When I went to Israel, it was a little disorienting, because there are so many people who look crazy and were dressed like me. There, I was just one of the apocalyptic crowd.
My reading list grows exponentially. Every time I read a book, it’ll mention three other books I feel I have to read. It’s like a particularly relentless series of pop-up ads.
The Bible talks a lot about thankfulness, and I’m more thankful than I ever was. I try to concentrate on the hundreds of things that go right in a day, instead of the three or four that go wrong.
I’m not a fan of ‘write what you know.’ If you don’t know, find out. I knew nothing about the Bible before I started writing ‘The Year of Living Biblically.’ That was kind of the point – to learn.
I’d recommend learning to accept rejection. Become friends with rejection. Be nice to rejection, because it’s a huge part of being a writer, no matter where you are in your career.
When I was with the serpent-handlers in Tennessee, it was the most bizarre method of worship I could think of. Yet when you sit with these people, you can kind of see how it makes sense.
