Francine Rivers

My job is to allow the character to live and breathe - and become as real to the reader as he or she is to me.

I actually worked in the general market for many years writing steamy historical romance, and I had more freedom in the Christian market than I ever did in the general market to write about any issue that I needed to write about.

My favorite book is 'Redeeming Love.' It was my first as a born-again Christian, my statement of faith, and the most exciting year I've spent writing anything.

When we love like Jesus does, lives change for the better.

The goal is to have every character take on a life of his or her own. Sometimes characters will come into the story that I haven't planned.

I became a Christian late, in my late 30s, so I had a lot of things that I was bringing into my Christian life that I regret. And I had a lot of questions about faith, so that's where I start when I write.

I'll often dream about characters before I start writing their stories.

I want to see Christian fiction speak to the hard and real issues that tear people's lives apart.

I had been raised in the church, but I wasn't a Christian. I had a lot of head knowledge but no heart knowledge.

Well, I always wanted to write from the time I was very little, and my mother encouraged me. She wrote a journal from the time she was 15 up until about the age of 76.

Like everyone else, there are days when I don't want to go to work. However, writing is a job like anything else.

I start work by spending time in personal Bible study. Because my projects center on a question in my own faith walk, I find Bible study essential. And God gives me scriptures daily that speak to the question with which I'm struggling.