Sure. Write. There's no substitute for it. Read everything you can about writing. Subscribe to Writer's Digest Magazine. Buy/check out books in the 808 section of the library. If you're young and you feel a calling to do this, get a Journalism degree. Many of the best writers were reporters first. You learn how to edit yourself doing that. If you're older, write whatever you can. Write for your church, blog, write for the local newspaper. Many people like the thought of having their book published or their name on an article, but they don't want to do the hard thing of sitting down and actually writing. Also, if you can find a mentor who is ahead of you, has published, then you are ahead of the game. You can also become a member of the Christian Writers Guild run by Jerry B. Jenkins, my mentor. It costs to take the courses, but you'll get a mentor there who can help you figure out what you need to do in order to be published. Christianwritersguild.com is the website.

Congratulations. This is a wonderful achievement. You could go the self-published route if you want. Many great writers have done this. Pat Conroy did. So did John Grisham. But I think they would say that you need to get this work in front of an editor to see how good it is. It's not enough for Aunt Tilly to say you are good, unless Aunt Tilly works for Scribners. People will praise you for the wrong things. Someone in the publishing business needs to see this. How do you do that? You get an agent who can send a proposal.

Here's the problem. You need to be published in order to get an agent. You need an agent in order to get published. As Abbot and Costello said, "Third base!" But don't give up. If you look in the library or online you will find helpful advice on getting your book published. It may turn out that this book isn't publishable. Well, you put it on the shelf and begin writing book 2. Don't be discouraged with the process. Most great writers have to get a lot of bad writing out of their system before the good stuff comes. It's the nature of the beast.

I wrote articles for magazines, wrote a column for our local newspaper in Bolingbrook, IL, wrote for our church, wrote scripts for radio, etc. But my first published book was titled Spiritually Correct Bedtime Stories (InterVarsity Press). It sold pretty well and I was able to get an agent after its publication.

From life. From the news. From conversations. From movies. From books. From songs. From talking with people on the radio. It's a process of keeping your writing eyes and ears open.

It's different for different projects. When I wrote The Winners Manual with Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, it was total immersion. I spent three days interviewing him and four weeks transcribing and filling in the missing pieces, doing more interviews and sending questions, and we were done. For June Bug, which I really hope you get to read, I began thinking about the story as soon as I had finished Dogwood. I spent about four months thinking, plotting, figuring out who the characters were, and then I began writing in June, 2008. When I'm doing a novel, I try to write every day except Sunday. Michael Connelly says writing a novel is like surfboarding, you have to stay up on the thing in order to get anywhere. So I wrote just about every day until the end of December, 2008 (though in October our lives changed dramatically). It was that laser focus that helped me finish the book and allowed me to remain sane during some difficult days. The actual writing process - I get up early, usually after 4 a.m., and work until Andrea and the kids get up. I help with breakfast, and then get back to it. I have a radio show every day so I usually write until 10 a.m. unless there's something else I have to do. Then, if I can, I come back to it in the afternoon after the show. But my best writing is done early with no distractions.

With The Wormling series, I had the idea, I pitched it to him, he loved it and off we went. I sent him the plot and we talked about it back and forth, I wrote the first draft, he edited it heavily and sent it back for a rewrite, then I finished it and sent it to the publisher. With the Left Behind: The Kids series, the idea came from him and Dr. LaHaye, and I plotted out what was going to happen in each book, passed it through them, wrote the first draft, let Jerry edit, then rewrote. Same with the Red Rock Mystery series. Jerry says that I did the heavy lifting and he massaged. He did more than that because there were many times when I'd have questions about which direction to take the story and he was always an email away with good suggestions and direction. Some say, "If you wrote the first draft, shouldn't your name be bigger?" When you collaborate, you don't mind whose name is bigger, especially if the bigger name has a loyal following with readers. That's how I looked at it. Plus, I was getting paid to have a NY Times bestselling author tell me how he does it.

I started Dogwood several times and stopped each time. The story didn't work. I told it from several vantage points that didn't make sense. I knew I had a good story, but there was something amiss. When I finally began the final stab at it, I got about halfway there and got stuck on a plot point. I was writing this piecemeal, in that I was working on three or four other projects at the same time, so I couldn't write Dogwood full time. I wasn't getting paid for it. I emailed Jerry and asked his advice. He said, I'm paraphrasing, "Don't worry about it. Let your subconscious work out the problem. There is some answer to your problem, but the more you fret and worry, the more you'll seize up. Relax." So I did. I got busy with some other stuff and didn't beat myself up because the story wasn't flowing. One Sunday morning I woke up and wasn't thinking at all about Dogwood. The sun was coming in the window of the bedroom, Andrea was sleeping beside me, the house was quiet. I just laid there looking out the window at the natural beauty, thinking about what we'd do that day. Just enjoying the scenery. Then, boom. It was a thought that I can't take credit for because it came out of nowhere. "What if..." And with that first question I had answered my other problem with the novel. And with that problem solved, the pieces of the literary puzzle began fitting. I don't know if I told Andrea about that moment when she woke up, but right then I knew I would finish Dogwood and that some publisher would buy it.

