It's in the mid-70s where I live, and I saw a singular tree starting to change a couple days ago...so now we're going to break out ALL the fall vibes, everybody! I can't wait to share some more stories and about my plans and life. But in the meantime, I'm going to create the ultimate list of Fall Books.

We can't deny that there are some books which go better with another season. So here's a list of books full of colors, cozy sweaters, warm coffee, pumpkin, and the color orange. 

What's more autumn than an enchanted circus/carnival vibe? "Almost everything, Faith," you might say. I don't know--I've always associated autumn with carnivals, because of the county fair and the fact tha those colors are best with crisp fall air and apple cider. Hence why I recommend this book. If you're a fan of magic and circuses, check this book out.

This might be a children's book, but is there anything with more of an autumn kick to it? The county fair scene gets me. I absolutely love this story--it's such an important part of my childhood. Living in New England, where the book is set, makes me able to visualize the fall scenes so beautifully--the trees are all so beautiful. If this was a childhood favorite, fall is the perfect time for a reread.

An Enchantment of Ravens//Margaret Rogerson

This is a book about the Fey, featuring artists, magic emotions, and a Fey prince who can turn into a raven--what's not to love? Oh, and the male lead is the Prince of Autumn, so the whole book has fall, colors, and falling leaves. It's the best of vibes, and even better if you're holding a PSL in one hand.

the Raven Boys//Maggie Stiefvater

This book is set during the fall semester of high school, so it's obviously absolutely perfect for this list--hauntings, exploration in the beautiful fall mountains of Virginia, rich boys, academia, the works. It's one of the more Halloween-esque books on this list, but Maggie knows how to tell a beautiful story and weave the vibes in.

The Scorpio Races//Maggie Stiefvater

Another one of Maggie's--what can I say? She's just too good. This is the November book of my dreams. It makes me want to eat a November cake and go watch the horse races. Beach-in-the-fall vibes are also something not enough people write about. You can go to the beach in the summer, yes, but it hits different when you have to wear a jacket and avoid the water. This book is the feeling of the beach in a sweater, spread out into one story.

Here's the list, folks! I hope you enjoyed. If you know of any other books worth a read for fall specifically, let me know in the comments!

 "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again--rejoice!"

It's a children's song. I wonder if you hear it now, as you read these words I have typed. It's a verse. Philippians 4:4. It's a reminder of how bright our future is in the Lord. It's a reminder of who we are. That we are to rejoice. That joy comes in the morning. That we need fear nothing if we rejoice in the Lord.

Funny, really. Funny how we hear it and we think of the blithe little children's song. It's not about joy to us--it's about happiness. And it's impossible to be happy most of the time in this life. Happiness is fickle, fleeting, and overall an emotion. Joy is a state of being. It's a truth.

I remember the beginning of my high school years, when I got ahold of Andrew Peterson's album The Burning Edge of Dawn. Everything was awful in my life at that point, and the track entitled "Rejoice" was not the one I thought I needed. I love Andrew Peterson, but he and I have a bit of a fraught relationship. It's one thing to have emotions about God and struggle with them; it's another to have your emotions taken, written down by another individual who's never met you, and put to song. Peterson has an uncanny ability to weave words out of the deepest thoughts of my soul, so sometimes when it's darkest, I can't bear listening to the songs he writes.

Rejoice was just another of those--it hurt so badly that I could hardly bear it. I could not stand to feel the weight of words that gave voice to my feelings. "Rejoice" was a song that made me think maybe it got better. But later. 

Joy, I thought then, as a young teen wrestling with body image, a broken life, and grappling with the reality of losing a life I'd not only never get back but also never have in the first place--joy was not for someone like me. Maybe someday I'd find it. Someday way far away.

It persisted. I felt happiness on and off. I felt the deepest pain and the worst loneliness. God is there, they say, through it all. Funny how that's true when you can't feel it or see his presence. Funny how you can believe something with all your heart and yet so fully doubt its truth.

There's a truth you can't let go of and there's a truth you have to hold onto. Joy is one of these, a thin little gossamer thread that you can't let go of if you wish to keep your life. It's the rope holding Samwise and Frodo against the cliff. It's the thread holding your heart together. But it only comes from truth, the truth that God alone can give.

I went to a concert in spring of 2022 (just this year). It was Andrew Peterson, live and in person. I'd just turned 20. I was ready for some sort of epiphany. I needed a change. I was happy, yes, but joy?

