Meet our Members: Ian Acheson

Each Thursday in 2018 we will be interviewing one of the members of Christian Writers Downunder – to find out a little bit more about them and their writing/editing goals.

Today's interview is with Ian Acheson

Tell us three things about who you are and where you come from.

Hi all, I’m Ian from Sydney. I’m a strategy consultant and author. I’ve released one supernatural fiction novel, Angelguard, many moons ago. The second in the series, Wrestling with Shadows, is written and ready to be published (I say recognising it will need another round of edits, ideally by an editor from a publishing house).

I’ve also started work on a non-fiction project that explores the topic of ‘Intimacy’ and how there is a genuine lack of it in the modern world starting with our relationships with God who desires it for every one of us.

Tell us about your writing (or editing/illustrating etc).  What do you write and why?

I write fiction to answer questions I have on the Christian walk. So in Angelguard I was led to explore the thin veil that exists between the natural and supernatural as I genuinely believe it exists. Angelguard was a plot-based story and in “Shadows” I wanted to go deeper with Jack Haines, the hero, and how he grapples with his own darkness (ie, his shadows). The third in the series, which I’m researching now, I’m looking to have Jack on “fire for the Lord” and to see what this looks like in a fictional context of good up against some pretty mean bad guys.

Who has read your work? Who would you like to read it?

A bunch of kind of readers who gave up a few hours of their time to meet Jack. I’d like a lot more readers to do similar.

Tell us something about your process. What challenges do you face? What helps you the most?

With Angelguard I started with two words: “It’s time.” That’s it and some vague notion of having angels and demons battling while humans went about their day. I sat and wrote 2,000 words a day (because Stephen King did it) for 9 months and produced a monster of a manuscript of 707 pages. Yes, you guessed it, I didn’t know what to leave out.

Having gone through a laborious process of edits and more edits and some more edits I didn’t want to repeat the process with “Shadows” so I tried a bunch of plotting techniques which just didn’t work. Eventually I gave up and trusted in Jack to take me on a merry ride once again. A dear editor friend of mine helped me re-work the first 50 pages and reviewed my overall story. And I’m planning on doing similar with the third one.

What is your favourite Writing Craft Book and why?

King’s “On Writing” was the only book I read before starting out on Angelguard. I figured I better see if I really do have a story in me before I spend time reading more books.

Since then I’ve found I have a love/hate relationship with craft books. I’ve bought dozens of them, read the first 50 or so pages and then moved on. I think I work better with a coach. My first editor who, yes, read most of the 707 pages of Angelguard, taught me how to write and since then I’ve enjoyed working with two others, the one I mentioned above, and Jan, who my publisher, Lion Fiction, engaged for me. I go in with any editor with the attitude that I have so much to learn and in so doing find it very easy to take on board their recommendations, no matter how gentle or severe they may be.

One craft book I have finished is Story Engineering by Larry Brooks which I found really useful and I still refer back to it. Here’s my review on ACW. 

If you were to give a shout-out to a CWD author, writer, editor or illustrator – who would they be?

I’d like to shout out to Simon Kennedy on his Safe Harbour success. It was a bit of a treat to hear his name mentioned last week on the Logies. Simon, did you get an invite to the night?

What are your writing goals for 2018? How will you achieve them?

I have two: find a new publisher for the two Angelguard novels. Lion Fiction went through a hard time a year or so back and in the end gave me the rights back to Angelguard. My second goal is to get a wriggle along on book three so I can demonstrate to a prospective publisher that the third one is not too far away.

How will I achieve them? Write, write, write and then contact two agents who I know to see if there is any interest from them to representing me.

How does your faith impact and shape your writing?

I can’t separate it as the premise of my stories is to explore a question I have on the Christian experience. My challenge is to minimise the “telling” in the message.

I think writing great Christian characters is hard. To be able to show the intimacy of a relationship with God in all its facets is challenging without “telling”. It also creates a new layer of challenge in demonstrating the fruits of the Spirit alongside the “story” and all the while showing characters having a vibrant or otherwise relationship with an invisible God. It’s what makes writing Christian fiction so much fun.