Nonfiction can take a few months or a few years. My children's novels could be finished in a little over a month. Dogwood took several years with all the starts and stops. June Bug took about 7 months. It just depends.

I try not to edit much of anything on the first draft. This is my purge session. I try to get everything out of my system and onto the page in that first draft, writing as quickly and letting things flow from the subconscious as much as I can. When I come back to it, I can see more clearly what is gold and what is copper. Now, if I change a plot point or a name of a town or something like that, I'll go back and make the change then while I'm on it, but most of the first draft is untouched when I finish. Jerry does the opposite. He writes a chapter and edits it, then moves on. I wish I could do that, but my brain can't handle that at this point. I simply have to open the tap and let things flow until the keg is dry.

Dogwood was my best until June Bug. That book was written during such emotional turmoil and much of it spilled into the writing. I think good writing will move the reader and make them identify with the characters and June Bug does that. I always try to get better at what I do, so I'll probably say the next book I work on will be the best.

Sure is. I've said ideas come from life, and life for me means a lot of trips to Walmart. Nothing against Target, of course, but Walmart was a lot closer to us when we lived in Colorado. I was just minding my own business, when this old RV comes chugging into a parking space--or maybe it was sitting there already, I can't remember. And I thought, "I wonder who's in there? Where are they going? Where have they been?" Later on, I saw the pegboard beside the front door and all the missing children.

It took me several trips to come up with all this, mind you, but I was at home on the bed, next to Andrea, and our daughter, Shannon, was talking with us. They asked me what I was thinking about and I told them I had an idea for a book. They asked me what it was.

I said I couldn't tell them or I wouldn't be able to write it. Then all the pleading and begging began. So I told them. A little girl gets out of a dilapidated RV and tells her dad she's going into the store for some breakfast. When she gets inside she looks at the wall of missing children and sees a picture of herself. Shannon and Andrea gushed and said it was a good idea and that I ought to write it. So I have to give them all the credit.

Interesting thing about the title. I didn't have a name for the girl...I did have her real name, but I didn't have the pet name for the girl until I was at a writing conference put on by the Christian Writers Guild. I was listening to Dave Lambert talk about fiction and how you need to tap into the things in your childhood that connected with you. I was taking notes, really engaged with what was going on, and out of the blue I wrote on my notebook, "June Bug." I drew a little bug and had its wings fluttering. It was one of those happy memories I had of childhood, catching a junebug and tying a string to it and letting it fly around.

I kept listening to the presentation and then I nearly shouted when I looked down, because I hadn't connected the "June Bug" with the title of the book I was working on or the girl's name. It was such a purely creative moment. I wish I had those every day.

To Kill a Mockingbird is up there at the top. I read it in 8th grade, I think, and it made this indelible impression on me. Then I came back to it several times over the years and I'd see new things. The Prince of Tides is another that struck me in the 1980s. It is an overwrought, sweeping novel that just lets you get lost in the characters and the struggles they face. I read Les Miserables in the 1990s, the unabridged version, and when you get to the end of that novel you feel like you have lived Jean Valjean's life. So rich and full and absorbing. I read other authors to see how they do what they do. I read Christian fiction as well, but sometimes the spiritual stuff feels forced to me.

I knew Jerry when he was successful but not famous. He's the same now as he was then. He's intensely committed to God's Word and Moody Bible Institute. He's committed to his wife and grown children. We have a standing agreement that if either of us ever lets our wife down by having an affair, the other one has permission to come and kick the other as hard as he can in some strategic area. We've just seen too many marriages torn apart. Jerry is a mentor, an advisor, and best of all a committed friend. (When I was finishing Dogwood, he allowed me to use his writing cabin in Colorado.) He's the best in a lot of ways.

When I was in high school, a teacher saw I had some talent and suggested I go into the Distributive Education program. You went to school a half day and went to work the other half. Some kids would go to the police station or work at a dental office. I happened to be assigned to the local radio station, WNST. It was a daytime AM station that then got its FM license and went 24 hours. Once I started, I was hooked. I did everything you could do there. Write news, write spots, take out the trash, do board shifts, learn how to engineer, etc. I would finish my work by sign-off, then go back in the production room and stay until midnight producing spoof spots, writing skits, singing songs, etc. I was a kid in a candy store. That helped bring out the creative side of me and I've used that ever since.