What is joy?

Peterson announced his arrival with a few classics, and then he set into playing the opening bars of "Rejoice."

For some reason, God has a way of using Andrew Peterson specifically to speak to me. There is always one song in his setlists that has a message for me, one that I didn't know I needed in that moment, but that moves me straight to tears. Once at his Christmas concert, which we livestreamed, he played another favorite song, "Carry the Fire," which moved me to tears. It was exactly what I needed.

But "Rejoice." One note and I was right back in that darkness, the water all around me, my heart shattered on the floor. Tears were already on my face right there in that church. I started singing along, but by the end of the first verse, I was in tears to a point where I could hardly breathe, let alone sing. The song itself was beautiful, yes, but that was not what struck me. What struck me was the truth.

Joy comes in truth. In knowing the truth.

I knew the truth.

God was there. God had never let me go in all those moments.

That's the story of the girl sobbing during a song about joy, a girl whose life came full circle. It's all about those moments, I've come to realize. One moment where God makes it all so clear--that's what lets me keep going. He does it so rarely, but I do not forget the moments when he does it. He reminds me of his truth and his presence and he holds on tight. It is my memorial. My reminder that the Lord does not leave us alone or leave us with just ourselves.

He is right there in the dark. And I did not drown then. I will not drown now. For I am not swimming by myself.

Somewhere in the dark is a lifeline, a thread floating on the water, inviting me to reach out and take it. The thread is a single word, glimmering like a light in the darkness.

Rejoice, beloved.

 Hello, wonderful friends! I've been pretty quiet on this side of things, mostly because I finally, finally set my butt down and started writing again. 

I'll be honest: I hit intense burnout and writer's block in the second half of 2020, and I haven't finished a manuscript since. I've "introduced" so many WIPs on this blog...and then made little to no progress, struggling to figure out how to write.

There is, of course, a reason for that. I wanted every book I wrote to have the intense success of the latter half of the Pentegreens series. (If you're new to the blog: I went into a fever dream haze and wrote two massive books, 135k and 119k, in 3 months. The second 119k was entirely written for NaNoWriMo.) I wanted to write everything that fast. Not only that--I wanted my drafts to be that polished, to be as good as those had been. I then followed that book up with another fast and polished draft, Holding Up the Sky, which was 70k in about two months. And then...I was stuck.

College contributed, of course. There are lots of contributing factors. But now, as of July 26, 2022, I can report in and say that I DID IT!

I finished an entire book!

It's hardly my cleanest. It's not my best by a long shot. It will need so many edits, and I'm already working on figuring those out, because breaks are something I struggle with. But here we are. It's a draft, a complete one, and that is WORTH celebrating.

And We Fell in Fire

Medea//barmaid//wants More//secret yearnings//going to fight you//cake please and thanks//love is probably not entirely real//time is a social construct//castle by halsey

Once there was a little girl. She had big red hair full of dreams, and her eyes saw only the stars when they looked up at the fog overhead. Memory of her lives deep inside my chest, where I can draw upon her existence when I need to. She’s everything I should have been, everything I could have been. I think back to the bright-eyed future she imagined for herself, and I want to cry as I think about it. Lying here, in bed, all I can think of is her. Those big bright eyes, fixed on herself in the mirror, wondering who she could be. What the world would be like if the fog wasn’t scary. Wondering what it would be like to be whole and unbroken.

But that’s not who I get to be anymore. I’m not her. I wish I could be her, that I could look at the world and dream. But as the sirens sound in my ears for the entire night, keeping me awake until exhaustion pulls me into the dark of oblivion, I can think only of the child with the bright green eyes, the big smile, and the hopeful freckles.

As I got older, I started wiping away my freckles, one more freckle for every time I lost another piece of my innocence. It’s not hard to get a little white paint from the store and cover over them, but my porcelain skin is a lie, just like the smile I keep pasted onto my face at the tavern.

Icarus//wings//laugh and hold it all in//fire and excitement//three years overdue for a nap//being tall is too a personality trait//time for ANOTHER tattoo//icarus by starset

“I assume I’m going.” I don’t even know why I bother asking at this point. I know what the answer is going to be already. It’s always me, every time recon is needed. Wings are good for that kind of thing.

“You are.” Atalanta nods. “Just you. Cerberus will drive to the border of Sector 4 and wait for you at the mining town of Zenos.”

