Spiritual fiction – Page 5

Talent For A Mission, Chapter One (Part One)…The Why

I am only providing, in this post, “the why” for this “guide” or “manual” as to why I think it might be a good idea for authors who claim to believe on Jesus Christ to use their writing “talent” to try to convince others of their own free will to repent of whatever sins and accept Christ as Lord and Savior–to be “born again.” That is, having been born of water (in the flesh), to be born “again” in the Spirit. And now is the time for me to present this “guide,” for it seems more and more as if the world has gone crazy, especially now with wars and rumors of wars in the Middle East. To the point where many preachers are now claiming we are either in “the end times” or fast approaching “the end times.”

Maybe. Maybe not. But whether we are coming close to “the end times” or not, it is still a good idea to follow what Christ told His Apostles upon His resurrection return (before going up to Heaven): to make Disciples of all nations (as said in Matthew 28:19–“Go ye therefore and teach all nations…”). A “mission of God” so-to-speak. From Chapter One of Talent For A Mission, copyright © 2023 by Deborah Lagarde:

Continue reading “Talent For A Mission, Chapter One (Part One)…The Why”

Coming Next: Talent For A Mission

I am still working on completing Talent For A Mission, which is a manual or guide or encouragement…call it what you will…for Christian authors of (mostly) fiction novels or stories or short novels to use the “talent” God gave them to get the Word out about why one should consider or choose or ‘re-choose’ accepting Christ as Lord and Savior. To do what Christ (after His resurrection) told His apostles to do–make disciples of all nations (at the end of the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 28, for one).

The Prodigal Band Trilogy is based on the Luke 15 Parable of the Prodigal Son. Talent for a Mission is based on another parable, the Parable of the Talents, from the Gospel of Matthew 25: 14-30 (from the King James Bible PDF version):

{25:14} For [the kingdom of heaven is] as a man
travelling into a far country, [who] called his own servants,
and delivered unto them his goods. {25:15} And unto one
he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to
every man according to his several ability; and straightway
took his journey. {25:16} Then he that had received the five
talents went and traded with the same, and made [them]
other five talents. {25:17} And likewise he that [had
received] two, he also gained other two. {25:18} But he that
had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his
lord’s money. {25:19} After a long time the lord of those
servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. {25:20} And so
he that had received five talents came and brought other five
talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents:
behold, I have gained beside them five talents more.
{25:21} His lord said unto him, Well done, [thou] good and
faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I
will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the
joy of thy lord. {25:22} He also that had received two
talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two
talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them.
{25:23} His lord said unto him, Well done, good and
faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I
will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the
joy of thy lord. {25:24} Then he which had received the one
talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard
man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering
where thou hast not strawed: {25:25} And I was afraid, and
went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, [there] thou hast
[that is] thine. {25:26} His lord answered and said unto
him, [Thou] wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that
I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not
strawed: {25:27} Thou oughtest therefore to have put my
money to the exchangers, and [then] at my coming I should
have received mine own with usury. {25:28} Take therefore
the talent from him, and give [it] unto him which hath ten
talents. {25:29} For unto every one that hath shall be given,
and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not
shall be taken away even that which he hath. {25:30} And
cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness

In other words, if God gave an author the talent to author for His purpose, then that author ought to use that talent in writing, to “make disciples of all nations,” and for other purposes promoting good as opposed to evil, or for the purpose of exposing evil (using fiction or non-fiction). That is the purpose of my writing a ‘manual’ so-to-speak, to promote the idea that if an author believes on Christ, then that author should perform that ‘mission’ that God gave him or her.

The next post will be the first chapter of Talent For A Mission, which tells why a Christian author should take that ‘mission,’ and why I was inspired to write this ‘manual’ in the first place. Cheers!

Excerpts from The Murder Rule, Part One, Chapter One

I have completed my new novel, The Murder Rule, to be published by OmegaBooks likely in either September or October, 2023, and to be copyrighted by myself, Deborah Lagarde, and to be registered at the Library of Congress soon. The genres it will be registered under will be Adult Fiction, Drama, Suspense, Spiritual, and perhaps one other. Unless I change my mind and decide to sell it through an online platform (such as Amazon), The Murder Rule will be posted as a FREE PDF download at this site, as with The Prodigal Band, which has well over one thousand downloads since stats have been recorded starting in 2019.