Not really. Radio is a one-on-one medium. I picture one person driving down the road or sitting at their kitchen table listening to a conversation. If I do get nervous, I know that I'm not thinking about the listener, I'm thinking about myself. The times I get nervous are when someone asks a question about theology I don't really know and the cycle begins, "Oh no, what's the answer, what is that verse? What are the professors at Moody going to think of this answer?" If I go down this road, I do get nervous, so I try to relax and remember I don't have to know everything, I just have to be able to find out the answer.

That's hard. Maybe Dan Rather in 1991. I figured he'd cancel when he found out he was at Moody Bible Institute, but he didn't. And I made a really big goof on that one that he covered for me. I got the number of years wrong since the Kennedy assassination. Ooops. Oh well, that's why they make razor blades (which is actually how we edited for years and years). I also remember other guests who don't have "big names." Jeff Miller survived a plane crash in Iowa and come on with Don Cole and me the next night. Truus Den Hartigh worked with prostitutes in Amsterdam and I'll never forget her. Or Rich Mullins. Carl Henry. (Carl and Helga Henry ate dinner at our house in Bolingbrook and we ordered take-out at Olive Garden. They were so kind to our family over the years.) I could go on and on about this.

Well, I fell off the chair laughing when Steve Brown talked with a listener. One night we were getting reaction to a current events question and I thought a female caller was male. That was embarrassing.

I always wanted to talk with Paul Harvey and Mr. Rogers. The window closed on both of those. I've interviewed Billy Graham before, but I'd love to sit down with him for an hour and just chat. To be honest, though, I enjoy talking with people who just want to tell their life story and be real. That's what really gives me a charge.

We use an ISDN line that is a special phone line that comes into the house. Moody set me up with some great equipment that does everything I need it to do. That's how I could broadcast from Colorado, from the RV parked in front of the house, and from Arizona. We just have to give the phone company notice on when to hook the line up and we're good.

Moody supplied me with an RE-20 by Electro-voice. It's pretty much the standard, on-air, talk microphone. I would love to use a Neumann mic, but the RE-20 is not as sensitive and is more forgiving for the type of room I have. I had outfitted my office in Colorado with some sound insulation and such, it was really a great sounding room, but in Arizona we don't have the funds to outfit it with lots of foam and gadgets. I used air mattresses put in strategic places with covers draped over them at the first Cactus Compound, but now, in the second advent of the Detox Center, I’m using books, clothes, a couple of blankets and two beach towels.

That's funny. I said on the first show that there was so much pressure on you when you air the first show and I was just going to start with our second show so the pressure would be off. I thought it was funny. Then people started emailing wanting to know when we were going to air the first show.

ISDN has separate channels you can use and one of them is a data channel. We can type back and forth to each other easily to let them know when to roll the theme, go to another caller, etc. When we moved from CO to AZ, we lost that, so now we just use a chat program with AOL. Plus, I have a talkback button that kills my mic and I can speak to them and they can speak to me in my headphones without it being on the air.

She's so hard to get along with! No, Tricia is the unsung hero of the program. She has great ideas, great instincts, she's compassionate with people, she can almost read my mind now. I was so happy for her and Nate when they were married. I can't say enough good things about her and what she's brought to the program.

I did a morning program? Oh yeah, that little 6-year stint in the 90s. I loved the freedom we had to follow a fun topic or a serious one. I loved trying to get Greg to laugh. I loved the camaraderie we had with Monte and Diana and our cavalcade of producers and engineers. I loved Wally the Snowflake, and I actually have the box that makes Wally sing and Tiny L. Bear sound intelligible. I didn't like getting up that early, but it helped me be more disciplined and be able to work on my writing projects since then. I wouldn't trade those years together. When I hear some of the things we did in the archives I'm amazed because I don't remember half of them. One of my favorites was when Greg and I played Frank and Joe Hardy and Frank was now an insurance salesman and Joe was living in a double-wide trying to get a DNA kit back to Nancy Drew. No wonder we only lasted 6 years.

Greg is one of the most erudite, educated, talented and funny people I have ever known. He's extremely thoughtful and consistent with his life. He's extremely committed to his family and his church. He loves all kinds of music, not just classical. We had our fights together because we worked very closely, but I don't think we ever stayed mad at each other very long. He's like a brother, he really is. The brother you like to put shaving cream under his pillow and shortsheet the bed, you know?

No, it was an accident.

Though some in our culture look at children as a hindrance, we see them as real blessings from God.

No, I have two older brothers and Andrea has one.

Erin, Megan, Shannon, Ryan, Kristen, Reagan, Kaitlyn, Colin, and Brandon. 5 girls, 4 boys.

