Mysterium Tremendum is three years old today. I figured an update is in order, despite the fact I haven't exactly been a recluse since my January 1st hiatus resolution. I am semi-proud of the fact I have kept my commitment not to post here until I can call myself a published author, but it's not like I haven't cheated on this, my original solo blog, with Thinklings, Shizuka Blog, Cinema Veritas, and -- added this year to my roster of time-consuming compulsions -- The Boar's Head Tavern and a site started as a ministry to my church, BCC is Broken. A writer's gotta write, right? And a writer who blogs has gotta blog, especially when it's the difference between slaving in solitude for months to produce a book your agent may or may not think is "marketable" for enough publishers to see and working for an hour on a blog post lots of people will see immediately and provide instant feedback on. Of course, only one of those efforts pays money too, so there's a trade off. ;-) But the instant gratification of blogging has proven too much for me to call it quits completely.

I have been frequently tempted to post in this space. I've had lots of ideas that, despite my numerous online outlets, would make me think, "Ah, that'd be perfect for MT!" Mostly personal theological ruminations of the non-devotional sort and reflections on the literary world. But I am honest about being a small fish in a big pond. Why, just yesterday Mark Bertrand wrote a piece that made we wish I'd written it, then realize I couldn't have done it any better anyway or from a more visible platform or higher place of authority. So, go read his stuff -- all of it. It's better than 2/3 of all the lit-blogs put together.

I suppose you want an update. And I suppose that's sorta what this is. I am popping in on Mysterium Tremendum's third birthday to say, "Nope, still not published." I finished Black Dog Man late last summer, turned it into my agent, and grumbled for months as it suffered limited exposure. Seems it was too long. (667 manuscript pages, if you're keeping score, which is long for evangelical fiction, but short for those Harold Potter books fifth graders seem to consume like candy.) Also, it seems as though a couple of folks who managed not to balk at the length -- and let's be honest, that wouldn't have been as huge of an issue if I wasn't a first-time author -- didn't like that the action scenes had a, you know, story around them. I never hid the fact that BDM is a literary thriller, and my proposal makes it quite clear it's not a genre action/adventure piece. Most "real" people, who don't have to worry about selling the thing ;-), really got the book. Their reviews mean so much and tell me that I accomplished what I hoped to accomplish thematically and spiritually with the story. Phil Wade of Brandywine Books even put it on his Best Of list. But out of the increasingly vast array of evangelical fiction publishers, only 6 or 7 editors actually had their hands on Black Dog Man. Disappointing, to say the least. But I have shelved the novel optimistically, believing that I can eventually earn the right to present to an editor the story I want to tell.

The only publication I've seen in the interim is a little review piece in the debut issue of the new quarterly The Critical. Last fall I began my current project, tentatively titled Echo Island, which merges the ancient Greek underworld myth (with twists of Dante and J.J. Abrams) with a more postmodern meta-fictional “reveal.” It’s sort of like Purgatorio meets “The Twilight Zone” as imagined by C.S. Lewis and Paul Auster and Charlie Kaufman. I'm hoping this third effort of mine will be my breakthrough debut.

And that's "where I am right now." ;-)

One thing I've started doing on these MT blogiversaries is share my reading list for the past 12 months. (You can read the 2003-2004 list and the 2004-2005 list too.) This year I've decided to honor Dan's request that I actually rate the selections. My scale runs 0 (terrible) to 5 (near perfect). Here's what I've read since last September:

Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing by Margaret Atwood (2)
Beyond the Red Notebook: Essays on Paul Auster edited by Dennis Barone (3)
Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury (3)
The Eleventh Draft: Craft and the Writing Life from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop edited by Frank Conroy (3)
On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner (4)
The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction by Stephen Koch (5)
“On Stories” and Other Essays on Literature by C.S. Lewis (re-read) (5)
Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer by Peter Turchi (4)
The Spirit of Writing edited by Mark Robert Waldman (2)

Victory Over the Darkness by Neil T. Anderson (re-read) (3)
The Hand of God by Alistair Begg (3)
The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions edited by Arthur Bennett (5)
Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (re-read) (5)
Love and Respect by Emmerson Eggerichs (3)
Dining with the Devil: The Megachurch Movement Flirts with Modernity by Os Guinness (3)
I Cherish You by Willard Harley (2)
The Cross Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney (3)
The Jesus Creed by Scot McKnight (5)
The Reign of Grace by Scotty Smith (3)
Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas (re-read) (5)
Left Behind in a Megachurch World by Ruth Tucker (3)
As For Me and My House: Crafting Your Marriage to Last by Walter Wangerin (4)
Rumors of Another World by Philip Yancey (2)

Evangelical Theology: An Introduction by Karl Barth (4)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Witness to Jesus Christ: Selected Writings by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ed. by John de Gruchy (4)
Listening to the Spirit in the Text by Gordon Fee (4)
A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of Christ-Centered Worship by Michael Horton (3)
God of Promise: Introducing Covenant Theology by Michael Horton (3)
Testaments of Love: A Study of Love in the Bible by Leon Morris (3)
Calvin and the Atonement by Robert A. Peterson, Sr. (3)
Eschatological Rationality by Gerhard Sauter (3)
The Theology of the First Christians by Walter Schmithals (2)
Enjoying God Forever: Reflections on the Westminster Confession by Paul Smith (3)
After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity by Miroslav Volf (3)
The Pauline Eschatology by Geerhardus Vos (4)
The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture by N.T. Wright (3)

The Historical Figure of Jesus by E.P. Sanders (4)
The History of the Christ: The Foundation of New Testament Theology by Adolf Schlatter (4)
Jesus the Sage: The Pilgrimage of Wisdom by Ben Witherington III (4)
Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship by N.T. Wright (re-read) (5)

The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster (4)
Oracle Night by Paul Auster (re-read) (4)
The Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum (3)
Herzog by Saul Bellow (4)
Mall by Eric Bogosian (2)
The Final Solution by Michael Chabon (3)
Selected Stories by Anton Chekhov (5)
Purgatorio by Dante (re-read) (5)
Americana by Don DeLillo (4)
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (3)
Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow (3)
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (5)
You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers (3)
Intruder in the Dust by William Faulkner (re-read) (4)
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene (5)
Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene (3)
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (4)
The Pugilist at Rest: Stories by Thom Jones (3)
The Colorado Kid by Stephen King (4)
Insomnia by Stephen King (1)
Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub (2)
“Jason and the Argonauts” by Charles Kingsley (3)
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (3)
The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis (re-read) (4)
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (4)
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (3)
The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy (audio book read by Brad Pitt) (4)
The Defense by Vladimir Nabokov (3)
Life: A User’s Manual by Georges Perec (2)
Joe College by Tom Perrotta (2)
Little Children by Tom Perrotta (4)
Operation Shylock by Philip Roth (3)
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy (re-read) (5)
A Month of Sundays by John Updike (3)
Rabbit, Run by John Updike (4)
Rabbit Redux by John Updike (5)
Rabbit is Rich by John Updike (4)
Roger’s Version by John Updike (3)

As you can see, I discovered John Updike this year. ;-)
But the best novel I read, my now favorite novel, is Greene's The End of the Affair.
If you're the nosy sort, please know that despite the inactive posting in this space, my reading list in the left sidebar is always up to date.

That's all I got. If nothing "big" happens between now and then, I guess I'll see you next September. (Or in the next few minutes on another blog. ;-)