Featured Editor:
Cecil Murphey
www.themanbehindthewords.com
Interview by Alice Benavides
Within the Christian writing community, our featured editor this quarter needs little introduction. Cecil Murphey, best-selling author, husband, father, friend, and mentor to hundreds of writers, has become a household name. Read Alice's interview to learn more about this beloved and humble man.
Tell us about the books you have coming out this year.
In January, Harvest House published When Someone You Love Has Cancer, my first in a series of gift books. I’ve completed two others for 2010 release. At the International Christian Retail Show (ICRS), Regal will release When God Turns Off the Lights. In October, St. Martins Press (an ABA house) will launch Christmas Miracles. I solicited stories from writers and rewrote them for a consistent tone. The authors received a byline as well as a fifty-word bio.
I’ve completed two books for Penguin but I have no release date. One of them, 60 Seconds to Greatness, which I wrote for Bishop Eddie Long, may come out in December, but that’s not settled.
In February, TNT-TV televised Gifted Hands, a film based on a book I wrote for Dr. Ben Carson in 1990. The book has remained in print ever since. Two other books are under film option.
Tell us about your work life before writing.
For six years, I served as a missionary in Kenya, East Africa. For ten years I was pastor of a growing church in suburban Atlanta. I also taught one course a week at a local Bible college and was a volunteer chaplain.
How did you become a writer?
Like many others, I can’t remember when I didn’t want to write. The late Charlie Shedd received a grant from the Eli Lilly Foundation to raise up full-time Christian writers. He flew into Atlanta every Monday for ten weeks and taught a course at the seminary from which I graduated.
At the end of the course, Charlie called five of us aside for a private meeting. He said we were more advanced, and we should start a writing group. I started the Scribe Tribe. It was an editing group (before the Internet) and we mailed our submissions and edited them on real paper. At the twice-monthly meetings, each person received a twenty-minute oral critique. I led the Scribe Tribe for nine years.
How have your years as a missionary and pastor influenced your writing?
They shaped both my writing and my life. Even now, years later, I reflect on those invaluable lessons, especially in coping with people who are different from me.
Tell us about your first publication.
All of us in the Scribe Tribe agreed that we would rewrite until everyone in the group believed the manuscript was ready for publication. We read books and magazines such as Writer’s Digest and The Writer. At the time, none of us knew much about publication.
I systematically checked out all thirty-one books the library had on the craft of writing. I stayed about a paragraph ahead of the others in my group.
How did you get started as a ghostwriter?
After I had published nine books, I wrote a novel. The senior editor at Revell came to Atlanta to see me. He didn’t like the novel but said, “You have the ability to get inside other people’s heads. I’d like you to ghostwrite for us.” I ghosted thirty-five books for Revell over the next decade and wrote eleven novels under women’s names.
As a writer, what is your most productive time-management tool?
I’m one of those individuals who is naturally self-disciplined. Honest. I’m also fast at everything I do. (The Africans called me Haraka, which means quick.)
How do you balance work with home life?
That has been a big area of internal struggle. My children were nearly grown before I began to write, so that helped. I’m compulsive about completing projects, and sometimes they interfered with my home life. My wife, Shirley, never complained, but I still felt guilty and neglectful.
A decade ago, I stopped working on Sundays to provide more time for the two of us. I now stop by noon on Saturday. Weekdays, I’m at my desk from around 8:00 until 4:00 in the afternoon, when my workday is over.
I usually go outside to play in my garden. We have almost an acre, and everything is done by hand; we don’t have grass. My evenings are for Shirley and me. (Okay, I cheat: I check e-mails and answer the urgent ones.)
How has God blessed you in your writing?
He has blessed me beyond anything I expected. I’m a generalist and have always written in a wide variety of genres. For example, I wrote The Encyclopedia of Biblical Literacy for Thomas Nelson. I’ve had two children’s books serialized and last year I published three cozy mysteries. Today I write gift books, books on spiritual growth, and books on caregiving.
Even in the early days, I knew it would be more difficult to become famous or popular with a wide variety of topics instead of being branded. I did it anyway. By the mid-eighties, however, I had become branded as a ghostwriter. I’ve made a living as a full-time writer since 1984.
90 Minutes in Heaven, of course, was the book that changed everything. Proceeds from all my books go into a nonprofit account that’s set up primarily to help other writers. (I do not take individual requests.)
Do you enjoy working with new authors?
Emphatically yes. In my early writing days, I promised God two things. First, I promised I wouldn’t stop learning, and I continue to learn the craft. Second, I promised I would do whatever I could to help other writers. Helping new writers is part of my commitment.
Tell us about your mentoring clinics.
For years, I taught in conferences, and they are invaluable, especially for networking and encouragement. But writers don’t learn enough about how to write at those conferences. I wanted to do hands-on work with them. I didn’t edit as much as I showed them weak places and suggested what they could do to improve. I wanted them to keep their own voices and struggle to find their own solutions.
I stopped the mentoring clinics because I couldn’t devote the time to the clinics and complete my writing assignments. (I average about three books a year.)
I’m experimenting with trying to take what I call mid-level writers and help them get better. I’m also doing one-day seminars about dialogue. Writers bring in their dialogue, and I show them how to make it better.
What advice do you have for new writers?
Learn to write and keep learning. Read widely. Too much of what I see in the CBA sounds as if everything comes from a handful of writers who ghostwrite for everyone else. Explore the ABA market, which is far more demanding. (I’ve published in the ABA since 1990.)
Cecil Murphey was recently honored by the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) with the 2009 Extraordinary Service Award.
