The Book Is Published. Now What?
The book is published. But the to-do list keeps growing!
Last week, I celebrated publishing my second Mateo book.
Eight editions. Two platforms. Two days.
After months of writing, revising, translating, creating illustrations, and preparing everything for publication, Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word: From Abraham to Joseph was finally out in the world.
I thought I might have a chance to relax.
Apparently, nobody told my to-do list.
Because publishing a book doesn't mean the work is finished.
It means a whole new kind of work is beginning.
First, there are the websites.
The new book needs to be added. The links need to work. The English and Spanish editions need to be in the right places. The descriptions need to be checked.
Then there are the bookstores and book-discovery websites.
Some already know about Mateo. Others have never heard of him.
So I introduce him.
Again.
And again.
Sometimes I feel as though I'm taking Mateo from door to door, knocking politely and asking, "Excuse me, would you like to meet a twelve-year-old boy who travels through Bible history?"
Occasionally, someone opens the door.
And that's encouraging.
Then there are the social media posts.
Facebook. Instagram. Threads. LinkedIn. And a few other places where I've introduced myself and my books.
I create an image, write a description, post it, and wonder who might see it.
Sometimes a post attracts attention.
Sometimes it seems to disappear into the vastness of the internet.
And sometimes a camel spitting at a boy gets more attention than a carefully written announcement about a new book.
I'm beginning to understand that Jamil may be better at marketing than I am.
But beneath all the activity is a question that every author eventually faces.
Will someone read it?
When you're writing a book, the characters are always with you.
You know where they're going.
You know what they're facing.
You spend hours imagining their conversations, their struggles, and the world around them.
For months, Mateo, Abraham, Sarah, Suri, Jamil, and the others were part of my everyday life.
But now the book belongs to the readers.
And I can't make anyone open it.
I can tell people about the story.
I can make it available in different places.
I can share pictures and videos.
I can hope that someone will read it, enjoy it, and perhaps tell someone else.
But eventually, I have to let the book find its way.
That's not always easy.
Especially when you're the kind of person who likes to check whether anything has happened since the last time you checked.
Which may have been ten minutes ago.
Or five.
I'm working on that.
Meanwhile, something else has happened.
Book Three has begun.
I didn't sit down and decide that I needed another project to keep me busy.
The story simply wasn't finished.
New questions appeared. New possibilities opened up. And a character who once seemed to have a small part in Mateo's adventures began to suggest that he might have a much larger story to tell.
So now I find myself doing two things at once.
Trying to help readers discover the book I've just finished.
And discovering the story of the book I haven't finished yet.
Perhaps that's simply what being an author looks like.
You celebrate a milestone.
You take a moment to appreciate what you've accomplished.
And then you get up the next morning and continue.
I've been thinking about the words of Ecclesiastes 3:1:
"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."
There was a time to write Book Two.
There was a time to prepare it for publication.
And now there is a time to share it, patiently, with people who may not even know it exists yet.
I can't control how quickly readers discover Mateo.
But I can keep doing the work in front of me.
I can keep writing.
I can keep sharing.
And I can trust that the effort has meaning, even when I can't immediately see the results.
So, what happens after the book is published?
Apparently, you update the website.
You check the links.
You introduce the book to another potential reader.
You check the statistics one more time.
And then, when you finally have a quiet moment, you open the manuscript for Book Three.
Because somewhere in ancient Egypt, another adventure is waiting.
And the story doesn't seem particularly interested in my to-do list.
Why I Sent Mateo to Haran
A new journey begins in Haran. For Mateo, that means a new friend, a very opinionated camel, and a place in Abraham's caravan.
When I finished Book One of Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word, I knew where Mateo's next journey would take him.
Abraham.
But knowing where to send him and deciding what he would do when he got there were two different things.
In Book One, Mateo had witnessed some of the most extraordinary events in the Bible.
He watched Noah build the Ark.
He visited the Garden of Eden.
He witnessed Cain and Abel.
He saw the Tower of Babel rising toward the heavens.
Most of the time, Mateo was an observer.
He watched history unfold around him, sometimes knowing what would happen before the people living it did.
But when I began Book Two, I wanted something different.
I wanted Mateo to get his hands dirty.
And that meant giving him a job.
A job involving camels.
When Mateo arrives in Haran, Abraham is preparing to leave for the land God has promised him.
There are people to organize.
Animals to feed.
Supplies to load.
An entire household preparing for a journey into the unknown.
And somewhere in the middle of all that activity is a twelve-year-old boy from Nicaragua who knows absolutely nothing about taking care of camels.
Fortunately, there's Suri.
Suri is one of the men responsible for the caravan's camels, and he becomes Mateo's teacher.
He knows the animals.
He knows their habits.
He knows what needs to be done before a caravan can begin its journey.
And now he has another responsibility.
Teaching Mateo.
I enjoyed creating Suri because he gave Mateo something he hadn't really needed during his earlier adventures.
Someone to show him how to live in the world he was visiting.
Mateo could know the biblical story of Abraham and still have no idea how to prepare a camel for a day's travel.
Those are two very different kinds of knowledge.
And then there's Jamil.
Ah, Jamil.
If Suri represents patience and experience, Jamil represents something else entirely.
A camel with an attitude.
Jamil belongs to Sarah, and Mateo soon discovers that being assigned to care for him isn't quite the honor he might have imagined.
Camels are large animals.
They can be stubborn.
And apparently, they have their own ways of expressing displeasure.
Mateo learns that lesson rather personally.
Let's just say that Jamil has a remarkable ability to make his feelings known.
And Mateo occasionally finds himself on the receiving end. 🙂
I think that was one of the most enjoyable parts of writing Book Two.
The biblical events are important, of course.
God calls Abraham to leave his homeland.
Abraham obeys.
The journey begins.
But between those great moments of faith and obedience, people still have to live their everyday lives.
They have to eat.
They have to sleep.
They have to care for animals.
They have to pack up camp and travel another day.
And sometimes, they have to deal with a disagreeable camel.
I wanted Mateo to experience that side of biblical history, too.
Not simply to stand nearby while Abraham makes important decisions.
But to wake up early.
To work.
To learn.
To make mistakes.
To develop friendships with people whose lives are very different from his own.
And perhaps to discover that a journey of faith involves more than knowing where you're supposed to go.
Sometimes it involves doing the work that's right in front of you.
That's what Haran gave me as a writer.
It gave Mateo a place to begin becoming part of the world he had previously only visited.
And it gave me Suri and Jamil.
One to teach him.
The other to keep him humble.
In Book One, Mateo mostly watched history unfold.
In Book Two, he has a job to do.
He has a teacher named Suri.
He has a camel named Jamil.
And he has a very long road ahead of him.
Welcome to Haran, Mateo.
Your adventure is just beginning.
When the Next Book Becomes a Real Book
After months of writing, revising, and imagining Mateo’s next journey, Book Two is no longer just a manuscript. It is a published book.
Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established.
— Proverbs 16:3 KJV
Last Monday, I wrote that the story doesn't wait.
Apparently, it wasn't kidding.
At the time, I was still talking about Book Two as the story Mateo and I were traveling through together.
There were chapters to finish.
Pictures to choose.
Sentences to reconsider.
Corrections to make.
And probably a camel or two that needed to be moved somewhere else.
Then something changed.
It's a book.
That shouldn't feel surprising.
After all, that was the plan.
You write a book so that eventually it becomes...a book.
But there is a strange moment when a manuscript stops being something you're working on and becomes something you're releasing into the world.
For months, Book Two lived on my computer.
I could change anything.
A sentence.
A paragraph.
A picture.
A chapter.
If something bothered me, I could go back and fix it.
And I did.
More than once.
Probably more than I care to remember.
But eventually there comes a point when you have to stop.
Not because you've suddenly decided that every word is perfect.
Not because you couldn't find one more sentence to adjust if you looked hard enough.
