Hello. My name is John Draper. I’ve wanted to be an author since I was 9. Life got in the way, though. If I had it to do over again, I would skip college and just start writing my fiction. My parents wouldn’t have allowed it, though, and since they bankrolled me, I went along with their plan: Go to college, finish in four years—no more and no less—and then immediately get a job and start a “career.”
So I did. I took my degree in journalism from the University of Washington and started work in newspapers. (This was back when newspapers were made of paper. Yes, it’s true. Google it.) Then I got married, also one of the things my parents wanted from me. Then we decided we wanted to “start a family,” also one of my parents’ givens. Once the kids started coming, any hope I had of writing fiction went out the window, which was fine. I loved raising my kids. Best years of my life, to date.
Now my kids are graduated from college, and suddenly I have time to devote to fiction. So I wrote my first novel, A Danger to God Himself, which is about a Mormon missionary who goes insane on his mission.
Writing the novel caused me to lose my religion. For 35 years, I was a devout believer. And then, not so much. My second book will be a spiritual memoir. See a trend? Yes, I’m fascinated by religion. The way I see it, I’m just saying out loud the things most believers think now and then.
This blog will be where I post those thoughts. I don’t have any answers—don’t even know if the answers are have-able. My thinking is that this is a discussion we can have together. Can God make difference in the scrabble of day-to-day life? Is religion fading away? What will take its place?
Let’s get started!