Hi! Welcome to the Author Scavenger Hunt :). As part of the hunt, I have a couple things going here. First, a wonderful post by Rachel Starr Thomson. Second, the next part of the clue you need to continue on with your hunt. And third, a chance to win an ebook copy of Kerry Nietz’s Amish Vampires in Space.

To begin, here is Rachel Starr Thomson.

Rachel Starr Thomson is a writer, indie publisher, and editor. She’s the author of the Seventh World Trilogy, The Oneness Cycle, and other books published by Little Dozen Press.

Rachel is a homeschool graduate, a dweller in southern Canada, a lover of long walks, good books, and hot tea, and a counter-cultural revolutionary who thinks we’d all be much better off if we pitched our television sets out the nearest window.

And here is her guest post

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God on Paper

Reading and writing are incredibly natural to the Christian life.

Ours is a God who wrote a book; we are, famously, “people of the book.” So it only makes sense that Christians should be people who read, read deeply, and communicate their faith and the life they have in Christ through writing. For me this has been a journey.

As I kid, I read voraciously, and indiscriminately (I was homeschooled, and I like to say my parents educated me by teaching me to read and pointing me at the library). When I got serious about following Jesus, for a time I dropped reading almost entirely, and writing along with it, as I recalibrated my lifestyle.

Eventually I realized that reading had added an intellectual, spiritual, and emotional dimension to my life that was beneficial as a disciple and that I had stripped that out by dropping books. So I began to read again, more deliberately this time, actually setting aside significant time every day for devotional reading and making more time for fiction as well.

I also rediscovered my gift and calling as a writer. When I was young and first beginning to write, my dreams of “making it” were pretty self-aggrandizing, so I tended to see writing as self-indulgent and maybe not very Christian. Two things combined to change my perspective on that: first, that I ended up with a lot of time on my hands and writing was something productive to do that made use of a gift God had, after all, given me; and second, that people began to tell me God had spoken to them or touched them through my writing. That still happens and never ceases to amaze me—startle me, even. It happens so much that even though I now have very little extra time in my days, I’m learning to make writing a priority. It’s one of the most fruitful things I do.

The real challenge of discipleship, I think, is not dropping our day-to-day lives and our natural gifts and trotting off to a mission field or pulpit somewhere. Rather, it’s inviting Jesus into the lives we live, the gifts we have, and the jobs we do, and letting him teach us how to do them the way he would. Just as Jesus was the best (and uncanniest) fisherman Peter and John had ever met, so he is the best writer I will ever find, and the best teacher of writing. He is the master of words. And he delights to use them.

I’m currently in a season of writing a lot with the intent of going full-time. That makes reading more important than ever as well. Writing and reading are spiritual disciplines for me: they involve setting aside more pressing demands and things that pay better (and faster) and pressing in because of God’s calling. I seek God in books, and I seek to show him through my writing. I ask him into my reading time and I ask him into my stories. That he comes is a powerful and marvelous thing.

My current project is The Oneness Cycle, a contemporary fantasy series that tackles subjects like prayer, spiritual warfare, unity in the Spirit, and forgiveness in ways that I hope will bring them into sharp relief. A friend of mine calls the series “the Christian life on steroids.” The first book, EXILE, is free for your e-book reader from Amazon and elsewhere, or you can pick it up in paperback.

(Books 2-4, HIVE, ATTACK, and RENEGADE, are also available in e-book and coming soon in paperback.)

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Thank you, Rachel, for sharing your writing journey. Writing has brought me closer to God as well :).

And now for all you readers who are on the hunt, here is your next clue: to thank you,

Now that you have your clue, you can continue on to Rachel’s blog and your next clue (Click HERE). If you get lost during the course of the hunt or you’ve finished collecting all the clues you can go HERE to enter the full mystery phrase and bring your scavenger hunt to a close. I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about all the amazing books and authors on the tour and hopefully you’ve entered the many giveaways on their sites.

And speaking of giveaways, if you want to enter the giveaway for Kerry Nietz’s Amish Vampires in Space, click on the link provided! Rafflecopter Giveaway

Enjoy!