Welcome Jacob Hess to the TufFish Show, a place to help writers and aspiring authors get out of their own way to leave a legacy by telling the stories they want to share through writing their own books and confidently sharing them with others. The writing process can be tough and the business side can feel scary, but TufFish makes both feel smoother and achievable.
Jacob shared so many nuggets centered around telling the story you want to tell. He shared how he created a framework for creativity that helped his self-editing process before he worked with his editor as well as create the world within the story and structure the book.
There is one True Story that all other stories echo, one Story that captures everything that it means to be human and showcases the greatest beauty ever seen: the gospel of God's grace in Christ Jesus. It is Jacob’s passion to retell this Story in everything he does.
Jacob grew up in Oregon and became a Christian at a young age. God has continued to display His faithfulness to Jacob throughout his life; a journey deeper and deeper into grace. Jacob received a Master of Divinity from Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon and moved to Seattle Washington where he works as a minister in the local church.
Jacob’s years in school grew his passion for writing and reading, but he has always had a love for stories, whether they're told with pen and page or the rhythms and rhymes of song. He agrees with J. R. R. Tolkien when he writes, “the Pot of Soup, the Cauldron of Story, has always been boiling, and to it have continually been added new bits, dainty and undainty," (On-Fairy-Stories, p. 45). As humans we simply cannot seem to escape a need to tell stories, a desire to reach beyond ourselves and connect to the deeper truths of who we are and what it means to live a life of meaning.
Our stories inspire us, convict us, and encourage us as we struggle through a world not as it should be. This is what Jacob seeks for his stories to do. He wants to tell new stories built on the tried and true pillars of tales centuries old, stories that connect to our deepest longings and speak to our greatest fears. But most of all he wants to echo the greatest story ever told, the One True Story to which all other stories point: the gospel of God's grace in Christ Jesus.
Book: The Bright Abyss
