When I was in middle school, I read "The North and South" series by John Jakes, and was amazed at how he was able to make history come alive. It was like being transported back to the times surrounding the Civil War and experiencing it first hand as an observer or even participant, rather than just someone reading dull, dry facts and history.

I discovered that I ended up remembering more dates, circumstances, and people because it had been put into a novel than if I had just memorized the facts and figures alone. The author had made real history much more digestible and memorable simply because he wrapped it in a story that held the reader's attention.

Having remembered this lesson a few years ago, I began wanting to write a historical novel to put the Antediluvian Age and the centuries before Abraham (from the Bible) to help bring these people and times to life. Not only that, but I have found that most Christians know little of the Biblical story of Creation, the Flood, and the Ice Age that followed, and fiction is a superb device for communicating these concepts.

Needless to say, the situation in the Middle East began to heat up with the Iraq War, and the subsequent nuclear race of Iran. I felt led to write another book detailing the roles of these nations (among others) according to my views and interpretations of the Bible. And thus "The Time of Jacob's Trouble" was born.

While that book was going through the publishing process, I went back and re-visited "Project Exodus" and ended up re-writing most of it, keeping only the rough plot and a handful of scenes. This was later renamed "Endeavor in Time" and happened to be published a week or so before the first book was released.

After touring Israel in 2010, I decided to rewrite "The Time of Jacob's Trouble", both to correct numerous errors and plot issues in the original manuscript, and also to turn it into a trilogy. The result of this work was completed in 2011. The plan for 2012 is to finally get around to writing that pre-Flood story that began my writing endeavor.