Author Lynne Wells Walding of Arp leans over her kitchen bar with her novels at her side on Friday Feb. 8, 2019. Walding has written four Christian fiction novels. (Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

“God’s got your back.”

That is the overriding message that novelist Lynne Wells Walding says her books convey.

Walding, who lives near Arp with her husband and two dogs, describes her four published books as God-centered Christian fiction that is fast-moving, gutsy, romantic and full of mystery, conflict and tragedy.

Her latest novel, “The Trinity Quilts,” which was published last year by Christian Faith Publishing Co., tells the story of a young woman from the wrong side of the tracks who is raped.

Walding self published her first three novels. “Ian’s Song” came out in 2014 about a happily married young woman whose husband is killed. She blames God and becomes bitter against God.

Walding’s first published book, “Pastor McAllester’s Bride,” which was released in 2012, is an account of a pastor called to serve a small dying church in Arkansas. The sequel, “Winnory Cabin,” published in 2013, follows the couple in her first book as they retire from the ministry and move to a small town in Oklahoma, where the townsfolk turn against them.

Walding said her books thus far try to spread the word of God and to alert people to the existence and influence of Satan.

Speaking about becoming a novelist, Walding said, “I felt called to write Christian fiction. The closest a lot of Christian fiction comes to being Christian is an occasional prayer. My books are totally bound up in the Word. They are absolutely Christian novels.”

Although Walding has published four novels, she has written six.

Before publishing, Walding said she wrote two books without any ideas coming from God, only to delete one and put the other one on a flash drive that she stuck in a drawer.

Walding said, “I just didn’t feel good about them. If I’m not getting it from God, I don’t want to do it.”

Walding said she now waits for God to inspire her what to write.

Walding started writing novels while she and her husband, a pastor, served in the gospel ministry in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma.

Walding played the piano and wrote worship and praise music for the worship services that her husband led before they retired in East Texas.

Although writing praise music and her duties as a minister’s wife kept her busy, eventually Walding said she turned to writing Christian fiction. “The Lord put the idea in my head,” she said.

On her website, Walding said, “If I can write a story entertaining enough to keep my readers turning the pages, yet scriptural enough to make them aware the enemy seeks to devour them — and Jesus is their refuge — then I’ve accomplished what I think God has called me to do.”

Walding wakes up with ideas for content of her novels or sometimes ideas come to her while she is doing household chores. She rushes to put them on her computer.

Walding said, “If I don’t write it down, I’m liable to lose it. I get all my ideas that way. The ideas just keep pouring in.” She also draws for her novels on her experiences as a minister’s wife.

“I just enjoy writing. I feel inspired. I don’t remember ever having writer’s block. … I have writer’s flood — it comes faster than I can type it. I don’t try to write unless I get the inspiration,” Walding said.

Cooking, housework and other activities occupy her at times, but when she has a novel under way, Walding finds time to write during the day and writes late into the night, sometimes until the sun comes up. She re-reads and rewrites what she has written.

Walding has had no formal training in writing, but while growing up, English was one of her favorite subjects. She loved writing stories and poetry for herself.

Walding, 82, recalled that in her younger years, before she became a pastor’s wife and before she began writing Christian fiction, she wrote articles about repairing clocks for major magazines including Better Homes & Gardens and Country Living.

She got her start upon becoming angry that the writer of an article she read in Better Homes & Gardens about repairing clocks did not know what he was talking about. Walding had learned from her father, a clock smith, about how to repair clocks and submitted her first magazine article on the subject to Better Homes & Gardens.

For several years, Walding wrote for a syndicate articles of interest to older readers.

Much later, when she began writing Christian novels, a small press introduced her to a now retired freelance editor, Susan Lohrer, who lives in Canada.

“Susan taught me so much,” Walding said.

Walding estimates her novels contain 70,000 to 80,000 words.

Walding’s novels are available on Amazon, at Barnes & Noble and on her website, LynneWellsWalding.com.

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