How did Skylar get here? Writing stories about angels? It all must have started when her mother wall papered her bedroom in a Louisa May Alcott Little Women’s motif. She grew up consulting Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy on the finer points of the Nancy Drew Mysteries and everything else she read as a child. Like many of you, she had to hide a flashlight for after hour reading.
Flash forward a generation to her favorite memory. Her family is “camping” on Lake Mead. It’s a perfect starry night, and she holds her kids captive on the roof of their rented house boat. Skylar pulls out a copy of a Hardy Boys book, perfect for the warm summer night. It all started in great fun and enthusiasm. But one by one the children fall asleep. There are only one-hundred pages left. So, Skylar and her trusty flashlight stay up late to finish the book. Why not. She’s on vacation.
But where did the angels come from you ask? Ah. That was a thirty-year spiritual maturation project. God has to have a starting point in all of us. Today, little girls seem to be infatuated with princesses. Skylar was infatuated with angels. In third grade she played an angel in the Christmas pageant at school and sang the Hallelujah chorus. After that she read every angel story she could find. She knew they were there—protecting her. Finally, she put the Bible stories all together. At first it was easy to just mindlessly read through the book on a schedule every year. No great thought was behind that. And if truth be told, no great amount of time either. Eventually she began to really study and became a ravenous student of the Bible. How exciting to discover all of the angels and angel references. Oh, my goodness!
No one can read and study God’s word without growing closer to Him. But Skylar desired a relationship with Him where she got to not only walk with Him but to hold His hand. Her true desire was to understand and know Him. So, she read other commentaries and books by Godly men who pointed her in the right direction.
Soon a still small voice began telling her to write a book. In all her childlike enthusiasm she responded with her computer blazing. It did not yet occur to her that she didn’t have any idea how to write a book. Ignorance is more than bliss. It is a protected state we fall into until we must cry out to God for help. That she did.
After writing twenty-five pages, her old laptop crashed. She had never had a need for thumb drives, and it was well before the “cloud”. All was lost. It occurred to her that this may not have been an accident. She began talking to God as if he was right there. “So, you didn’t like that book. Okay then. What book would you like me to write?”
A sweet, soft answer came back, “What do you Love?”
What an intriguing question. The Holy Spirit asking her what does she love. He knew the answer already. It flooded over her so clearly. Angels. She loved angels! Thus began Gabriella, Granny’s Guardian Angel. She couldn’t get it into one volume, so it became a trilogy.
At this point it became clear Skylar needed to take some formal writing classes. This turned out to be the only logical thing to do. After all, Louisa May Alcott could only get her so far. Her first book was renamed, Where is Katherine’s Angel? The poor thing must have been rewritten ten times.
God’s timing was perfect, and another angel named Kathy Tyers fell from heaven into Skylar’s life to become her writing mentor. So, with the Holy Spirit holding her hand and Kathy mentoring her, the Sanctuary of the Seraphim Series was born.
Listen to Skylar’s radio interview on Friday Night Author Roundtable
