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| Lion of the tribe of Judah |
Several months ago, Laura Davis featured me on her blog when I began working on Seventh Dimension - The Castle, Book 3. Now that The Castle is finished, I decided to repost it here as it shares a lot of my writing journey for the Seventh Dimension Series. Enjoy.
LAURA DAVIS: For those who aren’t familiar with your work, can you tell us a little about yourself.
LORILYN ROBERTS: My early childhood would make good fodder for a Hollywood movie. My father walked out on my mother when I was a baby and I did not meet him again until I was thirty. Any writing talent I received from God came through him. My mother is the least talented person I have ever met—but her business mind is uncanny.
I suppose you could say I’m the epitome of a frustrated writer without the frustration. I believe God has given me an ordinary beginning, one common to most writers so that His grace will be revealed despite my imperfections. We are all geniuses in disguise waiting for God’s perfection to be manifested. In the meantime, I believe the “becoming” is more important than the end. In the becoming, we learn how to work out our salvation, our struggles, and our writing dreams.
LAURA DAVIS: How long have you been writing?
LORILYN ROBERTS: I’ve been writing since I could hold a pencil. I would write stories imitating cursive writing and ask my mother to read them. She would gently say, “Would you like to read that to me?” And I would read her my illegible handwriting. I’ve kept one of the first stories I wrote in a box underneath my bed. Every few years, I’ll pull it out and read it. Then I’ll dubiously wonder if my writing has improved after forty years of court reporting, captioning, publishing seven books, and receiving my Masters in Creative Writing.
I love writing more than reading, cooking, or anything else—except perhaps lying on the beach with a good book or scuba diving. Sometimes I wonder if God has put me in a position where my writing hours are limited so I must balance my life with the mundaneness of everyday living. Otherwise, I might become a hermit and never leave my writing corner. I love losing myself in stories, the creative process of building an imaginative world, and then figuring out how to share that with others.
Writing for me is magical. Sometimes we forget that God is magnificently creative. He longs for us to embrace that magical part of ourselves. Jesus said, “If you don’t believe in me, believe in the works I do.” I see that as a call to use our talents to glorify God and to reveal to readers God’s creativity through our words.
I feel closest to God when I am writing. Sometimes I will hear God say to me, “That’s boring. You can do better than that.” I remind myself, don’t compromise for the sake of expediency. Give the reader every last ounce of creativity I have so God will know it’s my best—for His glory, His honor, His kingdom.
LAURA DAVIS: What is the hardest thing about writing for you?
LORILYN ROBERTS: The hardest thing about writing is finding the time. I’m a single parent, although my youngest is almost grown, but everyday living takes up a sizable chunk of time. Writing in the middle of the night works best. The only thing that might disturb me is a cockroach looking for a free meal, and as long as I can spray him with a half a can of poison and make sure his wiggly legs stop moving, I can go back to finishing my scene.
Otherwise, my mind will be on roaches and other disturbing thoughts that shouldn’t be in my book. I had hoped our three cats and dog from the humane society who spend ninety percent of their time sleeping could earn their keeps by disposing of them for me. Occasionally, I’ll find an abandoned roach leg on the floor and wonder who the murderer was. When you live in Florida, you adjust or move to colder climates.
LAURA DAVIS: Can you tell us about your new book?
LORILYN ROBERTS: I am writing a YA fantasy series called The Seventh Dimension. The second book in the series The King was published in August. The third book The Castle was published in 2016. Since then The City and The Prescience have been published. I'm now working on book 6, The Howling.
The Seventh Dimension is a spiritual reality. The premise behind the series is that everyone who has accepted Yeshua into their hearts has traveled to first-century Israel and met Yeshua at the cross.
In The Seventh Dimension, which is a parallel spiritual universe, we must make choices that affect where we will spend eternity. When we meet Yeshua, we must surrender our past so that He can redeem it. Every soul has been bought and paid for by Yeshua. However, Satan doesn’t know the outcome, so to win a soul to his camp is a prized possession. God can’t give us His gift unless we accept it. Because Satan is a deceiver—he has nothing to lose. The battle is far deeper and more complex than we can imagine. Most of the battle is fought on a spiritual level, so in The Seventh Dimension, we see the spiritual side of the war—with demons, angels, and Yeshua.
