Tim Drake serves as features correspondent with the National Catholic Register, executive editor of Catholic.net, and publisher of the Catholic Writer’s Association monthly newsletter, The Writer Stuff. He has published two books, and contributed to four others. An award-winning author, he has published more than 300 articles for such publications as the National Catholic Register, Envoy Magazine, Faith and Family, This Rock, Columbia, Our Sunday Visitor, Saint Austin Review, Catholic Online, CatholicExchange.com, and Catholic.net. He resides in Saint Cloud, Minnesota with his wife and five children.

I first picked up a pencil to write at the age of six or seven. I would string together primitive sentences in my Mead 'Son of Big Chief' writing tablet as I rode around in the family station wagon with my parents. An example of one of those first sentences might have gone something like this… "Stop at Country Club Grocery Store. Jessamine Street Speed Limit is 35."

I have not set the pencil down since. I've only traded it in for a ballpoint and computer. As much as I love the convenience of the computer, I still find that my writing is better if I actually put pen to paper and play with the words.

From my Mead writing tablet I progressed to creating my own greeting cards, and poetry, and at about the age of 13, my own magazine, complete with stories and advertisements. So, writing has always been as much a part of me as I have been a part of writing.

I avoided majoring in English in college because of a negative experience with Shakespeare’s work in high school. Instead, I majored in the social sciences and obtained a teaching license. For the next decade, I meandered through at least 10 different jobs trying to find out what it was I should be doing with my life. I worked as an educator, worked at a college, in the corporate world and at a museum before landing a job as the editor of a children’s magazine and an inflight magazine (yes, the kind you read on airplanes). Even when I was teaching, I would write for the school newsletter and freelance, as I was able. Writing was always there.

Everything changed when I converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism in 1995. For the first time, I realized that the only kind of writing which mattered to me was writing about Christ and His Church.

At about this time, I also had the opportunity to hear a talk by a local priest. During that talk he spoke of the power of a story and he described Catholic writers as missionaries — never certain where their writing might go, or who might pick it up and read it. That was all the inspiration I needed to decide that that was the kind of writing I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing. I didn’t know how, but I knew that I needed to find a way to make a living doing that kind of writing. There would be two more jobs, as the editor of a small-town newspaper, and communications coordinator for a non-profit, before I landed my first freelance work with a Catholic publication, the National Catholic Register.

As for the writers that influenced me, it’s safe to say that I would not have become a writer had I not been a reader. I can recall, at a very early age, walking to our neighborhood library every week to check out a new Hardy Boys book. During my teenage years, I read a lot of comic books, and also enjoyed Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia and Tolkien’s Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Through high school I was a fan of the horror-writers Stephen King and Dean Koontz. It wasn’t until after my conversion that I was introduced to writers such as Chesterton, Belloc, Percy, Hassler, and McInerny. I confess that I am a fan of Michael O’Brien’s work. I have a lot of catching up to do.

A couple of years ago I co-founded a local book club called The Dead Theologian's Society. Twice a month the club brings together living readers to discuss works by dead theologians.

Balance is key, otherwise I would get absolutely nothing done. The easiest "hat" I wear is as a journalist. This is my full-time job, with the Register. Therefore, it takes up the majority of my time and effort. Thankfully, it’s a "hat" I enjoy wearing. I am constantly meeting new people and learning new things. I can honestly say that I love the work that I am doing, and feel blessed to be able to do it.

I readily admit that I am not a gifted editor. I lack that anal-retentive quality for finding every last mistake. It’s not one of my greatest strengths, and therefore it’s one that I do begrudgingly, yet knowing that my work as an editor will only make me a better writer.

I would say that the most difficult "hat" of all, is my work as a novelist. I have been working on a novel, on and off, for approximately seven years. Some days I lament and wonder whether it will ever be finished at all. This task is difficult for two reasons. The first is that my work as a journalist leaves little time for other writing. I am constantly on the phone, interviewing sources for the various stories that I am working on. Those who do journalism and fiction writing will realize that the two styles of writing are completely different. It is difficult to do one, while fully engaged in the other.

The second reason is financial. My work as a journalist supports my family. It pays the bills and keeps food on the table for my growing family. Novel writing is a far riskier proposition. I might work for years on the novel, only to find that no one will publish it or that if someone publishes it, that no one might purchase it. I think of it as a long-term investment. My only consolation is that my work as a journalist, I pray, is honing my writing skills, so that when (and if) the novel ever gets finished, it will be a far better novel for it.

