for my work, my calling, was James. That is when I began writing The James Prescription.
Do you
reference Scripture and Bible events in your novels?
My
Spiritual Formation books and the James novel are all loaded with scripture. As a matter of fact in the original version
of The Bishop of Jerusalem, the last
line of each chapter is a line from the first chapter of James. You could simply read
the last line of each chapter and you would have read the first chapter of James.
My editor said it was too cute and so we changed it, but you can still
see the remnant of it.
In
the Why Mysteries, Nattie is not a
Christian, but she is a seeker of truth and I have her meet Bible believing
people of all sorts. Her step-father is
a religious zealot who leads Bible discussions at lunch every Sunday. Although
Nattie tends to fly under the radar in these discussions, her
creative
under-achieving brother, Kevin, always eggs Nattie’s step-father on. So in my novels the Bible is more of a
background and is included in such a way as to not be a stumbling block to
someone mildly hostile to Christianity.
I go so far as to let Kevin have a little fun at his fundamentalist
step-father’s expense.
In
the Jasper Lilla Chronicles there are
no overt Biblical references but the over-arching theme is about the futility
of ignoring one’s calling.
You have
great book covers. Do you design your own covers? Do you believe book covers
determine marketing and book sales?
Thank
you very much. The Bishop was designed by Crossroads publishing. The other Spiritual
Formation books are all CreateSpace templates. Why
Natasha? was designed around a photo I took in Italy by a local
marketing company. Why
Him?, Why
Me?, and Why Bristol were
done by that same company, but I designed Why
Bristol?. Why
Knox? is actually a painting by Kent Paulette. He allowed me to use it as a cover. It was
implemented by Cam Collins who also manages my website. Why
Now? and Jasper Lilla were both
designed by me and implemented by Cam. You can’t sell a book that goes
unnoticed and I think covers are what get books noticed.
What are your
views of world events and the impact it has on American culture?
I
think American culture can be a bit oblivious to world events. We don’t usually notice or get upset by
atrocities in the world until our movie stars get upset about them and that is
not so good. We are certainly upset by
ISIS but we aren’t letting that affect us much, and that is good (maybe).
As a world
traveler, where in the world is your favorite place to visit?
The
people of Uganda were the friendliest people I have ever been around, but the
place I’d go back to over and over is Tuscany because of the beauty of the
countryside, the food, the wine, and because Florence is a moderate-sized city
with history and sites that are only second to Rome, Paris, or London (all of
which have the crowds and filth of a major city).
What are
you currently writing?
Currently
I’m writing the sequel to Jasper Lilla
and the Wolves of Banner Elk. The
working title is Escape From Asheville,
but I’m not at all happy with that title because I’m not yet settled on
Asheville being the featured place. This
is a trilogy with the 3rd title, Back to
Boone. I’m 17,000 words into book 2
and I have the last line of book 3 in my head.
What are
you currently reading?
My
wife and I are reading 7 Men by Eric
Metaxas. I’m reading Getting Past Your Past by Francine Shipiro
for work and The Rook by Steven James
for fun.
Who is
your favorite author?
My
favorite author is Aaron Sorkin. He
writes for television and movies. When
my writing gets flat and I want to be inspired by touching characters that
intertwine around both sides of an issue I watch “West Wing.” Sorkin can make me cry more than any other
author.
Do you
have advice for novice writers?
I
suppose the common advice is often, “If you want to be a writer you must
write.” That is good advice, but I’ll
add this, “If you want to write you must be a writer.” I know that sounds like double talk, but
here’s why I say it: what makes a writer is thinking of yourself as a writer,
which you cannot do without actually writing.
But just writing isn’t enough. Thinking of yourself as a writer means
that you are a writer even when you are not writing. If ‘writer’ is part of your identity then the
writer part of your mind is ALWAYS nearby.
No matter what you are doing, whether you are writing or doing anything else,
your writing can be enhanced. At any
moment a writer can/will be inspired for a plot twist or the turn of a phrase
or even the perfect name for a character not yet thought of.
Describe
your bucket list…
Other
than seeing the Cubs win the World Series and to lose 40 pounds, my bucket list
is to stay married to my wife, keep doing the work God called me to do,
continue enjoying writing, and watching all my grandchildren blossom into the
adults God envisioned when He made them.
Connect with CS…
http://csthompsonbooks.com/
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