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Christian Writer of novels, screenplays, short stories, and essays designed to dive deep into the human condition and point to Christ.
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TJ Nickel is a freelance writer married to a woman worth more than all the mountains in his former home state of Colorado. TJ resides in Indiana with his bride and is the father to two young girls. He has written many stories about family dynamics and they often show the dynamic of his small family of girls, or the very complex dynamic of his large childhood family.
TJ Nickel graduated, as an adult student, from a Christian university with an Associate’s Degree in Business in 2006. He immediately switched gears, choosing to become liberally educated, and took courses in writing, literature, philosophy, psychology, and religious studies – in route to his bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts in April of 2008.
Many large projects have been underway since 2002, when TJ began writing 9 Rounds and When Bastian Sleeps. Two children and two degrees have (thankfully) delayed these and many other projects from receiving enough attention to be completed. These two projects, along with Mount Sanctification, and his new novel, Love Thy Neighbor, are all under way and in various stages of development and/or adaptation. In addition, since early in 2007, TJ has been a regular writer of articles on Faithwriters.com.
With school behind him, TJ plans to bring these projects to a close and enter the writing life.
Influences: Jesus, Kierkegaard, C.S. Lewis, Annie Dillard, Dallas Willard, Hemingway’s style
Favorite Film: Big Fish, Director Tim Burton
Favorite Book: Holy the Firm, by Annie Dillard
Favorite Short Story: Sonny’s Blues, by James Baldwin
Favorite Play: A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry
Favorite Essay: The Weight of Glory, by C.S. Lewis
Most Amazing Work: Other than the Bible, Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto Death
FAVORITE LINKS
FaithWriters
Dallas Willard
Religion Online
Provocations
SAMPLE ARTICLES
Poetry
The Mystery of Eden's Trees
Short Story
Agnostic Mountain Climbing
Other Article
Filling the Void With Purpose
MY NEWS
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard - quotes of use.
“Get to work. Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair.”
“Novels written with film contracts in mind have a faint but unmistakable, and ruinous, odor.” (thus, I usually write the screenplay first!)
“It should surprise no one that the life of the writer – such as it is – is colorless to the point of sensory deprivation. Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world. This explains why so many books describe the author’s childhood. A writer’s childhood may well have been the occasion of his only firsthand experience. Writers read literary biography, and surround themselves with other writers, deliberately to enforce in themselves the ludicrous notion that a reasonable option for occupying yourself on the planet until your life span plays itself out is sitting in a small room for the duration, in the company of pieces of paper.”
"The page, the page, that eternal blankness, the blankness of eternity which you cover slowly, affirming time’s scrawl as a right and your daring as necessity; the page, which you cover woodenly, ruining it, but asserting your freedom and power to act, acknowledging that you ruin everything you touch but touching it nevertheless, because acting is better than being here in mere opacity; the page, which you cover slowly with the crabbed thread of your gut; the page in the purity of its possibilities; the page of your death, against which you pit such flawed excellences as you can muster with all your life’s strength; that page will teach you to write.”
“The sensation of writing a book is the sensation of spinning, blinded by love and daring. . . . This is your life. You are a Seminole alligator wrestler. Half naked, with your two bare hands, you hold and fight a sentence’s head while its tail tries to knock you over. . . . At its best, the sensation of writing is that of any unmerited grace. . . . You search, you break your heart, your back, your brain, and then – and only then – it is handed to you.”
“No one suspects the days to be gods” (~Emerson) this first line of the book is explained in the last line of the book, (and in the entirety of Holy the Firm) “The world is filled, and filled with the Absolute. To see this is to be made free” (~ Teilhard de Chardin).
TJ Nickel’s summary lesson from Dillard:
We often want to separate ourselves from the days and from the world, and many in doing so reach for the Absolute, while others do so because they think they must in order to be with the Absolute. It is the days that are gods and we must dive into them and in them, HIM. Dillard misses perception because she is inside of it, in the sensation - and perception covers her like the vision covers the paper. She doesn’t see perception, she sees through it, and chops at the chopping block through the wood (perception). She feels the cut (sensation), but never sees the perception. She’s in it; she’s the ax. The material world is the wood, and God is in that wood. She knows this and it has made her free, “free to touch it, and by touching it destroying it, and touching it anyway” she cuts herself deep inside of it, is reconciled to it, and lives in it.
In there is the life of a writer. To there I shall sojourn, beneath ‘God’s tooth.’
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- The Wise Helper published in Faithwriters Magazine, Mar/Apr 2008, A Word in Season.
The Invisible Man published for Faithwriters Member Showcase, Jan 2008
Faithwriters Writing Challenge Judge for Best of the Best, 2007.
Faithwriters Writing Challenge Judge, quarterly volunteer 2008-9.
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- A Prodigal Son
A non-fictional narrative laced with extended metaphors addressing Christology.
2009 Update: currently being edited.
Love Thy Neighbor
My new "red folder project." Coming in 2009. This will be a novel and screenplay attempting the greatest feat in Christian fiction - to simultaneously present the deity and humanity of Jesus.
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- 9 Rounds
This project is my “baby”. It was my first real attempt at writing in many years. It is in its final stages of rewriting as a screenplay, the novel adaptation has begun, as well as the play adaptation. Many spin-off articles have also been developed from the characters. The story is a fictionalization of my childhood family, based on a true anxiety.
Mount Sanctification
This project is a screenplay, play, and novel about faith characterizing three positions ending William James' The Will to Believe. The screenplay is outlined and 60% written. A very early draft of the beginning is available on FW.com for review. The play is only beginning. The novel adaptation is 25% written. A spin-off article based on a supporting character was completed, titled Agnostic Mountain Climbing.
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- While Bastian Sleeps
This project is a collaborative project with my good friend of many years. This project should culminate into a page turning novel (in editing process) and screenplay (50% adapted). The experience of working with a good friend and talented writer was greatly beneficial in my return to writing years ago.
Update Project on hold for time being as my friend cares for his wife and newborn. Congrats D-squared!
CONTACT ME
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