Purpose
-to bring to life how God woo’d his people to choose Him and later enter into covenant with them (a betrothal). Basically, He relentlessly pursued His people’s loyalty, making a show of Himself against the competition to prove to them and all nations who He is: God above all gods, and that He is trustworthy and faithful.
-to show why God (and Pharoah) hardened Pharoah’s heart. The title comes straight from Exodus 9.
-to set the stage for INTO THE WILDERNESS, which is what I really wanted to write.
First draft written May-July 2021
The Choosing of the Names
Eliza: a particular name I’ve come to love. I had asked Adam one night what should the name of my Hebrew female main character be, and off the bat he said “Elizabeth”, so I went with Eliza.
Seti: Went through a list of ancient Egyptian names. This one is generic enough but also means “Seth” which I thought would be a good Egyptian/Hebrew transfer once he becomes fully integrated in Hebrew society. The meaning: “appointed” for “Seth” is useful for the sequel. The fact that it is also the name of Osiris’ nemesis has fun irony for the character.
Adam and Zechariah: my sons Adam and Zackary
Miera: Started out as Emma. Obviously had to change that. Went to Eliora, a character from a book I like, but too close to Eliza. So out of a name list, I chose Miera.
Sabu: wanted something short and easy to pronounce from the Egyptian name list.
Ameneten: a rendition of Amenhotep
Kabelo: sponsored child I promised to include in the story
Rahel: started out as Rebecca but changed to Rahel because once names changed to Hebrew form, I still wanted them easy to say/pronounce. The name of my first reader is also Rachel.
All other names randomly chosen from lists.
Setting
-I strongly follow the early Exodus timeline (1500’s BC).
-Goshen/Egypt: The only way I could council the fact that the Hebrews had homes in Goshen (spared by the plagues) while they also worked as slaves was to establish a day/time which the slaves were allowed to go home. Though some could just walk home for the night, most the time it was too far, so they slept onsite.
-this, of course, is just an idea, so I only made it applicable to a select few (those purchased by private Egyptian owners) whereas the majority (government slaves) did not have this luxury.
-This also allowed the old and babies to remain in Goshen.
Journey
First written with an emphasis on the setting (my goal was to write like Francine Rivers), it came out to 147,000 words long (about 420 pages), which is way too long for an unknown author’s first book. I was unaware of this and sent it out to several agents, where it was auto-rejected due to length. My dream agent was kind enough to inform me on the reason. A debut author’s first book should be under 100,000 (even less for other genres) words to even be considered.
So the emphasis changed to be character driven, leading to the cutting of needless descriptions. After rounds of critiques at ACFW’s Scribes and Scribophile.com, the Red Sea chapters cut out, and better word choices (stronger but less words) (thankyou everyone who helped!), the word-count came down to 97,000 words (about 280 pages). All that took another year and a half.
I sent it out again. To this day we wait.