Not too far, then. I sigh. I don’t want to fly again, not with the way my wings ache from today’s mission, but I don’t really have a choice. Atalanta is the commander here. She trusts me, even though I’ve been shot down more than any other agent.

I will not fail this time. I will get out of there. I will do exactly what she wants.

I stand up and spread my wings. “I’ll meet you. I’ll have information in twenty-four hours?”

“Faster if you can. Get in, assess, get out. Don’t interact and do not engage.” She points to the door. “And do not forget to bring a handgun this time.”

An awkward laugh escapes me. I forget my handgun more often than I forget anything else at this point. “That was one time.”

“Three, actually.” She smirks, a strange expression at a time like this, but it’s comforting somehow. “Go. Be free.”

Jason//heroes don't all wear capes//dream boy//always lurking in your (day)dreams//all the power, all the goods//captain//war hero//afraid of nothing//blindfold by sleeping wolf

Theseus//overcome the fear or it will destroy you//you are mightier than you think//violin in the dead of night//a single heartbeat means another breath and then another//sharks by imagine dragons

Percy//the guilt//all of it is empty//rage is still here and existent//weariness//we're going to win this i mean it//secrets galore//bullet with butterfly wings by sam tinnesz and tommee profitt

It’s still only noontime, a good time of day for me to reflect on my afternoon. I don’t go into work until “happy hour,” our alcohol promo, begins, which is six, right after the soldiers get off duty for the most part. I weave through crowded streets. Bazaars full of goods make the streets so cluttered people have to funnel through in two single-file lines, stepping out only to buy the goods at the nearest booth. 

A flash of light blue fabric catches my eye. I step out of the line before I can stop myself and walk to the booth where a woman is selling dresses. The one hanging from the fabric overhang of her booth is light blue, sleeveless but with a full skirt. It’s cut to almost exactly my size, which is rare around here. I reach up and run my fingers over the skirt. “How much for this?” I ask.

The woman adjusts her thick glasses and squints at me. She’s a tailor, her apprentices sitting on the floor of her tent working on more dresses. “Fifty marks.”

I sigh. It’s more than I should be spending, but right now it’s probably better to lay low than to continue trying to bust into the capital. “Forty?”

The woman raises an eyebrow. “Robbery? Is that what you see this as, child? This dress took my apprentice a week to make and you cry forty!”

I roll my eyes. “That inseam is machine sewn. Once the pattern was cut, this dress would’ve only taken a day. I want it. Forty.”

“Forty-five or my children and I starve!”

I hold my ground. “Forty-one.”

“Forty-one!” She shakes her head. “Forty-two and we have a deal, stubborn little thing.”

“No one else will take that dress.” I dig into my wallet. “Forty two it is. And perhaps, if you wish for better prices, you should make dresses that are a bit more…versatile.”

The guard puts in another code at the end of this hallway, too. I peek at his hand and see the first two numbers: 11- before he covers it with his other hand. It’s a much longer code, too. That won’t help me much. I sigh and toss my head. My hair is sweaty and stringy, and it’s stuck to my forehead. I really do need a haircut. Maybe Atalanta or someone will be willing to cut it in the near future.

I’m going to escape. I will get away. Failing simply is not an option.

I flex my arms, and tired spreads down to my palms. I don’t know how much fight I have left in me, but I’m going to do everything in my power.

The guards escort me into the room. It’s a big office, the stereotypical villainous kind with the big desk and the bigger swivel chair. The man sitting in the swivel chair is writing something, but as I walk in, he leans back and adjusts the glasses on his nose. “I don’t know who you think you are, Master…Icarus,” he says. No introduction.

I grin widely. “Didn’t know my reputation preceded me quite that much.”

“You’re rather infamous, Icarus.” The man points across the desk. “Have a seat, please. We need to discuss your… rather delicate position.”

This is about it! There are MANY edits to come, and I'm sure this book will be occupying my mind for a long time to come. Hopefully now that I'm back on my groove, I can actually write a couple more books, maybe even this year ^_^ More updates to come, of course. Thanks for reading if you made it this far! Let me know what you're writing!

 There's a fundamental flaw in creation science.

We point to a natural wonder of immense, staggering beauty. "Look," we say. "Look at this creation. No natural process could have created this. It must be creation. Only creation could be so perfectly planned."

And that is where we stop.

We do not allow science and the natural world to point us back to what Dorothy Sayers calls the "mind of the Maker." Creation has a creator; creation exists to glorify her Creator. We have eyes that can see the world around us BECAUSE we serve a Creator who gave them to us.