During this month, August, 2023, I will be posting excerpts (© Deborah Lagarde) from Chapter One of each of the three parts to The Murder Rule. In subsequent months I might post excerpts from other chapters from Parts One, Two and Three. With the excerpts will come necessary details regarding these excerpts and how these excerpts play into the parts as a whole or stem from the three novels that make up The Prodigal Band Trilogy of which The Murder Rule is a “spin-off” novel. However, I will not post entire chapters–they can be read by downloading the entire FREE PDF of The Murder Rule, if one so chooses.

The first excerpt begins Chapter One and features Part One’s victim, rocker Denny Spradlin of the fictional band Wolfin, a ‘friend’ and ‘advisor’ that is visiting him, and the Part One narrator, pop-culture pundit Lloyd Denholm, who writes for X-Zine, a magazine edited by an editing team known as ‘Cal.Edit.’ All of the characters in this chapter (and most in Part One) are British, including the writer of the mentioned ‘hand-written letter.’

Continue reading “Excerpts from The Murder Rule, Part One, Chapter One”

“The Murder Rule” Has Been Completed…with Final Edit Upcoming.

I have just completed the preliminary edits for all three parts of The Murder Rule, with a final edit coming soon–and then ‘splicing’ all three parts into one whole novel, and, of course, creating the cover art, copyright pages, and the Preface which I am composing now. The novel will be published by OmegaBooks and will be available as a FREE PDF. For one thing, I do not need the income from book sales, and to get the novel in print form I’d have to pay a possibly large price to get print editions. I could put the novel on Amazon Kindle or another platform, but then I’d have to follow their guidelines as to formatting that I really don’t have the patience to perform just to earn a bit of income from e-book sales and/or royalties…it’s not worth the effort when it is the MESSAGE imparted within the novel, not income, that matters to me. And the MESSAGE is this–the world is ruled by evil! This evil must be defeated!
The next post, which contains parts of the Preface (or Introduction) to The Murder Rule, will be posted later this week. Then the Foreword, which sums up each part, will be composed and partially posted before the end of June, 2023. Cheers!

Note: The picture shown above (that I took with a camera, not a smart phone, back in 2009 while in Washington, DC) may be featured within the cover art.

When Bad Events Lead to Good Outcomes: Snippets from The Prodigal Band Trilogy and The Murder Rule, Part Three

Sorry about the lack of a ‘Happy Resurrection Day’ (aka Easter) post, or Passover, or Ramadan, or whatever other religious holidays are happening these days, but various events took place I had to deal with, vehicle or other issues, and there are other issues forthcoming. Which is why now is the time to post the next ‘When Bad Events Lead to Good Outcomes’ snippet post—and what with all the bad events going on in this world these days (inflation, various divide and rule agendas involving race, gender, politics, economics, the ‘pandemic treaty’ and digital currencies and whatnot the powers-that-shouldn’t-be are trying to force on the rest of us), good outcomes are what we need, and not just from the realm of spirituality.

Believe it or not, but physical reality can bring about good outcomes even when truly evil events occur, because just as God controls the spiritual realm, He also controls the physical world. And years ago, I heard a story from a friend that shocked the heck out of me, thinking such an event could never happen because—it just seemed impossible! I heard part of this story at a snack party after Christmas caroling about a week before Christmas in the early 2000s, led by a pastor of the local non-denominational church I had just joined a year or so ago.

I and some others were sitting at a dinner table near where snacks were served at another table in the home of one of the carolers, eating the snacks. This friend and a couple of others were discussing something I wasn’t really paying any attention to, and then this friend, who was clearly Asian, said this:

Continue reading “When Bad Events Lead to Good Outcomes: Snippets from The Prodigal Band Trilogy and The Murder Rule, Part Three”

Imagine This: Would I Let ChatGPT Write Another Spin-Off Novel? Hmmmmmmm…..