Actually, I remember the navy blue bell bottoms and the striped shirt with the little tie thing at the top. I was the song leader at the InterVarsity meeting at Marshall University. She was the older, wiser volunteer helping the children with their meeting. Our first date was on December 18, 1981. We were married on December 18, 1982. Gary Chapman does not suggest this but it seems to have worked out for us. We had a lot in common. Radio. Tennis. Photography. She liked me. I liked me. I knew it was a match made in heaven.

Actually we do a program together called Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. But you mean a radio ministry alone. I could see her doing a daily show in the future. "Focus on the Toxins" or "Mold Time America." I don't think that's something she really wants to do right now, however.

You're referring to the time we REALLY got Andrea on the air. Her producer had scheduled a guest named Jansen Ludlow and I played the part of Jansen and we did a "This is Your Life" type of thing that people still talk about. It was really fun.

Here's the short version. In May of 2007 we discovered mold in a bedroom behind a shower stall. No big deal. We hired a company to tear it out and clean it up. They did. In May of 2008 we found another mold problem under an upstairs shower. As we were going through the process, Andrea discovered some information that troubled her. We did an air test in the house and the spore count for "black mold" or "Stachybotrys" was off the charts. As we looked back over the preceding year, the kids were always sick with unexplainable illnesses. The dog was sick. A bird died. This time we had the house remediated correctly and went about trying to get the kids healthy again. But in October, after the illnesses continued, we contacted two experts who said we should vacate the house immediately. On October 4th, 2008, we left our home and everything in it behind. That has led us to Arizona to get help for mycotoxicosis, some of the same treatment soldiers who are exposed to Agent Orange get. We are renting a house near Tucson, AZ while we go through the detox process. We are seeing progress in all of the children. Andrea and I are going through the detox along with them. Our home insurance did not cover mold. The medical insurance we had denied us coverage for the treatment because it was “out of network.” But we did sell the house in May, 2010 to a group that is going to remediate the home properly and make it liveable for someone else. We lost the contents and a lot of our investment in that house, but the loan was paid and we’re moving on.The past months have been a nightmare in so many ways and still a testament of the grace and goodness of God. Friends and family have come alongside us in incredible ways. I'm hoping to publish something along these lines in the future. (If you want to read more, go to Andrea's blog, the Moms Against Mold website, or the Mold-Help website.)

That when Jesus is all you have you realize Jesus is all you need. It's cliché, but it's true.

We really appreciate everyone who has prayed for us, given to us, and really lifted our family up through this desert experience. I'd ask you to keep praying for wisdom as we move ahead with treatment and with the court case. God is sustaining us and we’re grateful for your prayers.

One tangible thing you can do is purchase an autographed copy of Dogwood or June Bug. That vote for my writing will help defray some of the costs we have seen mount up with the medical bills and the move to Tucson, as well as the loss of our belongings.

We take walks now. We used to have this nice basketball court out back and we spent so many summer nights there. We have a Nerf hoop in our rental and play there. The kids, when we first moved to Arizona, were afraid of all the critters and creepy things. Now they're catching lizards and horned frogs and doing things "normal" kids do.

Yes and no. Because of the exposure they're chemically sensitive, which means we can walk into a mall and they'll break out with strange bumps and we have to turn around and go home. So with all the chemicals in most schools, it's unlikely they'll be going a full day anytime soon. But we are teaching them at home, we have a couple of teachers who come to the house and teach them, and the older ones have taken classes online.

Pippen was our family's first puppy. He was born exactly one week after our daughter, Kaitlyn, and I jokingly said that was the way I was able to remember Kaitlyn's birth date each year. He was named after the Chicago Bulls forward, Scottie Pippen, mainly because everybody else had a dog or a kid named Jordan. :) Pippen developed diabetes a year before Colin did, and I gave him two shots every day for the last couple of years of his life. He went blind, but our other dog, Frodo helped him find his way. We lost Pippen (and Frodo) because of the mold problem we had and we all miss them terribly. I thought having Pippen as part of our website would be appropriate, even though the pictures here are not actually of Pippen but are other Bichon-Frises. You can see Pippen on the Dogwood and June Bug order pages and he'll faithfully walk you through the order process for our autographed copies of those books.

Okay, I'll be serious even though I have a billion jokes. She is a modern day hero as far as I am concerned. God put a level of discernment and love in her I can't believe. She's a gorgeous person, just like her mother, she is unbelievably intelligent (hey, she married me), she is a bulldog at taking care of her children, and she has pulled me back from the brink of discouragement so many times I can't count them all. Let me put it this way, if I had known in 1982 that I would need to find a woman with all of the qualities needed to save our family in a time of great need, I could not have picked a better person. I am blessed. Now, she's not a saint and she makes mistakes and backs into garage doors and the other day she washed my Air Force baseball hat--I mean, you don't wash a man's hat! So she's not perfect. But I am blessed beyond measure and every day I'm grateful.