It’s been a long road, but I’ve finally written my book! On this blog, I’ve teased that I’m writing a book over the years but now that long journey has ended and it’s finally a reality. The book has transformed in so many ways I never expected and so have I since I started this journey to write a book. That book has a rough draft written and it’s currently being reviewed by some close peers of mine I trust with the hope Lord willing of publishing it this year in 2026.
Now the book and this blog is sort of a chicken and the egg situation because even I’m not sure which was first. I began this blog in June of 2015 and yet I’ve always had the drive to write some sort of book, but that was almost always fiction. Eventually, that desire to write books changed into writing screenplays and scripts, but again fiction stories. Original or adaptations of stories I had always loved to see on the big screen. As far as a Christian nonfiction book goes, which is the book I’ve written, I think that desire came about from my film school days around 2016.
I don’t believe I had that desire to write a nonfiction book until sometime in 2016. A part of that was the blog was picking up steam and I loved posting here, so that of course got me thinking about writing a book. There were also conversations in college with my classmates and even just general encouragement from those in my personal life who pressed me to write a book.
One influential person who encouraged me towards writing a book was my friend, James A. Hunter, who I met in 2017 when we attended the same church. Now at the time I have to admit I was a little jealous of him because he was doing the thing I had always wanted to be, which was a full-time writer. So I think if I remember right since college ended in December 2016 for me I needed new purpose, which James in retrospect helped inspire in 2017.
That new purpose was ministry and finally braving the writing process of a book. But apparently I wasn’t that brave because I only jotted ideas down and outlined from 2016 through 2020. It took a long time to even figure out what type of nonfiction book I wanted to write in the first place. One of the first ideas was an apologetics book called Constructing A Colossus, which at the time I stupidly thought would be a great idea if I wrote a 600-page book all on Christian apologetics (true story).
Then reality kicked in and that outline of ideas shrunk from 600 pages to 450 pages and then finally to 300 pages. Not to say I wrote that many pages, but rather my outline for the book was going to be up to those page counts. For a first-time writer, that’s crazy work to have the gull to think anyone would read a 600-page Christian apologetics book from a college dropout.
Since I was actively in ministry from 2017 and still am today, I’ve felt less and less of an urge to write an apologetics book. That’s mostly because I believe there’s much better apologetic Christians out there than me and in ministry apologetics isn’t very practical in my opinion. In my estimate, the proper place for apologetics is for the individual to build up their own faith and find answers in times of doubt. With that shift in opinion, so too the book changed.
By 2021, the book began to take shape and became a beginner’s book. A resource for new believers or those returning to belief in God to read. This idea was largely shaped by Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli’s classic work, Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics which I loved growing up. A short read with so much packed into it. So the best idea became a pocket guide on the basics of Christianity. That last idea stuck and over the next 5 years I wrote on-and-off with that idea in mind.
Yet it wasn’t exactly a beginners book yet either. The focus was much more of a deconstruction to reconstruction book in 2021. As time and writing went on, that idea faded away as the trend of deconstruction was very much a 2010s thing. As I wrote more, the topic of deconstruction faded into being a section of a chapter instead of the main point of the book.
The actual writing process either began before or during September 2021 during what I dubbed the September Sessions. A 2 week brainstorm vacation in Texas where I got away to primarily write, but also see some of my family as well. A writer’s sabbatical if you will.
From there, life just got more busy and that meant this was a project on the back burner that I slowly would chip away at when I had the free time. But with Covid, planting a church, getting married, and then having a daughter with my wife it became harder and harder to justify writing in light of those responsibilities. Yet God overtime kept encouraging me through others to just keep writing so I did. That slow and steady process finally paid off when I officially finished the rough draft on January 12th of this year.
So what’s next? Well, the peer review will take anywhere from 60 to 90 days before I refine the book during the final draft stage. So until I hear back from everyone reviewing the rough draft for me, I’m going to be wrapping up the front matter and back matter of the book.
This means the different appendices and pages not apart of the body matter of the book. My aim is to complete those things early before I receive feedback and focus on preaching and posting old sermons here again. I’d like to also post more original blogposts again when the book is published, but we’ll see how God leads from here. With that, Godspeed and Jesus bless.
chris cribari blog 