The Seventh Dimension embraces the mystery of God and is a reality outside of time not limited by human understanding. Time exists for our benefit and makes it convenient to trace the events of history and give us a sense of reference. The Seventh Dimension embraces the past, the present, and the future. I hope as I write, God gives me insights into this spiritual reality. Hopefully, the concept will come alive in the reader’s heart and touch those who have yet to embrace our Savior.
I remind myself, to give my Audience of One my book, and He will make it a hundred times more powerful than I could do in my limited human ability. I hope I have been able to achieve that in The Seventh Dimension Series.
LAURA DAVIS: What inspired you to write this book?
LORILYN ROBERTS: The first book in The Seventh Dimension Series is actually a children’s picture book, The Donkey and the King. I was in Israel in 1991 at the beginning of the Gulf War and this book was inspired by that experience. Later, when I was working on my Master in Creative Writing, I wanted to continue with the theme in a YA series addressing different issues.
So I wrote the first book The Door that in many ways is a reflection of my own life. In The Door, a young girl, Shale Snyder, is bullied and rejected by significant others. A dog finds Shale and coaxes her to follow her to a different world. There she meets the King and many other people from her past, only this time it’s in the spiritual world of The Seventh Dimension.
In the second book, The King, the protagonist, Daniel Sperling, is a 17-year-old Israeli boy who was introduced in The Door. Forced to enter a treatment center following a mental breakdown, he is angry with God and has abandoned his Jewish faith. When a devastating earthquake rocks Israel, he is transported to The Seventh Dimension. There he is confronted with conflicting “truths” in a parallel universe that challenges everything he has ever believed. His dreams of medical school are threatened when romantic interests touch his heart and a strange demon tempts him to make poor choices.
The Seventh Dimension Series shows readers that the path to God for each believer is unique and fascinating. God’s plan may take years to understand because our earthly understanding is limited. I would encourage sojourners to embrace the hard things and ask God to redeem them. All of my books have that element of redemption.
You never know what blessings may come if you look for the “good” everywhere. My hope is that Jewish skeptics will read my book and ask questions, more specifically, could Jesus be the long-awaited Messiah?
As an aside. I recently learned that I have Jewish blood in me through DNA testing with 23 And Me. I am thankful to know that my love for the Jewishness of the Bible is not quirky or imagined. God used my Jewish friends to draw me to Him. Experiencing God’s love firsthand and reading the “proof texts” in the Old Testament were too compelling to ignore.
LAURA DAVIS: What books do you enjoy reading?
LORILYN ROBERTS: I enjoy reading books that are creative, well-written, and unpredictable. After I finish a good story, I want to ponder its meaning. I want a book to reveal a nugget of truth I have never seen. I want to read books that will encourage me to write and stir my own creative juices, leaving me to admire the gift of writing in others. I want a book that resonates with spiritual truth and becomes a part of who I am.
Books that have done this for me include the Narnia Series by C.S. Lewis, Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, Crime and Punishment by Feodor Dostoyevsky, and JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.
I believe readers want books written with a Christian worldview even if they don’t know it. God’s image is imprinted on human hearts which creates a deep longing for Him. Too many have replaced that longing with counterfeits because they haven’t discovered the truth.
I hope readers will read The Seventh Dimension Series and share my books with their friends and family. I am also always looking for reviewers.
The Seventh Dimension Award-Winning Series continues in "The Castle."
Haunted by a recurring dream of his missing father in a mysterious castle, 17-year-old Daniel is captured by the Romans and finds asylum in the Temple. There he discovers a scroll that reveals his future concerning a wager between good and evil. But the stakes are raised when he witnesses the trial and crucifixion of Yeshua. The convergence of time with supernatural events creates a suspenseful ending and leads to the fourth book in the Seventh Dimension Series, The City.
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Lorilyn Roberts has won multiple awards for the Seventh Dimension Series, including The King: 2014 USA Best Book Awards Finalist and a 2014 Gold Winner for Faith-Based YA Fiction in the Literary Classics Awards, among other awards.
Lorilyn graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Alabama in 1991. Her studies included spending two weeks in Israel at the start of the Gulf War and touring England, Australia, New Zealand, and several countries in Europe. She later attended the Institute of Children's Literature and earned her Master of Arts in Creative Writing from Perelandra College.