Ian Acheson is an author and strategy consultant based in Sydney. Ian's first novel of speculative fiction, Angelguard was recognised with the 2014 Selah Award for Speculative Fiction.You can find more about Angelguard at Ian's website, on his author Facebook pageand Twitter

Exploring Genre - Supernatural Fiction (Cross over post with ACW)

By Ian Acheson

This year, the cross posts between Christian Writers Downunder and Australasian Christian Writers are focusing on genre. So far, we’ve had posts on meeting genre expectations, in Space Opera and Superheroes, Portal Fantasy and Secondary World Fantasy, Poetry, Free Verse and Verse Novels , Regency and Historical Romance and Rural and Medical Romance 

Today I’m looking at the Supernatural Fiction sub-genre and will also reference Speculative Fiction together and Paranormal Fiction.

Supernatural fiction. What is it you ask? Let’s look at a few definitions.

It is often included in the “speculative” catchall that features in many places, whether it is award programs (eg, ACFW) to certain publishers that focus entirely on novels that “explore the boundaries of the imagination” to borrow from Marcher Lord Press now rebranded Enclave Publishing. We even have a publisher down under in New Zealand that specialises in such fiction: Grace Bridges’ Splashdown Books.

It’s pleasing to know that the world’s largest Christian publisher, Thomas Nelson, has it’s own supernatural fiction category. It is the home of some of the biggest authors of the genre: Ted Dekker, Jim Rubart and Erin Healy to name just three, all of whom happen to be particular favorities of mine.

Back to the definition. In its most basic form it is simply that the story contains elements that are outside the laws of the physical world. The story typically involves a power that goes beyond natural forces and is attributed to a god or deity. The ghost story is the archetypal supernatural story. However, some commentators would treat a ghost story as “paranormal fiction.” There’s a big overlap in all these genres and sub-genres of weirdness. Angels and demons fit in the supernatural while vampires, werewolves, zombies are probably classified as paranormal. Paranormal would also include extraterrestrial life (think ET, Independence Day), UFOs, etc.

In the past decade or so we’ve seen an explosion in secular artforms showcasing all this weirdness. Whether it’s the Twilight novels and movies to The Walking Dead graphic novels and TV series plus the many spin-offs where other worlds are portrayed that typically collide with our physical world in the shape of creatures including vampires, fairies, werewolves, zombies and such like.

Increasingly we’re finding Christian authors are exploring some of these boundaries with an uptake in horror novels and even the undead. I don’t read such novels but having spoken to readers who do, they have indicated these stories explore how God triumphs over Satan in his various evil guises.

Supernatural Faith

Our faith is a supernatural one. We believe in God who exists outside of our physical world. The Bible is a supernatural book and we’re participants in a spiritual war whether we like it or not. There is another world that exists all around us. In fact, it continually intersects with what we experience with our five senses. It is in the intersection where supernatural fiction typically resides.

I think we’d all be familiar with Frank Peretti’s Darkness duo of novels (“This Present Darkness” and “Piercing the Darkness”) that had such an influence over our generation of Christian readers. Certainly there were other novels before Peretti that portrayed supernatural themes but these two are famous for their demonstration of a parallel world of angels and demons being influenced and influencing what occurs in the physical world.

When I chat with readers who are passionate about such novels, I find three recurring themes.

1. An interest in the unfamiliar

This is perhaps a key difference to romance novels where certain underlying central themes can be familiar to the reader. Spiritual warfare, a particular personal area of interest, is often not something we hear or read much about. It’s rarely a topic of discussion around the dinner table, catch up with friends nor is it often preached about in some churches.

2. Triumph over evil

Most supernatural novels will feature a strong theme of good versus evil. This can take many forms whether it’s the direct influence of a demon on a human, or villains allowing their fleshly desires to guide their actions. In evil being defeated, the reader is able to witness an expression of God’s incredible love for His creation.

3. Strengthens their faith

This third element can be applied to any genre where we see faithfulness, forgiveness, grace or any number of God’s attributes on display. We close the book with hope in our heart having been reminded of God’s awesomeness.

Writing Christian fiction that’s not preachy is especially challenging. One of the advantages I believe speculative fiction has over other genres is that it is ‘easier’ to introduce a Christian theme by using an otherworldly character, for example, an angel or demon, or a human with a special supernatural gift, or a story that is set on a completely different world/realm/time continuum.

Realm Makers Conference 

Just as the secular world has its Comic Con gigs a group of Christian authors created Realm Makers a few years ago and now host an annual conference. It was recently held in Reno in late July and I understand over 200 people attended to listen to the likes of Dekker, Rubart, Mary Weber and David Farland to name just a few. I’m hoping to get to it next year.