You stop because the story is ready.
And then you press Publish.
This time, I pressed it more than once.
On Amazon:
The English paperback.
The English ebook.
The Spanish paperback.
The Spanish ebook.
And on Lulu:
The English paperback.
The English ebook.
The Spanish paperback.
The Spanish ebook.
Eight editions across two publishing platforms in two days.
Suddenly, Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word — Book Two wasn't sitting on my computer waiting for another correction.
It was a published book.
And its Spanish companion, Mateo y los Secretos de la Palabra Eterna — Libro Dos, was right there beside it.
There is something both satisfying and slightly unsettling about that moment.
As long as the manuscript belongs to you, you control it.
Once you publish it, you begin letting go.
Someone else can open it.
Someone else can meet the characters.
Someone else can walk beside Mateo through the world you've spent months creating.
And someone else can notice the typo you somehow missed after reading the page seventeen times.
That's publishing. 🙂
I think there is a lesson in that which reaches beyond books.
There are times when careful work matters.
There are times when correcting, improving, and trying again matter.
But there also comes a time when continuing to polish something can become another way of being afraid to release it.
Eventually, you have to say:
This is what I made.
And let it go.
Proverbs tells us to commit our works unto the Lord.
I like that word commit.
It doesn't say everything we do will be perfect.
It doesn't promise that everyone will notice what we've done.
It doesn't even tell us what will happen afterward.
There comes a point when the work leaves our hands.
Book Two has reached that point.
The characters who spent all those months living inside my computer now have somewhere else to go.
Abraham.
Sarah.
Isaac.
Rebecca.
Jacob.
And, of course, Mateo.
Last Monday, Mateo and I were still traveling.
This Monday, something has changed.
Book Two is traveling without us.
Which leaves only one question.
Where do we go next?
Share realizationOct 4, 2026, 1:16 PMOpen
Why Mateo Doesn't Travel Alone
Verbum can take Mateo into Bible history. Father Tomás, Miguel, and Doña Rosa help him understand what he brings home.
Sending Mateo into Bible history was the easy part.
Bringing him home was harder.
When I first imagined Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word, much of my attention was on the adventure.
A twelve-year-old boy living in the mountains of Nicaragua discovers an enormous ancient Bible called Verbum Aeternum.
Then the impossible happens.
The book takes him into the stories he has only read about.
Suddenly Mateo can stand in the Garden of Eden.
He can watch Noah build the Ark.
He can witness Cain and Abel.
He can see the Tower of Babel rising before him.
That gave me plenty of places to send him.
But eventually every journey ends.
Mateo comes home.
Then what?
How does a twelve-year-old boy make sense of what he has just witnessed?
Who does he tell?
Who would even believe him?
That's when I realized something important.
Mateo couldn't make this journey alone.
Father Tomás became one of the first people Mateo could turn to.
He listens.
He answers questions when he can.
And perhaps most importantly, Mateo gradually discovers that the old priest may understand Verbum Aeternum better than he first lets on.
Then there is Doña Rosa.
Grandmothers have a different way of looking at things.
She doesn't need to travel through time to have something worth saying.
Sometimes wisdom comes from experience, faith, and having lived long enough to recognize that a twelve-year-old boy doesn't always need an answer immediately.
Sometimes he simply needs someone who will listen.
Miguel has another role.
He is Mateo's friend.
He isn't a priest.
He isn't a grandmother.
He's another boy.
And that matters.
Because no matter how extraordinary Mateo's adventures become, I don't want him to stop being twelve years old.
He still needs a friend.
He still has a family.
He still lives in Miraflor.
There are chores to do, meals to eat, conversations around the house, and ordinary days between extraordinary journeys.
Those people keep Mateo connected to home.
And then there is Verbum.
At first, it would have been easy to treat Verbum Aeternum simply as the device that gets Mateo from one place to another.
Open the ancient Bible.
Travel into history.
Return home.
Repeat.
But somewhere along the way, Verbum became more than transportation.
He became part of the journey.
Verbum doesn't simply show Mateo things.
He challenges him.
Sometimes he answers.
Sometimes he doesn't.
And sometimes he leaves Mateo with a question that has to travel home with him.
That may be the most important reason Mateo doesn't travel alone.
The journey isn't really finished when he returns from Bible history.
In some ways, that's when it begins.
Seeing Cain and Abel is one thing.
Trying to understand what he witnessed is another.
Standing in Eden is extraordinary.
Wondering what Eden means for the world Mateo knows is something else entirely.
Noah's Ark can take Mateo into the past.
But the questions he brings home belong to the present.
And those questions give him reasons to sit with Father Tomás.
To listen to Doña Rosa.
To talk with Miguel.
To think.
To pray.
And eventually, to discover some answers for himself.
When I began writing Mateo's story, I thought the great adventure would be traveling into Bible history.
I'm beginning to think I was only partly right.
Verbum can show Mateo where the story happened.
The people who care about him can help him understand what it means.
Perhaps there's a lesson hidden there that reaches beyond Mateo.
We can see remarkable things.
We can travel extraordinary roads.
We can ask difficult questions.
But we were never meant to understand everything by ourselves.
Some journeys may begin alone.
But the important ones rarely stay that way.
The Story Doesn't Wait
In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.
— Ecclesiastes 11:6 KJV
Last Monday's photograph showed me sitting at my computer, staring at an inbox and waiting for someone to write back.
It was a good photograph.
It just wasn't entirely accurate.
Because while one version of me might be waiting to hear what someone thinks about a book I've already written, another version is busy writing the next one.
The story doesn't wait.
Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word — Book One is finished.
I can't change another sentence.
I can't decide who will discover it tomorrow.
I can't make someone read it.
And I certainly can't make someone write back.
But I can open another document.
And when I do, Mateo is waiting.
Actually, that isn't quite right.
Mateo isn't waiting at all.
He's already gone somewhere.
Verbum Aeternum has carried him back into Bible history, and I have to catch up.
This time the journey is taking him into the world of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
And something interesting has happened while I've been writing Book Two.
The world has become bigger.
There are new people for Mateo to meet. New places to explore. New questions for him to ask.
And Verbum itself seems to have a little more to say.
That's one of the things I've discovered about writing a series.
You may think you know where the story is going.
Then you begin writing.
A character says something you hadn't planned.
A small idea becomes important.
Someone you expected to appear briefly refuses to leave.
A chapter takes a turn you hadn't anticipated.
And suddenly you're following the story almost as much as you're writing it.
That has happened more than once with Mateo.
I know the biblical events he will encounter. Those don't change.
But Mateo's journey through them can still surprise me.
Perhaps that's why I enjoy returning to the manuscript.
The published book belongs partly to the reader now.
The unfinished book is still a conversation between the story and me.
There is something else I like about that.
Writing Book Two keeps me from spending too much time worrying about what Book One is doing.
Is somebody reading it?
Will another review appear?
Will someone discover Mateo tomorrow who had never heard of him today?
I don't know.
Ecclesiastes reminds us to keep sowing because we don't know which seed will prosper.
I rather like that picture.
One book has already been planted.
So I keep working on the next one.
And while I'm waiting to discover where Book One may travel, Mateo and I are traveling again.
There are ancient roads ahead.
There are people waiting for us whom we've known by name for thousands of years.
And somewhere inside my computer is a story that doesn't completely exist yet.
So what does an author do while waiting for someone to write back?
Apparently, he opens the manuscript.
He finds Mateo.
And he sees where they’re going today.
The One Rule I Gave Mateo
Mateo knows what is about to happen to Abel. But knowing the future and being able to change it are two very different things.
When I decided that Verbum Aeternum could carry Mateo into Bible history, I gave myself a problem.
What if Mateo tried to change it?
It wasn't something I had thought much about when the idea first came to me.
A twelve-year-old boy discovers an enormous ancient Bible. The book comes alive. Suddenly, instead of simply reading the stories of the Bible, Mateo can step inside them.
