Resides in: Monument, Colo.

Now reading: Reviewing advance manuscripts for endorsements and judging novels for a writing competition.

Tell us about the final "Dreamhouse Kings" book, Frenzy.

"The whole series has been leading toward this final installment. While I tend to write stories that are subtle in the spirituality of the characters and themes, that I'm a strong Christian does come through my stories and my themes. The themes in the first five books, in my view, could be very spiritual in that the family has to learn to be a family and support each other. To me, that's a very godly theme, but not specifically Christian. Over the course of the six books, the family gets pretty beat up. They're at the bottom of the well. Just when you think here's how they get out of the situation, they always use their wits. They find themselves in the time of Christ and they're facing Jesus as He's carrying the cross to His crucifixion. I think a lot of people who have followed the story are going to be pleasantly surprised."

Many of your books have been optioned for films. What is the status of those?

"The last year has been really hard for Hollywood. A lot of projects got put on hold, and my projects were put on hold while they figured out the finances and what the economy was going to do to that town and industry. All of the books except for Deadlock are in some stage of pre-production, whether
it's a script or casting. None of them have been canceled which is a good thing. Just in the past few months, they're starting to pick back up again. Universal just this week had a big meeting about the 'Dreamhouse Kings' and moved forward on that, deciding what the budget might be, who the director might be. In this process, almost anything can go wrong, so while I'm not holding my breath, I am hopeful."

How do you balance realism without offending readers of Christian fiction?

"I tend to like really being in your face with gritty realism. I don't like pulling my punches when I write. I think stories ought to be hard hitting and not soft-pedal issues. Sometimes that means when you're dealing with a Christian reader, you could be encroaching on boundaries they're not wanting to cross. The way I balance that is I try to remind them that the Bible is very gritty and very real. We have to remember the consequences of evil can be very ugly. I think it does not benefit us as Christians to pretend that when someone dies, it's not gross, disgusting or tragic. If there's any conflict in terms of my Christian readers and what they would prefer to read, it's in that level of violence."

Any thoughts on the iPad? Is it a game changer?

"I think the Kindle was the game changer. What Amazon is doing with the game changer there, it's changing, if not all models, then at least hardcovers. I don't know if that means the demise of hardcovers. When a hardcover is running $25-26 and you can get a Kindle version for $9.99, I think a lot of people are going to go that direction. What I suspect we'll see probably is the ability to purchase Kindle books or iPad books in a bookstore, like in a Christian bookstore, because really what's missing in the whole process is the knowledge of the product that people want. I don't want to go online and read about a book. I want to be able to talk to somebody who knows the nuances of a particular story or someone who knows if you like this book, you'll like this (other) book. I think what'll happen is you'll get that back and forth with a retailer and consumer, and the retailer can punch it in and before you leave the store, you have that in your Kindle and don't have to go to Amazon and get it. It's unfair if you go into a Christian bookstore and (someone there) convinces you to read the Ted Dekker book, and the guy goes into his car in the parking lot and downloads it. All the work of the retailer doesn't pay off."

How many words do you write a day?

"I tend to immerse myself in a story when I go to write. I tend to write 4,000 words a day when I'm writing."

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