Co-Author of the Mosaixstudy.com series
Check out Joanne Heim’s Interview
by Trisha Bleau Smith
T4JYM: I loved reading through the two mosaix studies that I received. It was an idea that I loved, being a net junkie and a follower of Christ. Where did the idea for the book come from? How much time was involved in putting together the studies that you did?
TH: The idea came from really trying to create and interactive book product. Lots of publishers talk about wanting to make their products interactive, but mostly what that means is that they have some small group questions or a few journal pages. We wanted to marry the text in the books to a website that would allow readers to get in there and really share their opinions and observations about what they were thinking and learning and have others respond or share with them. Joanne and I can get online and actually get into the chat rooms and interact with others that are doing the study. Our research has shown that the majority of people do Bible study alone, and the mosaix studies and the site mean that there is always someone out there you can interact with about what you’re learning.
As for how long it takes to put these studies together, the research and advance work takes anywhere from two to three months and then we try to get the first draft written in about 30 days. After that there is a lot of editing and re-writing that goes on. I would say that from start to finish on the writing side takes about six months.
T4JYM: Who have been your biggest influences in life? Who have been your biggest influences in your life as a writer?
TH: My biggest influences have been my uncle Jim and Joanne;s dad Chuck. These two guys couldn’t be more different, but they are both really solid, thoughtful men who have invested a lot in me.
As for writers, I am heavily influenced by the work of Douglas Coupland. Some day I hope to write a single sentence that is as good as all the sentences that Anne Lamote writes, but I’m not holding my breath.
T4JYM: How has this book been received by the general public? Has there been positive feedback? Any negative feedback?
TH: I’m not sure it’s been out long enough to get a lot of feedback. Everything that we’ve heard so far has been really positive
T4JYM: What other books have you written? These studies were co-written with another author, so have you written books on your own? How have they been accepted by the general public?
TH: Joanne (my wife) and I do all our writing together. Neither one of us has tried to go italone yet. Over the years we have developed a great sense of each others gifts and abilities and the writing process is something we enjoy…most of the time. We have written a couple of other books. What’s Your Story is and interactive guide to developing community, and Great Expectations is a book for folks getting ready for marriage
T4JYM: What was it like writing with another person? How did you coordinate who did what and how did you organize it? Was it difficult to do? Please share a little about the process of co-authoring a book.
TH: Joanne and I work off of a pretty complete outline. After it’s developed, we divide up the parts and assign a timeframe for each section. Then as we finish our sections we trade them back and forth and act as each others editor. I don’t really recommend this for every couple. Working together can be really challenging, but for us, it works. Joanne is a much better writer than I am and I am a little more creative than she is, so we each bring some unique stuff to the table.
T4JYM: What are your next plans for writing? Do you plan to do more books? Will you move on to other styles of writing and target audiences?
TH: I think we are going to take a little break from writing. We have basically done five books in the last four years and ran out of steam on the last one. Our editor had to really get after. Joanne and I are both big fans of fiction, so we are thinking about writing a novel just for fun. My guess is that it will be too bad to actually show to our publisher.
T4JYM: What is generally your target audience? How do you decide on what audience to focus your writing on?
TH: We like to write to people our age (twenties and thirties) and the audience is most often dictated by the topic. One exercise we always do when writing a book is to try to think of the exact person we are writing to. We try to define an audience of one. So instead of writing to young married couples, we would write to a specific young married couple that we would make up. We would try to think up everything we could about them and then we would look over what we wrote to see if it would be something we thought they would like to read. It’s just a little trick, but it helps us keep our focus in the right place.
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