It sounded like a wonderful adventure.
And then I realized what I had done.
Mateo already knew some of these stories.
He knew what was going to happen.
What if he saw something terrible about to happen?
Could he warn someone?
Could he stop it?
Could a twelve-year-old boy from the mountains of Nicaragua suddenly change a story that happened thousands of years ago?
Obviously, I needed a rule.
Mateo could witness Bible history. But he could not rewrite it.
That rule became especially important when Mateo encountered Cain and Abel.
Imagine knowing the story and then finding yourself standing there.
Abel is tending his sheep.
Cain is approaching.
And you know what is about to happen.
What would you do?
Every instinct would tell you to shout.
Abel! Look out!
Mateo wants to help. He wants to warn him.
But he can't.
For me, that became one of the most interesting parts of writing Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word.
Mateo isn't traveling into Bible history as a superhero.
He isn't there to rescue Noah from the Flood, stop Cain, prevent the Tower of Babel, or give Adam and Eve a helpful warning about a certain serpent.
The stories don't belong to Mateo.
And they don't belong to me.
That distinction matters.
As an author, I can imagine what the Garden of Eden might have looked like. I can imagine the sounds aboard Noah's Ark. I can put Mateo beside people whose names have been familiar to us for thousands of years.
I can imagine the things he might see, hear, think, and feel.
But the biblical events themselves remain the biblical events.
Mateo is there to witness them.
And sometimes that means standing helplessly nearby when he already knows what is going to happen.
There is another reason I like that rule.
It means Mateo doesn't return from his journeys having fixed Bible history.
He returns with questions.
Why did this happen?
Why didn't God stop it?
Why would people make choices like these?
What does any of it have to do with a twelve-year-old boy living thousands of years later in Nicaragua?
Those are the questions he can take back to Father Tomás, Doña Rosa—and eventually to his own heart.
Perhaps that is where Mateo's real adventure lies.
Verbum Aeternum can take him almost anywhere.
It can allow him to witness extraordinary things.
But it cannot give him the power to change what happened.
Mateo's job is not to rewrite the story.
His job is to discover what the story can change in him.
What Happens When Nobody Writes Back?
Sometimes sending a book into the world means waiting—and wondering if anyone will ever write back.
And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
— Galatians 6:9 KJV
Last week, I wrote about what happens when someone writes back.
There is another side to being an author.
Most of the time, nobody does.
You send the book.
Or you give a friend a copy.
You wait.
And you hear...nothing.
Did they read it?
Did they start it?
Is it sitting on a nightstand underneath three other books?
Did they enjoy it and simply never think to tell you?
Or did they get to Chapter Three, quietly close the book, and decide that perhaps friendship was more important than honesty?
You don't know.
That doesn't make a very exciting photograph for a blog.
But it is a very real part of becoming an author.
When I began sending my books into the world, I suppose part of me imagined there would be more conversation coming back.
Not necessarily glowing reviews.
Just something.
A sentence.
A comment.
Even a simple, “I finished it.”
Sometimes that happens.
My friend Marco read Ride the Fire and took the time to write a thoughtful review. I've also had encouraging responses from people and organizations who have discovered my books through interviews, author features, and other opportunities.
Those moments matter.
But between them there can be a great deal of silence.
And I am learning that silence is something an author has to become comfortable with.
A book doesn't travel according to the author's timetable.
Someone may receive it today and read it next month.
Or next year.
A reviewer may have dozens of books waiting ahead of yours. A friend may genuinely intend to read it but have a life filled with other things demanding attention.
And some people will read a book, enjoy it, put it back on the shelf, and never realize that somewhere there is an author wondering what they thought.
I can't control any of that.
What I can control is what I do next.
I can keep writing.
That may be one of the unexpected lessons this journey has taught me.
Writing requires faith long before a book is published. You spend months working on something without knowing whether anyone will ever read it.
Apparently, publishing requires a little faith too.
You send something you created out into the world without knowing where it will go, who will read it, or whether you'll ever hear what happened when it arrived.
Galatians tells us not to become weary in doing good, because the harvest doesn't always come immediately.
I think there is wisdom in that far beyond writing.
Sometimes we plant.
Sometimes we water.
Sometimes we wait.
And sometimes we never get to see what grew from the seed.
So I'll keep sending the books.
I'll keep giving away the occasional copy.
I'll keep writing.
And I'll try not to stare at my inbox too often.
Although I make no promises about that last part. 🙂
What Was It Like to Walk Into Eden?
Mateo watches from the foliage as Adam and Eve marvel at the beauty of the Garden of Eden, unaware of the dark serpent observing them from a nearby tree.
Every reader knows the name.
The Garden of Eden.
We have read about it. We have imagined it. Artists have tried to paint it for centuries.
But no one can tell us exactly what it looked like.
That presented me with an interesting challenge when I began writing Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word.
I wasn't simply going to tell Mateo about Eden.
I was going to send him there.
And suddenly I had to see the Garden through the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy from the mountains of Nicaragua.
What would he notice first?
The trees? The animals? The rivers?
Would there be sounds he had never heard before? Colors he had never seen? Would everything seem strangely peaceful?
And then there were Adam and Eve.
I didn't want Mateo to meet two people who already understood the world around them. They were experiencing it for the first time.
Imagine opening your eyes and discovering sunlight.
Imagine seeing an animal without knowing what an animal was.
Imagine touching water, smelling a flower, hearing a bird sing—or looking into another person's eyes—when everything was new.
There was something wonderfully innocent about that idea.
For Mateo, however, there was another side to Eden.
He knew the story.
Adam and Eve didn't.
Mateo could look at the beauty surrounding them and understand something they could not possibly know.
Something was coming.
Somewhere in that perfect Garden was the serpent.
That gave me one of the most interesting perspectives in the book. Mateo wasn't merely witnessing Bible history. Sometimes he knew what was going to happen before the people living it did.
He could see the danger.
But could he change anything?
That question became important throughout Mateo's journeys with Verbum Aeternum.
If Mateo was truly witnessing Bible history, then the events he saw had already happened. He wasn't there to rewrite them.
He was there to experience them, learn from them, and eventually understand why they mattered.
Perhaps that is one reason Eden was the right place for Mateo's first journey.
It gave him—and me—the opportunity to look at a familiar Bible story differently.
Not from a distance.
Not from an illustration in a children's Bible.
But through the eyes of a boy standing among the trees, watching two people discover a beautiful new world...
while knowing that somewhere in the Garden, trouble was already waiting.
What Happens When Someone Writes Back?
Sometimes the most encouraging part of sending your words into the world is discovering that someone has written back.
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.
— Proverbs 25:11 KJV
For a long time, writing is a one-way conversation.
You sit at a computer and write.
You create characters. You give them problems. You send them on adventures. You rewrite sentences that don't sound quite right. You change things. You change them back.
And eventually, after months of work, you finish.
Then you publish the book.
And you wait.
Sending Words Into the Silence
When I began writing, I didn't really think much about the person who might eventually be sitting on the other side of those words.
Of course, I hoped someone would read them.
But that reader was mostly imaginary.
Somewhere out there was a person I didn't know, holding a book I had written.
That was about as far as the picture went.
Then something began to change.
People started writing back.
Someone Answered
Sometimes it was an Amazon review.
Sometimes it was a professional reviewer who had received one of my books.
Sometimes another author read something I had written and took the time to tell me what he or she thought.
Then messages began arriving through social media.
Someone had discovered Mateo.
Someone wanted to know where the book could be purchased.
Someone had read about Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word and wanted to know more.
Some of those messages came from places a very long way from Nicaragua.
And every time one arrived, something struck me.
There was actually someone on the other end.
The reader wasn't imaginary anymore.
More Than Numbers
It's easy to become fascinated with numbers when you're trying to introduce books to readers.