Instead of writing another Snippet-to-Spin-Off post about bad events leading to desired outcomes, this thought just popped into my mind after reading posts about writers or publishers re-working novels or non-fiction using the Artificial Intelligence AI app known as “ChatGPT” (regardless of version…I heard ChatGPT 4.0 was the latest) to rewrite the novels. If indeed this kind of activity is actually true. One thing I’ve come to realize in some online posts, is that some of it is just click-bait and some of it is only partially true. I know for a fact that folks use ChatGPT to create research or college term papers (but not myself…I don’t need AI if you know what I mean! I’m too “old school,” right?) Why pay someone who can actually write and spell correctly and do proper research to write your term paper when you can just download an app and get the app to do it? (Note: a local college student actually paid me to write a term paper back in the late 90s about animal husbandry…which I know little about, but the data online helped me out a bit…) And while this could be construed as “cheating,” it makes sense to some extent—if you can trust AI, that is. But there has been some criticism of ChatGPT, such as ‘it was created by leftist wokesters’ or ‘it isn’t equity-oriented enough’ or ‘it just writes what some tech oligarch tells it to’ or whatever, because if it’s just Big Tech then it’s nonsense, right? I know, I know…it’ll create the actual “Terminator”! Imagine…Arnold Schwarzenegger inventing ChatGPT! Or using it somehow…or maybe Sarah Conner… Bwahahahahahah! (Note: I’m joking, okay?)

But suppose I actually imagined downloading ChatGPT in order for it to actually write another Prodigal Band Trilogy spin-off novel (as is The Murder Rule I am in the process of completing, hopefully by this summer). First of all, could ChatGPT actually write a spin-off unless it actually read any of the trilogy books? Hmmm. Can this app read books by itself? Well, I wonder if it could come to this website and read all the snippet posts; then, maybe, it could accomplish that task. But ChatGPT still might have a problem considering all the spiritual aspects of this trilogy, whether good or evil—can AI actually recognize these spiritual aspects? Does ChatGPT actually think God, or Christ, or the Holy Spirit, or Satan/Corion/Lucifer, or demons, or spirit beings such as Morwenna/witch of the Hovels…does ChatGPT actually think (if it does actually “think”!) these entities actually exist? Or, since The Prodigal Band Trilogy is fiction, would ChatGPT think these entities are just fiction? (Considering many humans think these entities are actually fiction….Hmmmm….)

But here is what came into my head within the past 24 hours, roughly, starting with the fictional notion of ChatGPT writing me a message on MS Word all of a sudden. Remember—this is just a fictional event I imagined.

Continue reading “Imagine This: Would I Let ChatGPT Write Another Spin-Off Novel? Hmmmmmmm…..”

When Bad Events Lead to Good Outcomes: Snippets from The Prodigal Band Trilogy and The Murder Rule, Part Two

I said in the previous post that my next post in this new snippet series would be in mid-March, so, here it is, mid-March, after a ‘spring break’ camping trip with family. While during most of the trip I did hiking through forest-river areas, I did consider what could make up the second post—which is similar to the first post about an evil man who repents of his evil and accepts Christ as Lord and Savior in his death bed. Yet in this post, the ‘accepter’ so-to-speak is minutes or even seconds away from death by murder, and this event takes place within Part One of The Murder Rule. And did this victim, Denny Spradlin, a rock star and friendly rival with members of the prodigal band Sound Unltd, actually repent and accept Christ in such a short time before death took him, or is that how his band mate, Blake Fenmore, interpreted a statement the victim left in a metal strong box? Note: Both Denny and Blake are featured in Battle of the Band.

The snippet below (© copyright 2023 by Deborah Lagarde), from Chapter One of The Murder Rule (Part One), contains an email letter from Blake to ‘CalEdit’ of the alternative pop culture magazine, X-Zine, sent in 2005, asking X-Zine to investigate what Blake sees as the murder of his Wolfin band mate and best friend, Denny, in early 1996; Blake had originally told the media it was a suicide or drug overdose, but did so out of fear that if he revealed it was murder, he too would be ‘murder-ruled.’

Continue reading “When Bad Events Lead to Good Outcomes: Snippets from The Prodigal Band Trilogy and The Murder Rule, Part Two”

When Bad Events Lead to Good Outcomes: Snippets from The Prodigal Band Trilogy and The Murder Rule, Part One

There are several instances of evil or nefarious or just plain bad scenarios and events within both The Prodigal Band Trilogy and the (for now) three parts that will make up the new novel I hope to complete in a few months called The Murder Rule that lead to good outcomes.