As to how I balance the load, I recall making the decision early on that I needed to spend the majority of my time writing. I found that if anything started taking up more time than my writing, then I was unhappy and my writing suffered. Therefore, whenever a task begins taking up too much of my writing time, I scale back or give up that responsibility.

It’s quite difficult to briefly summarize the experiences that led me from Lutheranism to Catholicism. Born, baptized, and raised in Minnesota, Lutheranism is practically required for citizenship. In short, it was through the example of a dear friend, and later my wife, that I first witnessed a living Catholicism. That certainly predisposed me to the faith.

During the late 1980s and the early 1990s, my denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, was seriously struggling with issues concerning sexuality. In a draft statement on sexuality they stated that abortion was an "unfortunate but sometimes necessary circumstance for some women."

Having been threatened with abortion while I was in the womb (another story in itself), I came to the realization that this was a position I could not support. To support it somehow felt as if I would be going against my very own existence. I suddenly realized that being Lutheran meant far more than sitting in the pew each Sunday. It meant believing everything that my denomination believed and taught. So, the issue of authority really led me to an in-depth study of Catholicism and to my eventual conversion.

During my search, I greatly desired to make a connection with someone that had been on a similar spiritual journey. For me, that connection truly was of divine origin. I was introduced to a brother whom I didn’t know existed. At the age of 19, he had converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism. Here, I found not only the convert I had been seeking, but also a flesh-and-blood brother.

Unfortunately, I was hard-pressed to find a book containing the stories of Lutherans. In 1999, after the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church released their Joint Statement on Justification, there was a great deal of confusion. Some felt that the two were now so similar that there was little difference between them.

As a way of demonstrating otherwise, I decided to pull together the stories of Lutheran converts to Catholicism into a book. All of the major Catholic publishers rejected the book. They felt it appealed to too small of a niche. The idea to self publish through a print on demand publisher came to me through a conversation I had with a fellow writer one evening after Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. I ended up publishing the book with 1stBooks in March of 2001. The book went on to do extremely well and was awarded the company’s bestseller award in 2001. In the end, one of the very same companies that had originally rejected the book, seeing its success, offered a contract. If all goes as planned, the book is scheduled to be reprinted later this year.

The idea for "Saints of the Jubilee" came to me in 1999 as well. In hearing of the saints that were to named the first saints of the new millennium I was quite struck by their variety. They included men and women, adults and children, lay people and religious, mystics, martyrs, and religious founders. It seemed only natural that a book be published that would highlight some of these well-known and lesser-known saints.

I solicited contributors through the Catholic Writer’s Association, and one-by-one the chapters came in. In the end, we had fewer chapters than we had hoped for, but decided to proceed with the book anyway. I hastily edited the manuscript one night while I was up with the flu. The manuscript went through a second edit once 1stBooks had formatted it. As with almost any book, some minor mistakes found their way through the process. Again, the major Catholic publishers rejected it, and again I decided to put up the capital to publish the book through 1stBooks. It was published in September 2002.

As for saints, I have a particular devotion to Saint Joseph, the foster father of Christ. I was first introduced to Joseph through a prayer card sitting on the top of my best friend’s dresser when I was a teenager. I greatly admired the artwork and the prayer on the card, and my friend gave it to me. I entered the Church on March 19, 1995 — the feast day of Saint Joseph. I keep that prayer card right next to my computer and depend on St. Joseph’s intercession to be a holy husband and father.

I imagine that this is a discussion that has been going on since Christians first started writing. On the one hand, they feel compelled to do what Christ asked — to go forth and make disciples of all men. On the other hand, they are continually surrounded by a culture that does not want to hear what they have to say. Therefore, they face enormous difficulties, especially in finding publishers for their work.

The advantage that Christians have is that they are free to borrow from the greatest stories ever told – the stories found in Scripture. To read a wonderful novel such as Ron Hansen’s Atticus, for example, one will discover that the story is primarily a re-telling of the prodigal son story. Yet, it is told in such a new and creative way that it appeals to a modern reader. In the end, the story has a point, but in the hands of a talented writer such as Hansen the story does not get lost or excluded by the point the story makes.

It seems to me that to be a good Christian writer, one must first be the very best storyteller. If the story is good, and beautiful, and true it will point to Christ and His Church.

This, of course, was the long-standing debate between Lewis and Tolkien. Both were fine writers. The former wrote in allegory, trying to make a point. The latter wrote a story, suggesting quite strongly that it was not allegorical in any way. In a world screaming for Christian authors, we must recognize that there is a place for both. Every time I put pen to paper I trust that the Holy Spirit will not only guide my work, but also that the Spirit will put the work into the hands of the person that needs it most.