How many people viewed the post?
How many visited the website?
How many clicked the link?
How many read the blog?
I've certainly looked at all of them.
Probably more often than I should. 😊
But a number on a screen can only tell you so much.
Ten people viewed something.
Fifty people viewed something.
A hundred people viewed something.
Those numbers are encouraging.
But then one person writes:
I enjoyed your book.
Or:
Where can I find Mateo?
Or simply:
I like what you're doing.
And suddenly that one person can mean more than all the numbers.
Because now there is a name.
There is a voice.
There is a connection.
The Conversation I Didn't Expect
I used to think the conversation happened inside the book.
The author tells the story.
The reader reads it.
The end.
I'm beginning to understand that it doesn't always work that way.
Sometimes the story starts another conversation.
A reader sees something in a character that reminds them of someone they know.
A reviewer notices a theme that mattered to them.
Another author recognizes something about the struggle of creating a story.
Someone on the other side of the world discovers a twelve-year-old boy living in the mountains of Nicaragua and decides that they would like to know him better.
None of that existed while I was sitting at my computer writing.
I couldn't make it happen.
I could only write the story and let it go.
A Word Fitly Spoken
That is why the words from Proverbs seem especially meaningful to me now:
“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”
There is something valuable about the right words arriving at the right time.
Sometimes those words travel from the writer to the reader.
But sometimes they travel in the other direction.
I've discovered that a few kind words from someone who has read one of my books can arrive on exactly the day they're needed.
A review can encourage you.
A message can surprise you.
A simple comment can remind you why you started writing in the first place.
The writer sends out the words.
And occasionally, some words come back.
When the Silence Answers
Last week I wrote about what happens when a book leaves your hands.
You don't know exactly where it will go.
You don't know who will discover it.
And you certainly don't know what will happen when it gets there.
I'm learning that sometimes something wonderful happens.
Someone answers.
For months, I sat at my computer and sent words out into the silence.
Now, every once in a while, the silence answers.
Someone writes.
Someone reviews.
Someone asks where they can find Mateo.
Someone simply takes a moment to say that something I wrote mattered to them.
And each time it happens, I'm reminded that a story doesn't really end when it leaves the author's hands.
Sometimes, that's when the conversation begins.
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.
— Proverbs 25:11 KJVord fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.
— Proverbs 25:11 KJV
Why Genesis?
Mateo's first journeys with Verbum Aeternum take him into the opening chapters of Genesis—from Eden and Cain and Abel to Noah's Ark and the Tower of Babel.
Every story has to begin somewhere.
But when I began writing Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word, that presented an unusual problem.
I had created a twelve-year-old boy living in the mountains of Nicaragua. I had given him an enormous ancient Bible called Verbum Aeternum. And somehow, that mysterious book was going to allow Mateo to do something the rest of us can only imagine.
He wouldn't simply read Bible history.
He would enter it.
That opened up almost the entire Bible.
So where should I send him first?
Where Do You Begin?
There were certainly plenty of possibilities.
Mateo could have stood beside Moses as the Red Sea opened.
He could have watched David face Goliath.
He could have seen Daniel enter the lions' den.
Eventually, I hope Mateo will witness many of those moments.
But this was his first journey.
And the more I thought about it, the answer became obvious.
If Mateo was going to enter Bible history, he should begin where Bible history begins.
Genesis.
The beginning.
A World Mateo Had Never Seen
I wanted Mateo's first experience with Verbum to feel almost overwhelming.
One moment he is a twelve-year-old boy in the mountains of Nicaragua.
The next, he is somewhere unlike anything he has ever seen.
Eden.
Imagine what that would be like.
Mateo isn't looking at an illustration of the Garden of Eden. He isn't watching a movie. He isn't listening to someone describe it.
He is there.
He can see it.
Hear it.
Walk through it.
And then he begins to realize that he isn't merely visiting a beautiful place.
He is witnessing the beginning of the story.
Adam.
Eve.
The serpent.
The choice that changes everything.
Suddenly Genesis isn't just something Mateo has heard about in church.
It is happening around him.
But Genesis Doesn't Stay Beautiful
Of course, the story quickly becomes more difficult.
Mateo witnesses Cain and Abel.
That was important to me because I didn't want his journeys through Scripture to become sightseeing trips.
Verbum isn't taking Mateo into Bible history merely to show him spectacular things.
There is something for him to learn.
Something for him to wrestle with.
Something that will follow him home to Miraflor.
And sometimes, what he sees will be difficult.
That becomes part of Mateo's journey too.
And Then Came the Ark
Noah gave me an entirely different opportunity.
Most of us have seen pictures of Noah's Ark since childhood.
But what would it have been like to stand there while it was being built?
How enormous would it have seemed to a twelve-year-old boy?
What would Mateo have thought as the animals arrived?
And what would it feel like when the sky finally began to change and the people who had laughed at Noah suddenly realized that perhaps they should have listened?
Once again, Mateo wouldn't know the story only from words on a page.
He would experience the faith, obedience and consequences behind those words.
And Finally, Babel
By the time Mateo reaches Babel, he has already witnessed an extraordinary amount of human history.
Creation.
The fall.
Cain and Abel.
Noah and the flood.
Now he sees people trying to build their way toward heaven.
Babel gave Book One a natural ending.
Human beings had spread across the earth. Languages were divided. The world Mateo knew was beginning to take shape.
And then Mateo returned to the little mountain church in Nicaragua.
But this time, something was different.
Verbum went dark.
For Mateo, Genesis had ended.
But his adventure clearly had not.
Genesis Was Only the Beginning
Looking back, I think Genesis did something else for the story that I didn't fully appreciate when I began writing it.
Mateo was witnessing beginnings everywhere.
The beginning of creation.
The beginning of humanity.
The beginning of sin.
The beginning of families, nations and languages.
But something else was beginning too.
Mateo's own journey.
The boy who first approached Verbum could not remain exactly the same boy after everything he had witnessed.
And perhaps that is one of the reasons Genesis turned out to be exactly the right place to begin.
The Bible was beginning its story.
Mateo was beginning his.
And, although I didn't know it yet, I was beginning something too.
What started as one book about a boy from the mountains of Nicaragua stepping into Genesis was becoming a much larger journey through the Eternal Word.
Perhaps the real question was never:
Why did Mateo begin with Genesis?
Where else could he possibly have begun?
What Happens When the Book Leaves Your Hands?
Four stories began in Nicaragua. Once they left the author's hands, there was no telling how far they might travel.
Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established.
— Proverbs 16:3 KJV
There is a strange moment in the life of a book.
For months—or sometimes years—it belongs almost entirely to the author.
You decide what happens. You choose the characters. You write scenes no one else has ever seen. You change a word, rewrite a paragraph, move a chapter, and sometimes wonder whether any of it is working.
The characters live mostly in your imagination.
The story lives on your computer.
And then one day you press Publish.
Something changes.
The story leaves your hands.
When Someone Else Meets Your Characters
I experienced that for the first time with The Little Chef.
Then again with Challenge of the Heart.
Later came Ride the Fire.
And most recently, Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word.
Each time, there was a moment when something I had created privately became something other people could read.
At first, I suppose I was mostly wondering whether they would read it.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about that question:
Would anyone read my books?
The answer turned out to be yes.
There were Amazon reviews. There were professional reviews. There were comments from readers. Other authors read my work and told me what they thought.
And something interesting began to happen.
People started telling me things about my own books.
Seeing the Story Through Someone Else's Eyes
A reviewer might mention a quality in Mateo that particularly stood out.
Someone else might talk about the importance of family in the story.
Another reader might focus on the faith.
Still another might be fascinated by Nicaragua or the biblical history.
I wrote all of those things.
But I didn't necessarily know which one would matter most to someone else.
That's one of the things I'm learning about being an author.
Once someone reads your story, it becomes part of their imagination too.