Recent examples of Supernatural Fiction

I’m always looking for good supernatural and speculation fiction. Craig Parshall’s new Trevor Black Series is a good one that combines the grittiness of crime drama with supernatural suspense.

I’m a big fan of the Harbinger novella series. It’s now finished having produced 20 novellas written by 5 authors: Bill Myers, Peretti, Angie Hunt, Alton Gansky and Jeff Gerke. Clever story, form of creation and distribution. We’ll see more of this multi-author style of story in the years to come.

If you haven’t sampled any supernatural fiction recently or ever may I encourage you to put a toe in the water. Perhaps start with one of the Darkness novels, which I mentioned above, or one of Jim Rubart’s. Jim’s latest, The Long Journey to Jake Palmer, is superb and was my favourite novel of 2016. You won’t be disappointed and who knows, you may become a convert.

Ian Acheson is an author and strategy consultant based in Sydney. Ian's first novel of speculative fiction, Angelguard, is available in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. Angelguard was recognised with the 2014 Selah Award for Speculative Fiction.You can find more about Angelguard at Ian's website, on his author Facebook page and Twitter

Interview with Jack Haines

By Ian Acheson

Photo courtesy of Rendeeplumia/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I had the opportunity to sit down with Jack Haines, the hero of Angelguard. In a long wide-ranging interview that covered various topics including Jack’s faith, dealing with grief and the loss of loved ones, to his passion for ball sports and a hidden talent, Ian was able to share an excerpt with us on Christian Writers Downunder.

Thanks Jack for your time today. Perhaps fill us in with what occupies most of your days.

Ian, it’s my pleasure. I spend most of my weeks during the academic year teaching organisational design, leadership and entrepreneurship to students at the one of Australia's leading Graduate Management Schools. I also run my own consultancy business where I share my learning’s as a student of business with a small number of global clients.

And what about when you’re not working?

Running around being exhausted by two daughters, two-year-old twins. As a single dad it can be a lot of work. I’m blessed that my dear mum, Louise, moved into my home after Sarah, my wife, passed away last year. Mum cares for the girls while I’m working. I’m fortunate that I’m able to do a lot of preparation work at home so I can be within earshot of the family on most days.

Last year was a traumatic time for you. Are you able to share a little about how this impacted your walk with the Lord?

As you can imagine it was really tough at first. We were living the life, busy work and enjoying being a family of six, and part of a wonderfully caring church community. Then bang, tragedy struck, that family was halved and all of a sudden I felt terribly alone having to care for my two little ones. It was a real test of my faith. At first, I blamed God, but through His gentle reassuring touch He ministered to my broken heart. It’s still healing but what I’ve come to appreciate is that God wants us to depend on Him. Not just for the big things in life, but the everyday. So each day when I rise I seek Him out and ask for His help in everything I’m doing that day: caring for Gracey and Catie, teaching my students, being a son, friend and brother.

You confronted real evil last year on a few occasions. What was that like?

Fortunately, I can now only remember the joy I felt when we were together on the train heading towards Circular Quay. What happened after we crashed has now become a blur, until I woke in the hospital to be told Sarah and my two eldest had perished at the hands of a terrorist. Those first moments on hearing that news I expect I’ll never forget even though I was on heavy painkillers.

We’re all familiar with the Bible verses that tell us about what Satan and his workers are all about. John 10:10, “the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;” well I’ve seen the results of his handiwork firsthand. All the atrocities that occur in this world should remind us that evil does exist and as far as the enemy is concerned it’s a full-bloodied assault for our souls.

But the second half of that verse tells us we have the ultimate warrior on our side: Jesus. He has come that we may have life and have it to the full.

Even though there’s still sadness, I know God’s in charge, He’s crazy about me and as I mentioned before I’m learning to give over more of myself to Him. My prayer life has become such an important part of my day. Even days’ that are incredibly busy I make sure I give time to be in His presence and thank Him for all that He has blessed me with.

That’s all with have today. Further excerpts will be made available in the future.

If you’re not familiar with Jack Haines, his story can be found in Angelguard, the first novel in the Chronicles of the Angelguard.

