Bring the Experience to Life

Creston Mapes is the author of three rocking spiritual thrillers: DARK STAR: CONFESSIONS OF A ROCK IDOL, FULL TILT, and NOBODY. Rock 'n' roll lovers have taken a liking to those first two books, a series also known as THE ROCK STAR CHRONICLES. The new novel, NOBODY, is set in Las Vegas and is in stores now. Mapes has been writing professionally since 1983. To find out more about Creston, go to http://www.crestonmapes.com/.

BY CRESTON MAPES

Only You
Have Worn Your Shoes
Bring The Experience To Life

How do we as writers come up with ideas for new novels? For me, ideas percolate in my mind for a long time until a unique storyline is born. My new novel, NOBODY (Multnomah, September 2007), deals with, among other threads, the homeless people of Las Vegas. What inspired me to delve into this topic?

My late father, Bernie, and I were walking through a park in St. Augustine, Florida, and saw a homeless man, tearing pieces of bread from a loaf, eating some and throwing chunks to dozens of birds. Dad leaned over and said, “That would be a good idea for a book, Cres.” That is where the idea originally took shape. Then, when my publisher decided to send me to Las Vegas to do research for the new book, the thought of the homeless man stayed with me. I made contact with a man named Brian Brooks from the Nevada Health Centers, who showed me all over Vegas, including the homeless areas, soup kitchens, free clinics, and dry stream beds known as “washes” where many of the homeless sleep at night.

Here are some insights I learned while researching NOBODY, many of which made their way into the book:

- There are approximately 10,000 homeless people in Las Vegas. Many set up makeshift tents in the dry, low-lying "washes" (dry stream beds) amid the brush to hide from police. Others sleep in encampments along busy highways, until they are kicked out and told to move on during police "sweeps."

- You don't see the homeless on the ritzy part of The Strip. Police kick them out of there because it's not good for tourism. However, some of the outlying areas of The Strip are sickeningly poor, packed with trailers and old cinder block hotels where these people try to find shelter. Most of Las Vegas's homeless are situated within one mile of downtown.

- The food lines are long in Vegas, and the free clinics are full of people, suffering from everything from hunger and chronic colds to spider bites, foot sores, pneumonia, etc.

- Vegas has events called "Stand Downs" where all of the service providers in Vegas come together to put on a free expo, where the homeless can come and find out what services are available to them. Many of the homeless don’t know about Stand Downs.

- Why don't the homeless get jobs? It's said that each of them would have to hold 2-3 jobs at minimum wage to afford a place to live in Las Vegas. Some homeless men stand along certain streets in the city early in the morning, waiting to be picked up by landscapers for "day labor." They are paid in cash, under the table.

- The county does a lot to try to help the homeless, but it's never enough. The homeless can get housing vouchers, which help them pay to live in a run down motel for a little while, but that is short-lived.

- Many of the homeless suffer from drug addiction, depression, and mental illness.

- 6,000-8,000 people move into Las Vegas each month, many running from the past and looking to "start over." 1,500-3,000 people move out of Las Vegas each month. More tourists visit Las Vegas each year (40 million) than they do the White House. Las Vegas is the #1 tourist destination in America.

- An interesting fact: more than 50% of the U.S. population is close to being homeless, due to the lack of any financial resources to back them up in case of problems or emergencies.

Okay, as for other threads in NOBODY, the novel deals with the seldom-broached topic of Christians who’ve become so steeped in the church that they actually forget the needy outside the doors. How did that idea take shape? When I was in Vegas, I met with Jud Wilhite, pastor of Central Community Church, one of the country’s largest and fastest growing churches. Jud’s desire and the mission of the church are to “reach those who are far from God.” As we met over coffee for several hours, Jud shared a poem with me by the late Samuel Shoemaker, one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous. The poem is called, I Stand By the Door, and it deals with this very topic of going so far inside the church that we forget or grow cold to the thousands of lost people who haven’t found God yet.

That poem blew me away (we’ve reprinted it at the beginning of the novel), because it brought to the surface a very emotional problem I had been forced to deal with in my past. But with me it was more of a thing where I thought my relationship with Christ was based on my works. Without realizing it, I worked at the church to please man. This work-oriented “walk” had all been very comforting to my ego, until it was stripped away. Later I found out that, deep down, I did not have the close relationship with Jesus that I so desperately needed. It wasn’t until years later that the Holy Spirit helped me develop a friendship with Him, not based on works, but based on His adopting me into His family and calling me His child. I am now at rest and peace in my relationship with Christ, and NOBODY shares the story of how this homeless man, Chester Holte, comes to the same realization.

Indeed, I’ve found that each of my novels has directly reflected what is going on, or has gone on, in my life, spiritually—and otherwise. Of course, great novels take a little seed of an idea and add to it a great big “what if…” That’s how the homeless character in NOBODY finds himself completely enamored with a legalistic pastor named Banyon Scribe. After some soul-searching, Chester (the homeless man) realizes he does not know Christ at all. All he’d been doing was working and immersing himself in church activities—the church bubble—and he wakes up one day to the fact that his life is touching no one outside the doors of the church. That’s when he feels led to go to Las Vegas to live among the homeless.

Since I’ve worked as a reporter before (loved it), I decided my main character would be a reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which I visited while in Vegas. The reporter’s name Hudson Ambrose. My good friend, author Mark Mynheir (The Void) says he believes I really found my voice in this novel, simply because I have lived and breathed the job of a reporter.

So, in every way, NOBODY was an incredibly fun and yet an emotionally-draining book to write. And it’s meant to be a thought-provoking novel. It forces the reader to ask deep questions. What are my motives when I serve? Do I ever find myself attempting to please man, rather than Jesus? Do I serve as a result of peer pressure and man-made obligation, or is it because I’ve met with God, He’s shown me what He wants, and I am being obedient? Does it ever seem as if I need to guard myself from being pulled into too many service obligations? These questions may make a legalist or Pharisee angry. But for the person who is growing in Christ and wants a real, meaningful, fruitful walk with God, they are good questions to ask ourselves.

Thanks for inviting me to drop by.
Creston Mapes
www.crestonmapes.com


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