Consider that the main idea within the Gospel of Luke Chapter 15 Parable of the Prodigal Son is that the son, who leaves his father and in a foreign land partakes in ‘riotous living’ and then suffers the consequences, ultimately realizing he made a huge mistake, begins to turn his life right-side-out and then returns to his father, who celebrates his return and repentance bringing about a good outcome. Because sometimes that is what it takes—an evil or bad event or series of events—to get one to realize that there is a better way forward, physically and spiritually. And this wake-up call can occur even on one’s so-called ‘death bed.’

To begin this new series of snippets from the trilogy and The Murder Rule I will only post one rather long snippet, but others are in the works. The next snippet post in this series will be posted in mid-March.

Continue reading “When Bad Events Lead to Good Outcomes: Snippets from The Prodigal Band Trilogy and The Murder Rule, Part One”

Snippets-to-Spin-Offs: The Murder Rule and More (Part Ten)—An Introduction to The Murder Rule, Part Three, Exposing Truly Evil Deeds

Another late post…but unanticipated events happen that ‘distract’ or take precedence over completing a fiction novel, such as dealing with crazy weather—while much of the western US is drying out during growing season, far west Texas, desert country, is in one heckuva ‘monsoon’ season. Plus, phone outages, internet outages, and more.

Likely, Part Three of The Murder Rule will be the final part of this novel. Another decision I had to make with Part Three was this—who would become the narrator? Fictional pop-culture pundit Lloyd Denholm narrated Part One and fictional prodigal band roadie Bobby Jones narrated Part Two, so would another character narrate Part Three? In Part Three, a major support character of The Prodigal Band Trilogy, prodigal band Sound Unltd manager Joe Phillips—the son of the evil Baron Torquay-Lambourgeau—becomes the main character. For he knows first-hand the evil that inhabits this world and that must be defeated; in Chapter Twelve of The Prodigal Band, Phillips accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and later, his evil father repents of his many evil deeds and the baron, too, accepts Christ. But having to choose between Phillips and pundit Lloyd Denholm, I chose Denholm to be the narrator…for Denholm is tasked by his employer, the alternative pop-culture magazine, X-Zine, to investigate a series of events that Phillips plays roles in as he exposes the evil in this world—a world that could be on the cusp of what many preachers consider the Biblical ‘end times.’

And what with so many preachers and folks in various religions claiming this world truly is on that cusp, Part Three is being set in the time frame of the present day. I just haven’t chosen a particular year yet. But 2023 or 2024 would seem like a place to start (and, at the final edit of the novel, I could change the date if you know what I mean!).

Continue reading “Snippets-to-Spin-Offs: The Murder Rule and More (Part Ten)—An Introduction to The Murder Rule, Part Three, Exposing Truly Evil Deeds”

Another Inspiration For The Prodigal Band Trilogy as Well as The Murder Rule—Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’ Novel and Video Series

I am nearly finished with Part Two of The Murder Rule and wondering how I will begin Part Three, which could be the final part of this novel…or not. Hopefully, Part Two will finish by the end of August and Part Three will begin in September.

I have already covered various spiritual and other inspirations for my The Prodigal Band Trilogy and its spin-off, The Murder Rule: Bible scripture and parables, occult and New Age beliefs, rock music, popular culture, occult symbols and rituals, good vs. evil, and more. The articles listed in the menu item Links to All Snippet Posts provide coverage of this topic.

However, I need to point out one more popular culture item not mentioned because this novel, which became a four-part-mini-series that I watched over VHS tape in the mid-90s, definitely helped inspire my trilogy—Stephen King’s The Stand. I am bringing this up now because I recently watched a ‘fan edit’ of this video series on YouTube here, in which nearly the entire series is included (a few parts were left out that likely don’t matter anyway). While watching this nearly six-hour video, I saw parts of it that I remember helped inspire the trilogy, especially the first novel, Battle of the Band. If you’ve never seen the series (even if you read the novel, which I have not), I recommend you watch the whole video, in whole or in parts. (Note: there were changes made in the video series such that there are differences between the novel and the video series.)

Continue reading “Another Inspiration For The Prodigal Band Trilogy as Well as The Murder Rule—Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’ Novel and Video Series”