They meet Mateo for themselves.
They form their own picture of Doña Rosa.
They decide how they feel about Father Tomás.
They wonder what Verbum Aeternum really is.
And sometimes they see something in the story that even the author hadn't stopped to consider.
The words are still mine.
But the experience of reading them belongs to the reader.
Then the Books Started Traveling
Last Monday, I wrote about another discovery.
After wondering whether anyone could find my books, I did something very sophisticated.
I Googled myself. 😊
Then I Googled Mateo.
That was when things became interesting.
I found Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word in places where I had never personally put it.
Walmart.
ThriftBooks.
Amazon sites in different countries.
Booksellers in Italy and Denmark.
And then I discovered Mateo sitting at #6 on an Amazon Hot New Releases list, with the Spanish edition at #13.
Suddenly, that little boy from the mountains of Nicaragua seemed to be traveling quite nicely without me.
But afterward, I began thinking about what that really meant.
I Can't Follow Everywhere They Go
When I wrote Ride the Fire, the story was right here with me in León, Nicaragua.
When I created Mateo, he began in my imagination and found his home in the mountains of Miraflor.
I knew exactly where those stories were.
They were with me.
That's no longer true.
A book can be sitting on someone's shelf thousands of miles away.
Someone I will never meet may be reading one tonight.
A parent may hand Mateo to a child.
A reader may recommend Ride the Fire to a friend.
Someone may discover one of the books through a Google search, a bookseller, a social media post, or perhaps simply by accident.
I'll never know about most of those moments.
And perhaps I'm not supposed to.
Letting Go
There is a lesson in that which goes beyond writing books.
We like to know what will happen with the things we create.
We like to see results.
We like to know that the work mattered.
But faith doesn't always give us that privilege.
Sometimes we're simply asked to do the work placed before us and then entrust the result to God.
That's why the words of Proverbs seem especially appropriate to me now:
“Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established.”
I can write the story.
I can rewrite it until I'm satisfied.
I can publish it.
I can tell people about it.
I can even Google it occasionally to see where it wandered off to. 😊
But eventually, I have to let it go.
The Story Leaves Your Hands
Last week I went looking for Mateo to see where in the world he had gone.
Maybe I was asking the wrong question.
Perhaps an author's job isn't to know everywhere his story will go.
His job is to write it, polish it, send it on its way—and trust God with what happens next.
Four times now, I've taken something that existed only in my imagination and released it into the world.
I don't know everyone who has read those stories.
I don't know where all the copies are.
And I certainly don't know where they may travel next.
But perhaps that's part of the adventure too.
I know where The Little Chef began.
I know where Challenge of the Heart began.
I know where Ride the Fire began.
And I definitely know where Mateo began.
I'm becoming increasingly curious about where they'll all end up. 😊
Who Is Miguel?
Every adventure story needs extraordinary moments.
But it also needs ordinary ones.
Before Mateo ever stepped into Bible history, he was a twelve-year-old boy living in the mountains of Nicaragua. He had a family. He went to school. He helped with chores.
And he had a best friend named Miguel.
When I began writing Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word, Miguel didn't need to be mysterious. He didn't need to know ancient secrets. He didn't need to understand what was waiting for Mateo inside an abandoned church.
His purpose was much simpler.
Mateo needed a friend.
Someone His Own Age
Mateo has some remarkable people in his life.
Doña Rosa is his grandmother, but she is also a source of wisdom, faith, and quiet understanding.
Father Tomás becomes someone Mateo can turn to when the impossible things happening around him become too much to understand on his own.
But neither of them can be Miguel.
Mateo needed someone his own age.
Someone to sit beside at school. Someone to talk with, laugh with, and occasionally get into a little trouble with. Someone who knew Mateo simply as Mateo—not as the boy Verbum Aeternum had apparently been waiting for.
That became Miguel.
And as often happens when I write, a character who began with a fairly simple purpose didn't stay quite so simple.
The Friend on the Outside
For much of Mateo's early journey, Miguel knows that something is happening with his friend.
He just doesn't know what.
Mateo disappears.
Mateo returns with stories that would be difficult for anyone to believe.
And somewhere in the mountains sits an abandoned church that seems to hold answers Mateo isn't quite ready to share.
That created an interesting relationship between the two boys.
Mateo had entered a world Miguel couldn't see.
But Miguel was still his friend in the world he came home to.
Perhaps that was more important than I realized when I first created him.
Then Miguel Met Verbum
Eventually, keeping those two worlds completely separate became impossible.
Miguel entered the abandoned church with Mateo.
For the first time, he saw the enormous ancient Bible his friend had been trying to explain.
His reaction was wonderfully simple:
“It's so big!”
Mateo's answer was equally simple.
“I told you so.”
The two boys approached Verbum together.
Then the pages began to move.
They turned faster and faster until suddenly they stopped.
Miguel sees Verbum Aeternum for himself for the first time, with Mateo and Father Tomás beside him.
A verse began to glow:
“Therefore, comfort one another and build each other up, just as you are already doing.”
— 1 Thessalonians 5:11 LLV
Miguel stared at the words.
“Whoa! Look at what it says. What can it mean?”
Father Tomás was there with them.
But this time, something was different.
Mateo was no longer the only boy standing before Verbum Aeternum.
Miguel had entered that part of his world.
More Than Mateo's Sidekick
I never wanted Miguel to become simply the friend who follows the hero around.
Mateo's journey belongs to Mateo.
Verbum was waiting for him.
The extraordinary experiences that follow are part of something Mateo is only beginning to understand.
Miguel has a different role.
He is the friend who helps keep Mateo connected to ordinary life.
He doesn't have to understand everything Mateo experiences to stand beside him.
He doesn't have to solve the mysteries.
He doesn't have to become another Mateo.
He only has to be Miguel.
And perhaps that is why the verse Verbum showed the boys fits them so well.
Comfort one another.
Build each other up.
Those aren't instructions for grand adventures.
They're instructions for friendship.
The Friend Who Walks Beside Him
When I first created Miguel, I don't think I understood how important he might eventually become.
I simply knew Mateo needed a friend.
But characters have a way of growing as their stories grow.
Miguel became curious.
He began noticing things.
He began asking questions.
And eventually, he found himself standing beside his best friend in an abandoned mountain church, staring at a Bible unlike anything he had ever seen.
Long before Miguel understood what was happening to Mateo, however, he was already doing exactly what Verbum would one day tell the two boys to do.
He was building his friend up.
Doña Rosa helps guide Mateo.
Father Tomás helps him understand.
Verbum Aeternum opens a door to a world Mateo could never have imagined.
But Miguel does something equally necessary.
He walks beside him.
Mateo may be the one Verbum Aeternum was waiting for.
But even a boy chosen for an extraordinary journey shouldn't have to walk through ordinary life alone.
That's where Miguel comes in.
Where in the World Is Mateo?
Mateo studies a world map from his home in the mountains of Nicaragua—perhaps wondering just how far his story has traveled.
Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.
— Ecclesiastes 11:1 KJV
A couple of weeks ago, I asked a question here in this blog.
Now that I had written four books, would anyone read them?
The answer, I'm happy to say, was yes.
I had proof.
There were some nice Amazon reviews. There were also reviews from platforms that professionally review books submitted to them. And when another author reviews your book, it feels like an honor—especially when that author really likes the book and gives it a high rating.
I even discovered one of my books placed rather nicely among prominent Christian fiction novels by some fairly well-known authors.
So then the question became:
How can people find my books?
It probably sounds a little vain, but what better way to find out than by doing a Google search?
So that's what I did.
Searching for an Author
First, I searched for my author name:
Steve R. Hartwig.
A Google search for Steve R. Hartwig reveals an author website, social media pages, Independent Author Network, Goodreads, and more.
Of course, I found my Facebook pages, along with Instagram and Threads. But I was especially happy to see that my author website—the site I have worked so hard to create, update, and keep fresh with new content and blogs—had also found its way onto Google.
