Circular

Hey guys! First off, thank you to everyone who came out to the Gallup library last Saturday and hung out for the author panel—it was great fun, and I really enjoyed meeting all of you. I’m planning on being in town for the next ArtsCrawl, so don’t worry if you missed me! I’ll be back soon! (more info on Thursday, I promise)

All July long, we’re talking about things that have inspired me in my writing career. For the most part, that’s going to be books, television, and the occasional movie by extension, because these are the main things I’ve found that have inspired me over the years of writing. I hope that you’ll all glean something from this series, and that maybe you’ll find something that inspires you, too.

The Circle

Ted Dekker

I’m fairly certain I’ve talked about The Circle before. If you’ve been watching me on Goodreads, then you know I recently had the opportunity and honor to advance read the latest in Ted Dekker’s Circle saga—and I do highly recommend it, even if you haven’t read any of the Circle before.

But that’s not what I’m here to talk to you about.

I started reading the Circle back in high school, on recommendation from my mother. She’d borrowed it from my uncle, who loved Ted Dekker’s books. And I loved every minute of reading these books, even when I thought they couldn't be more annoying.

Let me first say that from the very start, I couldn’t put them down. It’s a series set in two worlds, with the same set of characters between them. And at first glance, it makes no sense whatsoever.

Honestly, I think that’s what’s most inspiring about it.

The Circle takes things like dreams and turns them on their head. It takes concepts like reality and makes them into something you never even dreamt about—and might be afraid to so much as consider. Oh, yeah, and it did the whole thing by making a literal circle between the four main books of the saga.

Yeah. Black, Red, White, and Green make a circle. Green is both the ending and the beginning of the story.

How in the world did Dekker even do that?!

I still don’t know, and I still haven’t stopped being inspired by this series. Dekker has a way of melding his faith into his writing without anyone noticing, and it makes for an extremely beautiful piece of fiction with morals that cannot be questioned. I aspire to write as well as Dekker, and I hope someday that he’ll pick up one of my books and enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed his.

After all, he’s one of the biggest reasons why I started writing in the first place.

[love]

{Rani D.}