Angelguard reveals the timeless supernatural war that continues unabated and it’s intersection with our physical world. In bringing the warring angels and demons to the forefront of a rollicking tale that crosses the globe, it highlights the ferocity of this conflict. The physical story focuses on three survivors of separate acts of terrorism that occur within weeks of each other. 

The power of prayer in engaging heaven is a second prominent theme of the novel. 

Ian Acheson is an author and strategy consultant based in Northern Sydney. Ian's first novel of speculative fiction, Angelguard, is now available in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. You can find more about Angelguard at Ian's website, on his author Facebook page and Twitter

A (Man's) Writer's Best Friend

It’s Friday, the last day in May so I thought I’d share a post that really doesn't have much to do with writing. In addition, as my first novel, Angelguard, has finally landed down under I thought I’d also take the opportunity to give 2 signed copies away to CWD members and friends. More of that later.

I grew up fearful of dogs. It wasn’t that I didn’t like them, it appeared to me they didn’t like me much. Dogs, at school and in the neighbourhood, often attacked me. Yes, they smelled my fear.

The worst situation involved a big sheepdog charging out from behind a brush fence, tore off the rope leash restraining it to maul little ole me. A tetanus shot, blood-drawn bite marks on my chest and a ruined tee shirt summed up that particular episode.

Brandy

I met Brandy as a pup. It took me a while to feel comfortable with her, in fact probably a year or so. Even though a pup, she was a jumpy one, as I learnt was common with many dogs.

As I gradually took on more responsibility for caring for her, plus the daily walks/runs, I began to understand why people could be effusive about dogs. My wife and I have this joke that she will gush over every dog that passes and I’ll fuss over every baby. Seriously, it’s like Fi has a special dog-tracking sensor. She’ll notice them from miles away. Pity I didn’t possess that talent in my youth as it may have prevented some of my scars.

But it was when I took a sabbatical to write Angelguard that my bond with Brandy began to increase. She would sit, well lie, by my side as I wrote each day. When it was time for lunch or for a walk she’d nuzzle up to my lap to remind me. She got used to those moments of exhilaration when I cracked what I thought was a good scene or the yells of frustration when the words were just not coming out.

Over the course of the next nine years that bond tightened and my love for her, well you know, gushed as a parent does for a child.

Sixth Sense

What amazes me about dogs is their willingness to serve and love selflessly. I still find it fascinating that “dog’” is an anagram of “god”. Did God give Adam a particular nudge when it was this animal’s turn to be named? Dogs possess a natural selflessness that we humans struggle to express.

Whether it’s comforting you when you’re not well, or being able to size up other dogs and humans on approach, I’m in awe of God’s creation. Many a day has passed when I wish I possessed their perceptiveness about others, human or dog.

Moments

Brandy was 15 and increasingly struggling with arthritis. Having consulted the vet who knew her well, we agreed it was time to let her go. Fiona and I were fortunate to have been able to determine the time and so our grieving commenced ahead of her passing.

On the day she passed I was struck how quickly it was all over. One minute, she was alive and happy. Sixty seconds later, she was gone. Life is simply a series of moments.

Community

Meet Beanie-boo, our now six-month old x-kelpie something. She’s an absolute bundle of joy. As I write this post she is doing what Brandy did for all that time: lying peacefully by my side.

We’ve discovered the wonders of the dog park. Five minutes from home is a football oval converted into a fenced in dog park. Every afternoon before nightfall it is overtaken by large numbers of dogs of all shapes and sizes who meet up for their daily fun. Some owners take the time to do their own exercise, conduct business over the mobile, or simply catch up with fellow neighbours to talk everything canine.

This is community: people with a common interest mingling to share and care. We swap each other’s dogs name before we introduce ourselves. They may be an international footballer or a prominent businessperson but at the park that’s inconsequential. What binds us is a common love for … our dogs.

Giveaway

This post is long enough (sorry) so you can check out Angelguard on my website where you can view the trailer. I’ll give a signed copy to two contributors who share a little dog’s tale and express an interest in reading the novel. I'll advise the two winners by email on Wednesday 5 June.

Have lovely weekends.

Woof (that’s Beanie contribution).

Ian Acheson is an author and strategy consultant based in Northern Sydney. Ian's first novel, Angelguard, was released recently in US, UK, Canada and Australia. You can find more about Angelguard at Ian's website, on his author Facebook page and Twitter