I found my author profile on Goodreads. The Independent Author Network appeared with listings of my books across its platforms, including some I don't personally use, such as X and Bluesky.
I kept scrolling.
And scrolling.
I couldn't believe that I was halfway through Page 2 of Google before my name finally began to fade away.
I thought that was pretty encouraging.
But then another thought occurred to me.
What would happen if I searched for one of my books?
Then I Searched for Mateo
Since Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word is my latest publication, I decided to start there.
That's when the biggest surprise came.
Google's overview of Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word recognizes Mateo, Verbum Aeternum, Father Tomás, Doña Rosa, and the story's biblical adventure.
Right at the top of the page, Google presented a full overview of the book. As I continued down the results, I began seeing some of the platforms that had reviewed Mateo.
That was nice, but those weren't really surprises. I already knew about them.
Then I had to stop and look again.
Searching for Mateo reveals the book appearing far beyond the places where I originally published and promoted it.
Mateo was listed with Bookshop.org.
Then ThriftBooks.
Then Walmart.
Walmart?
I hadn't put Mateo there.
So, naturally, I kept looking.
On the next page, I began finding Amazon listings from different countries around the world. Then came booksellers in Italy. Another in Denmark. There were names I had never heard of and places where I certainly had never submitted my book.
Some listings didn't even have the cover yet.
But they had Mateo.
The little boy from the mountains of Nicaragua was apparently traveling quite nicely without me.
What About Ride the Fire?
For good measure, I decided to search for Ride the Fire too.
I had noticed before that searching that title alone on Amazon brings up several books with the same name. So this time I refined the search:
Ride the Fire by Steve R. Hartwig.
The results were much the same.
There it was, appearing in places well beyond my website, Amazon author page, and social media posts.
Another one of my books had made its way out into the world.
And Then Mateo Had One More Surprise
I thought I had finished my little investigation.
Apparently Mateo hadn't.
While looking around Amazon, I discovered something I had completely missed.
Amazon has a Hot New Releases list for Teen & Young Adult Christian Friendship Fiction.
Both editions of Mateo appeared on Amazon's Hot New Releases list—English at #6 and Spanish at #13.
And sitting there at #6 was Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word.
I had to look twice.
Then I discovered the Spanish edition, Mateo y los Secretos de la Palabra Eterna, on the same list at #13.
Now, Amazon rankings change constantly. A Hot New Release ranking today can be different tomorrow, and I certainly don't mistake a retailer listing or a ranking for thousands of books being sold.
But that wasn't really the point.
The point was much simpler.
Mateo was there.
After Many Days
So my little vanity check proved something to me.
My books can be found.
Not just in a few of my own social media posts. Not just on my website. Not just in the places where I personally put them.
They are showing up in searches, on bookselling sites, and in countries around the world.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the question every new author eventually asks:
Would anyone read it?
Someone did.
And now I've discovered something else.
Once you release a story into the world, you don't always know where it will go.
Maybe that's one reason the words from Ecclesiastes that I used last week seem even more meaningful to me now:
Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.
I cast four stories onto the water.
Every now and then, apparently, Google lets me peek over the edge and see where a few of them have floated.
And as for Mateo?
I'm beginning to wonder where he'll turn up next. 😊
Who Is Verbum Aeternum?
When I began writing Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word, I knew I had a problem to solve.
I wanted Mateo to experience the great stories of the Bible.
Not simply read about them.
Not dream about them.
Experience them.
He needed to stand in the Garden of Eden.
He needed to hear the rain fall on Noah's Ark.
He needed to walk among the people building the Tower of Babel.
Somehow, a twelve-year-old boy living in the mountains of Nicaragua had to cross thousands of years of history.
I needed a doorway.
That doorway became Verbum Aeternum.
The Eternal Word
Verbum Aeternum is Latin.
It means The Eternal Word.
In Mateo's world, it is an enormous, ancient Bible resting inside an abandoned church in the mountains near his home.
Father Tomás watches over it.
Doña Rosa knows about it.
And somehow, both of them seem to understand far more about the book than Mateo does.
But Verbum Aeternum is not simply an old Bible.
Mateo discovers that when he asks a question.
Not just any question.
A question Verbum seems to have been waiting for Mateo to ask.
And when he finally asks it, everything changes.
The church disappears.
The mountains of Nicaragua disappear.
And when the world becomes clear again, Mateo is somewhere—and sometime—else.
The words of Scripture are no longer words on a page.
They are happening around him.
Where Did Verbum Come From?
Once I created Verbum Aeternum, another question appeared.
How could such a book exist?
I didn't want it simply to appear in an old church without a history of its own.
If Verbum had been waiting there for Mateo, then someone had to place it there.
Someone had to protect it.
And long before Mateo was born, someone had to create it.
That question eventually became a story of its own.
I began imagining another time, another place, and people who understood that the book they were creating was unlike any other.
A book meant to survive.
A book meant to be guarded.
A book meant to wait.
Exactly what happened during those years—and how Verbum eventually found its way to a forgotten church in the mountains of Nicaragua—is part of the mystery that surrounds it.
Some secrets are better revealed slowly.
A Book That Chooses?
At first, Mateo might believe his journeys simply happen to him.
But gradually, it becomes difficult to believe there is anything accidental about them.
Mateo cannot simply open the book and decide where he wants to go.
In the beginning, it starts with a question.
And from the beginning, there is the unsettling sense that Verbum already knew the question was coming.
Perhaps it had been waiting for it.
Perhaps it had been waiting for Mateo.
Father Tomás doesn't seem surprised by what happens to him.
Neither does Doña Rosa.
Both guide Mateo.
Both help him understand what he has witnessed.
And both seem to know there are questions Mateo isn't ready to have answered.
Yet.
More Than a Doorway
It would have been easy to make Verbum nothing more than the device that sends Mateo into Bible history.
Ask a question.
Travel through time.
Have an adventure.
Come home.
But somewhere along the way, Verbum became more than that.
The questions matter.
But perhaps the questions aren't really in control.
Verbum doesn't simply take Mateo somewhere.
It takes him where he needs to go.
And as Mateo's journeys continue, something else begins to emerge.
These aren't merely isolated Bible stories.
They are the lives of people.
One life leads to another.
One generation leads to the next.
And Mateo is being allowed to follow them.
He doesn't choose the destination.
He doesn't decide whose story comes next.
Verbum does.
Why?
That is one of the questions at the heart of the series.
So, Who Is Verbum Aeternum?
Perhaps that's the wrong question.
What is Verbum Aeternum?
An ancient Bible?
A doorway through time?
A witness to history?
Something created for a purpose that began long before Mateo was born?
Or something that has been waiting a very long time for one particular twelve-year-old boy?
Mateo doesn't know.
Father Tomás isn't telling.
Doña Rosa certainly isn't telling.
And Verbum?
For now, Verbum isn't telling either.
Someone Read It
The question every new author asks eventually received an answer. Someone read the stories—and took the time to share what they found in them.
Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. — Ecclesiastes 11:1 KJV
Last week, I ended with a question every new author eventually has to face.
I wrote the book, but would anyone read it?
There was only one way to find out.
I had to let it go.
That may sound simple.
It wasn't.
Writing a book is a very private experience. For months, the characters belong to you. Their conversations happen inside your head. You decide where they go, what they say, and what happens next.
Then one day, the book is finished.
And suddenly those characters don't belong only to you anymore.
You put the book into someone else's hands.
And wait.
The First Reader
There is something different about having a friend or family member read your book.
You hope they'll like it.
You may even believe them when they tell you they do.
But somewhere in the back of your mind is a little voice saying:
Of course they said that. They know me.
What I really wanted to know was what would happen when someone who didn't know me opened the book.
Someone who had no reason to be kind.
No reason to finish it.
No reason to say anything at all.
