Read Natalie’s Sneak Peak Interview on her new book, The Good Portion: Salvation, with Melissa Kruger:
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I’m a Christian, wife, mom, and theologian. I just love a flat white in one hand and a book in the other!
I’m married to a fellow bibliophile, Tom, who I met at a theological college more than a decade ago. Tom serves as the ministry director for the Evangelical Fellowship of Congregational Churches, and he’s involved in pastoring pastors and supporting churches in the U.K.
When did you first start writing? What do you enjoy about it?
I read a lot as a child, and my reading has always turned into pen-on-paper. I remember writing “novels” when I was young. They were nothing profound like the juvenile literature of Jane Austen. They were just half-finished stories.
I always wanted to be a writer—to create something from nothing with words. It really is grace upon grace that I can now serve the Lord in this way.
Is writing ever difficult for you? How so?
Every book has its own difficulties, and each one always surprises me. How can I make this book even more accessible? How can I powerfully illustrate this God-truth? What should I include? What should I not include? Writing is just as much about what you don’t say as it is what you do say. I always struggle with that.
George Orwell once described writing a book to be “a horrible, exhausting struggle” rather like a long “bout of some painful illness.” I know what he means! It gives you such joy but is a hard slog, like pregnancy.
It’s the mental obsession and ill-timed waves of inspiration that possess you. I think C. S. Lewis understood this when he said, “I was with book, as a woman is with child.”
Read the rest of Natalie’s interview.