Lynn H. Blackburn

Release Day is here! 

Some of you have already gotten your hands on a copy of Beneath the Surface.

Others are still waiting on preorders to hit their mailbox.

Still others are holding out for summer and sunshine before they dive in.

No matter how or when you’re planning to read Beneath the Surface, I want you to know that I am immeasurably thankful for your kindness and support.

It may look like a paperback (or a digital image!) to you, but that’s a piece of my heart you’re holding. 

The story, the characters, the lessons they learn, the issues they struggle with, and the choices they make—all that came from somewhere deep inside of me and that makes every book very personal.

I am not Leigh Weston. Or Ryan Parker. Or Adam or Sabrina or Gabe or Anissa.

But they are part me. 

As crazy as it may seem, the reality is that no one else could have come up with these characters. If you’d given their names, backgrounds, and occupations to another author, they—and the story they are in—would have been quite different.

My life experiences—the thousands of books I’ve read, the movies I’ve watched, the plays I’ve seen, the conversations I’ve had, the classes I’ve taken, the people who’ve come in and out of my world and left their mark, the sermons I’ve heard, the prayers that have been wrenched from my soul when I’ve been afraid or heartbroken, the places I’ve lived or visited—all emerge in the stories I write but rarely in ways that are recognizable, even to me! 

It’s like those dreams where you know all the people and the places but they’re all mixed up and you wake up wondering how your first grade teacher wound up on a cruise ship with your friend from college and your favorite barista (I hope I’m not the only one this happens to).

Somehow the creative spark takes everything I’ve ever done and every person I’ve ever known and swirls them into something—someone—completely new. 

The characters are new, but in some ways they are like longtime friends. . .  which sometime makes it hard to put them in the awful situations I put them in. But it has to happen, because it’s through their trials that they learn, they change, they grow.

And so do I. 

So yes, that book with my name on it is a piece of my heart. One I share with the world, despite the risk of it being trampled, because I believe God’s called me to write and share. I’ve written and revised and edited and tweaked and promoted. I’ve done all I can do.

Today, it’s out of my hands and into yours. What happens from here is up to Him. 

It gives a whole new meaning to the words “Release Day.”

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. ~ Psalm 19:14 (ESV)