Welcome to my first blog!
I thought I would touch on the subject of how this book came to be.
The plot was driven from a number of spiritual experiences I’ve had in my life, coupled with gospel centered discussions I’ve had with many students as an instructor of religious teaching for my church. When I would discuss the stories of good versus evil and the life to come with students of all ages I noticed they would pay attention with more focus. A number of scriptures that we would study regarding those subjects would always be brought up again and again. I have used many of them in this book to get you thinking. Many of them cross many different religions around the world and showed me there is commonality in a lot of different beliefs. I’ve had a number of wonderful conversations with people from all across North and Central America, Europe, and Africa and look forward to continuing to learn from many more people in other countries some day. Most of them were Christian but I had many conversations with devout Muslims, Jewish, Buddhist, and Hindu followers. Little bits of these conversations that I’ve written about in my journals over the years have ended up being discussed in the book. There’s also a little bit of me in a number of my characters which was a fun way to divulge my personality, knowledge, and humor.
Two books I read in the mid 2000’s also inspired me to write Glimpse. The first one was “The Emerging Mind” which was based on a Smithsonian Institution Lecture Series by Karen Nesbitt Shanor PHD. This book explored a number of interesting topics by a number of outstanding thinkers of our time including Doctors Deepak Chopra, Karl Pribram, and Frank Putnam, to name a few. They talk a lot about how the body, mind and spirit can all work together in bringing added enlightenment to ones life. It is a deep read but really eye opening. One of the chapters talked about each of us having a “hidden observer” that can protect us and give us enlightened direction. I would call this a Spiritual observer that can be our body’s relationship with our soul, the Holy Spirit, or loved ones that have moved on from this realm and are charged with looking after us. My conclusion was we need to tap in this spiritual aspect to live a richer life.
The next book was “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown. I know this book stirred a lot of controversy with a lot of people but I loved how he wove SOME factual historical information with his fictional narrative. He had interesting characters, short chapters with cliff hangers at the end of them, and kept you guessing the whole time who was behind all of the mayhem. I had read “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” decades before and knew right when I read Dan’s work that he had taken a lot of info from that book. Because I liked his style I’ve tried to make this book a quick and fun read.
I started writing it in 2009 after I visited the University of Maryland campus on a trip back East. I don’t know why I ended up on that campus. I most likely was lost driving around D.C. but ended up there none-the-less. I was struck by the beauty and history of it and my characters, that were being developed, seemed to fit that location as I walked the campus grounds. I also loved my time in Philadelphia, Baltimore, D.C. and New York on that trip. Many of those places and historical events play a prominent role in my book.
So why did it take until 2023 to publish it? Well I put it down while I wrote some care-giver books for those that have loved ones with cancer that took up most of the last decade. When I picked back up my writing of Glimpse in 2017 it took a number of years of revisions and re-writes to get it where it needed to be. I also had some wonderful encouragement from my wife, and trusted family and friends that gave me great suggestions to make it better and more character driven. I tried shopping it around to dozens of agents but there were no takers so I went the self-publishing route with LifeRich and here we are.
I feel Glimpse has a great message and I hope you find it a fun and interesting read!