Would the story work for them?
Would they care about the characters?
Would they keep turning the pages?
That was the test I couldn't give myself.
The Story Leaves Home
Eventually, it happened.
Someone read the book.
Then someone else did.
A comment appeared.
A review arrived.
Someone I had never met had spent hours with characters who, not so long before, had existed only in my imagination.
That was a strange feeling.
And a wonderful one.
Because they weren't responding to me.
They were responding to the story.
They noticed things.
They cared about characters.
Sometimes they saw something in the story that I hadn't even realized I had put there.
That may have been when I began to understand what happens after a writer finishes a book.
The story leaves home.
Not Everyone Will Love It
Of course, becoming an author also means learning something else.
Not everyone is going to love your book.
Some people won't be interested in it at all.
Some will begin and never finish.
Some may finish and decide it simply wasn't for them.
And that's okay.
A book doesn't have to be for everyone.
It only has to find the readers for whom it is.
That took me a while to understand.
One Reader at a Time
I used to think of readers as numbers.
How many books sold?
How many people visited the website?
How many reviews?
Those numbers still matter. Every author wants people to discover his books.
But I've learned that behind every number is a person.
One person picked up the book.
One person turned the first page.
One person decided to keep reading.
And sometimes, one of those people takes the time to tell you what the story meant to them.
That's when the numbers disappear.
There is simply an author on one side...
and a reader on the other.
Connected by a story.
The Question Changed
So the question I asked last week eventually received an answer.
Would anyone read it?
Yes.
Someone would.
And then another someone.
And another.
I couldn't know where the books would eventually travel, who would discover them, or what would come from any of it.
I still don't.
But perhaps that is part of being an author.
You write the best story you can.
You put it into the world.
And then you wait to see whose hands it finds.
Last week I asked:
Would anyone read it?
This week I had my answer.
Someone did.
And that was enough to make me wonder:
Who might be next?
Who Is Father Tomás?
When I began writing Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word, I knew Mateo would witness extraordinary things.
He would stand in the Garden of Eden.
He would see Noah building the ark.
He would watch the Tower of Babel rise toward the sky.
But before Mateo could experience any of those things, something else had to happen.
He had to find Verbum Aeternum.
Or perhaps—
Verbum Aeternum had to find him.
And standing between the two was Father Tomás.
The Priest in the Mountains
Father Tomás cares for an old, abandoned church in the mountains near Mateo's home in Miraflor, Nicaragua.
Father Tomás watches over the abandoned mountain church—and the ancient Bible hidden within it.
There is no congregation waiting for Sunday services.
No families filling the pews.
Father Tomás simply maintains the old building—and watches over what has been left inside it.
Among those things is Verbum Aeternum.
The enormous ancient Bible has been there for longer than Mateo can imagine.
Father Tomás knows it is there.
He knows what it is called.
He cares for it.
And somehow, he becomes the catalyst that brings a curious twelve-year-old boy and an ancient Bible together.
At first, that might seem like coincidence.
As the story continues, it becomes harder to believe that it was.
Why Mateo?
That question lies beneath much of Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word.
Why Mateo?
Why would this particular boy be allowed to step through the pages of Scripture and witness events that happened thousands of years before he was born?
Mateo doesn't know.
The reader doesn't know.
And Father Tomás isn't saying.
That is where Father Tomás and Doña Rosa begin to share something.
Both seem to know more than they reveal.
Neither appears particularly surprised that something extraordinary is happening to Mateo.
And both seem, in ways Mateo does not yet understand, connected to whatever brought him to Verbum Aeternum in the first place.
Were they involved in Mateo's choosing?
That's a question I haven't answered.
Yet.
The One Mateo Comes Back To
After each journey, Mateo returns carrying more than memories.
After every extraordinary journey, Mateo returns to Father Tomás with questions only the two of them can understand.
He carries questions.
He has seen the Bible in a way no one around him has.
He has watched familiar stories become real people, real places, and real choices.
And Father Tomás is the person he can talk to about them.
He listens.
He helps Mateo understand the Scripture behind what he has witnessed.
But there is an interesting difference between answering Mateo's questions about Genesis and answering his questions about Verbum Aeternum.
Father Tomás is much better at the first.
When the questions move toward the ancient Bible itself—and why it chose Mateo—the answers become less certain.
Or perhaps simply less forthcoming.
How Much Does He Know?
That may be the more interesting question.
Father Tomás is not surprised by Verbum Aeternum.
He knows the book.
He knows its name.
He knows its history—or at least some of it.
And he knows Doña Rosa.
There are connections here that Mateo has not yet discovered.
Connections that I have deliberately allowed to remain just beyond his reach.
For now, Father Tomás is his priest, his teacher, and his friend.
He is the man Mateo trusts enough to tell the impossible:
“I was there.”
And Father Tomás believes him.
Perhaps because he has faith in Mateo.
Perhaps because he has faith in God.
Or perhaps because, long before Mateo understood what was happening...
Father Tomás already knew something was coming.
I Wrote the Book, but Would Anyone Read It?
Steve R. Hartwig looks over his books and considers the question every author eventually faces: Once the book is written, will anyone read it?
Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established. — Proverbs 16:3 (KJV)
I had written the books. Now came the harder question.
Last week, I wrote about the moment I realized something had changed.
I had become an author.
There were books with my name on the cover. Stories that had once existed only in my imagination could now be held in someone's hands.
That should have been the end of the story.
It wasn't.
Because after you write a book, another question eventually arrives.
Will anyone read it?
Writing had been something I could do largely by myself.
Finding readers was different.
I knew very little about marketing books. I didn't have a publishing company introducing me to bookstores or reviewers. I didn't have a large audience waiting for my next release.
I was simply an author living in León, Nicaragua, with some books I believed in.
So I began learning.
One Reader at a Time
At first, finding readers wasn't about advertising campaigns or sales numbers.
It was much more personal than that.
I gave books to people.
I put copies into the hands of friends.
Some found their way to young people I knew through the skatepark.
Others traveled farther than I expected.
And then something wonderful began happening.
People actually read them.
Not thousands.
Not hundreds.
Sometimes just one.
But I began discovering that one reader matters.
A book sitting on my computer was my story.
A book being read by someone else had become something more.
Then Came the First Responses
Someone would tell me what they liked.
Someone would mention a character.
Someone would notice something in the story that I hadn't expected them to notice.
And occasionally, someone would write a review.
Those moments changed the way I thought about writing.
A review wasn't simply a collection of stars beside a book title.
It meant somebody had spent hours inside a world I had created.
They had met my characters.
They had followed them through their struggles.
And when they reached the last page, the story had mattered enough that they wanted to say something about it.
That is a remarkable gift to an author.
And Then Came Mateo
By the time Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word was ready to leave my computer, I understood something I hadn't understood when I finished my first book.
Publishing the book wasn't the finish line.
It was another beginning.
Now I had to help Mateo find his readers.
And so another education began.
Websites. Blogs. Social media. Reviewers. Author pages. Book sites. Promotions.
Some things worked.
Some didn't.
Some produced surprises.
And quite a few taught me what not to do again. 😊
But slowly, Mateo began traveling beyond Nicaragua.
People I had never met began seeing his name.
A few began reading his story.
And each time that happened, the circle grew just a little wider.
Maybe That's How Books Find Their Way
I'm still learning how all of this works.
I suspect I will be for quite some time.
But I've begun to think that perhaps finding readers isn't always about reaching the largest number of people.
Maybe it's about reaching the right person.
One reader tells another.
One review introduces a book to someone new.
One social-media post reaches somebody who would never have known the book existed.
One copy gets passed from one pair of hands to another.
And somewhere along the way, a story that began quietly in one person's imagination develops a life of its own.
I had become an author.
Now I was learning what came next.
I was learning how to find my readers.
Who Is Doña Rosa?
When I began creating Mateo, I knew he couldn't exist by himself.
He needed a family.
He needed a home.
And somewhere in that home, I knew there needed to be a grandmother.
Her name became Doña Rosa.
At first, that was all she was meant to be.
Mateo's grandmother.
But characters don't always remain what you intended them to be.
Doña Rosa certainly didn't.
As Mateo and the Secrets of the Eternal Word began to take shape, I realized there was something different about her.
She knew things.
Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say—
she seemed to know things.
She Wasn't Surprised
Imagine being twelve years old and trying to explain that an ancient Bible hidden inside an abandoned mountain church had somehow carried you thousands of years into the past.
That you had seen the Garden of Eden.
That you had watched Noah build the ark.
That you had stood among the people of Babel.
Most grandmothers might have a few questions.
Doña Rosa does too.
But there is something unusual about hers.
She isn't shocked.
She doesn't dismiss Mateo's stories as dreams or a child's imagination.
Instead, she listens.
Carefully.
Sometimes she asks a question that helps Mateo understand something he hadn't understood himself.
And sometimes—
she says almost nothing at all.
That silence began to intrigue me.
Because eventually I found myself asking the same question I hope readers ask:
What does Doña Rosa know?
Was Mateo Really Chosen by Accident?
Mateo discovers the Verbum Aeternum in an abandoned church in the mountains of Miraflor.
At first, it appears that he simply stumbled upon something extraordinary.
But did he?
As the story develops, there are hints that Mateo's connection to the ancient Bible may not be an accident.
And somehow, Doña Rosa seems connected to that mystery.
She never sits Mateo down and explains everything.
She never says, I know why this is happening to you.
That would be much too easy.
Instead, she guides him.
She helps him think about what he has witnessed.
She seems to understand that Mateo isn't being sent into the past merely to see biblical history.
He is being sent there to learn from it.
And every once in a while, Doña Rosa says or does something that raises another question.
Does she know why Mateo was chosen?
Perhaps.
But if she does, she isn't telling him.
Not yet.
Finding Doña Rosa
Just as I had to discover what Mateo looked like, I had to discover Doña Rosa.
I knew she should look Nicaraguan.
But I wanted something else in her face.
Warmth, certainly.
Strength.
Wisdom.
But also something difficult to define.
The expression of someone who might know a secret—
and has decided that you aren't quite ready to hear it.
I went through different versions until eventually I looked at one and thought:
There she is.
Doña Rosa on the porch in Miraflor—watching, listening, and perhaps knowing more than she says.
Doña Rosa.
Doña Rosa watches over Mateo with the quiet wisdom of someone who may understand far more than she reveals.
The Person Mateo Comes Home To
Mateo's journeys take him into some of the greatest stories ever told.
Creation.
The Flood.
Babel.
And now, as his journey continues, Abraham.
But eventually Mateo always comes home.
Back to Nicaragua.
Back to Miraflor.
Back to Doña Rosa.
And that may be more important than it first appears.
Because Doña Rosa doesn't simply comfort Mateo after his journeys.
She helps him understand why they matter.
She listens to what he saw.
She notices what he missed.
She occasionally nudges him toward questions he hasn't thought to ask.
And all the while, one larger question remains unanswered.
Mateo may be traveling through the Verbum Aeternum.
But Doña Rosa seems to know something about the journey that Mateo doesn't.
Perhaps even something about why it is Mateo making the journey in the first place.
For now, she isn't telling.
And I think we'll let her keep her secret a little longer.
I Had Become an Author
Books and moments from Steve R. Hartwig’s unexpected journey from writing his first story to becoming an author in Nicaragua.
And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it. — Psalm 90:17 (KJV)
For a long time, I thought of writing as something that had simply happened to me.
It certainly wasn't planned.
Brandy didn't give me an idea for a book.
She caused me to break my leg.
And somehow, from the weeks that followed, The Little Chef was born.
At first, that was enough.
I had written a book.
Then came The Challenge of the Heart.
And eventually, I began looking at the young people, friendships, and experiences around me differently.
I realized there was another story waiting to be told.
That story became Ride the Fire.
Three books.
I had never planned any of them.
But somewhere along the way, something had changed.
I had become an author.
That realization didn't arrive with a ceremony or a particular moment.
There was no day when I sat down and decided, From now on, I am an author.
It happened gradually.
Writing had begun to change the way I looked at the world around me.
A conversation could become the beginning of a scene.
A friendship could reveal something about a character.
A place I had passed many times could suddenly become a setting.
An ordinary moment could make me wonder:
Is there a story here?
That may have been the biggest change of all.
The world around me hadn't changed.
The way I looked at it had.
I began paying more attention.
I listened more closely to conversations.
I noticed the little things people did.
I thought about why someone reacted one way instead of another.
I began to understand that stories aren't always waiting somewhere far away.
Sometimes they are sitting beside us.
Sometimes they are found in people we already know.
Sometimes they are hidden in experiences we have already lived.
And sometimes we don't recognize them until we learn how to look.
Perhaps that is part of what becoming an author meant for me.
It wasn't simply learning how to put words on a page.
It was learning to see.
Looking back, the words of Psalm 90:17 seem especially meaningful:
“Establish thou the work of our hands.”
I hadn't asked God to make me an author.
I hadn't mapped out a writing career.
I certainly hadn't imagined that a broken leg would have anything to do with it.
I simply took one step.
Then another.
One book became two.
Two became three.
And somewhere along that unexpected road, what had begun as something to do while I recovered had become something much more.
There were still stories I hadn't discovered.
Characters I hadn't met.
Places I hadn't imagined.
I didn't know what the next story would be.
But for the first time, I knew something else.
I would be looking for it.
Who Is Mateo
When I finished writing Ride the Fire, I knew what I wanted my next novel to be about.
I wanted to bring the great stories of the Bible to life for young readers.
Not simply by retelling them.
Those stories have been told beautifully for generations.
I wanted readers to experience them.
To stand beside Noah as the ark took shape.
To walk the streets of Babel.
To witness the moments that changed history through the eyes of someone who was there.
But that raised a much bigger question.
Who would tell the story?
Not Noah.
Not Abraham.
Not one of the familiar names every reader already knows.
I needed someone who would discover these events just as today's readers would discover them.
Someone who could ask questions.
Someone who could wonder.
Someone who could laugh, make mistakes, and grow.
Someone young enough that middle-grade readers could see themselves in him.
For a long time, I didn't know who that person was.
I knew the adventures.
I knew the places.
I even knew that the story would unfold in Nicaragua.
But I still hadn't met the boy who would lead readers through it all.
Then, little by little, he began to take shape.
Not all at once.
First came his curiosity.
Then his love of adventure.
Then I began to think about where he lived, the people around him, and the family who would shape his life.
But there was something else.
What would he look like?
If this story was going to be set in Nicaragua, I didn't want Mateo to simply be a generic boy.
I wanted him to look like a boy you might actually meet in a village like Miraflor.
So I began creating images.
One after another.
Some were close.
Some weren't.
Each one helped me understand him a little better.
Then one day, I looked at a new image and stopped.
"That's him."
Mateo looks toward the mountains from his family farm.
For the first time, I wasn't looking at a character concept anymore.
I was looking at Mateo.
From that moment on, writing became different.
I could see him walking the mountain trails.
I could picture him standing beside the ancient Bible in the old church.
I could imagine the expressions on his face as he witnessed the great moments of Scripture.
He had finally become real.
Once I knew who Mateo was, the rest of the story began to breathe.
He wasn't there to replace the heroes of Scripture.
He was there to stand quietly beside them.
To see what they saw.
To learn what they learned.
And to invite young readers to discover those same timeless truths with him.
In next week's Behind the Story, I'll introduce you to another very important member of Mateo's world—a wise grandmother named Doña Rosa, whose love, faith, and quiet wisdom help guide a young boy through experiences unlike anything he could have imagined.