And often we don't look to him. Because there are no words. How can anyone ever express in WORDS, these mere collections of sounds and letters, how great the mind of our God is?

It's so easy to look at our small lives and think of God as small. This is why it is so important to immerse ourselves in the natural beauty he has made. It will all reveal something of God's nature in the nature he made.

When I went to the Grand Canyon, I walked to the very edge. I looked down into pink and orange depths, rocks so big they defied understanding. My mind had to shrink the canyon in order to understand how immense it truly was. It looks infinite, immeasurable. And yet the only word I could conjure upon seeing it was, "Oh."

Oh.

Far too easily, we fall into this trap of thinking God is small like us. We live small lives in small worlds with small people, and we do not know what it means to look up. Then we go to something so much bigger, and it all translates into sense.

The God who made the Grand Canyon is infinite. He cups that in his hand too. It is tiny to him.

And yet it is not the crowning achievement of his creation. No canyon, no mountain, no planet even. Not even a star is his greatest creation. He made those first.

No, his crowning achievement is you and me, the human race, our broken flesh and mortal bones. We are  broken and small but he has not abandoned us. He has not left us to ourselves. He loves us.

THIS is the God we serve. 

Note: I'm sorry for being so very all over the place when it comes to my blogging :') I'm trying very hard to get back on a schedule, but it's difficult with how busy I've been. I'm working on all of that, though, and I'm hoping to get back on it with y'all soon. Peace! 

 that's our first thought so easily. Everything is awful. I've said that to friends and family so many times when prepping for a big change. It's so easy, when you look at the road ahead, to draw in a breath and then say: Everything is awful. I don't want to be here. I don't want to walk this path, for it is dark and there are few lights ahead. Nothing can ever go right again, and my heart cannot take much more.

And yet. We do not serve a God who has not felt it all with us.

He doesn't say "go suffer to find yourself worthy of me." 

He says, "This world is a dark place, and that is how it will be until I make all things new. But you will not be tempted in a way that I have not been."

He feels our sufferings.

He has carried our hurts.

The Lord is with us, and that should be a comforting thought. 

Sometimes when I'm in pain, physical or emotional, I lie in bed and close my eyes and try so hard to make it go away. There is always that little ornery feeling, though--that feeling of loneliness.

Perhaps no one else has ever felt this exact pain that I am in now.

It's strange, how that feels. That feeling of wondering: has anyone else hurt in that place? Has anyone else felt these things? Dealt with this situation?

And they have, but the fact that no one you know immediately, no one physically right beside you, can say, "Yes, I feel it too," breaks you.

But God has.

He was the word made flesh. He was the Suffering Servant. Jesus came to us not as a king upon a throne, not as a deity or vision like the Greeks would have envisioned, not as the great I Am upon the heavenly throne--but as a baby.

He cried.

He spit up.

He was lonely.

He scraped his knees.

He lost people close to him.

He was rejected. 

He was nailed to a cross and left there to die.

God has not told us that this life will be easy--but he is not a distant, tyrannical God. He is a God who hears. Who cares. Who listens.

He walks this path beside us, and it is he who holds us fast. 

He does not ask us to endure what he has not already. 

And we are never, EVER alone.

Remember the last time you read a 5 star book?

Maybe it was the last book you read. Maybe it's been a while and you're in a disappointing streak. (If not, we've all been there, so it's probably still memorable.) But recall that last book, the one that made you feel something and want to just immerse yourself in the story.

Think of the last time you were sad a story had to end.

There's hope in stories that we can't find in the real world. To paraphrase J.R.R. Tolkien from one of his essays, when you read a story, you're seeing the same dragons you're fighting in real life. But fairy tales give you the knowledge and the confidence to slay the dragon.

All of us have read stories like that--stories that slay the dragons and help us to fight another day. Maybe you've got a mere handful--maybe you have dozens. But you do have at least a couple stories that are special to you.

So now, consider for a moment: every one of those books was once a document on someone's computer or a manuscript under their pen, a story that they had to decide to keep writing.

Every one of those books was a story that they had to push through edits and go through doubt and wonder, at least a thousand times, if it was worth it. 

And yet, after all the steps, all the times it would be easier to stop, they still decided, executively, to push through. Their books got published. Their books got put into your hands.

And their books were able to help make your life better.

Your story will, someday, do the same thing for somebody else.

Think about that--your book, a 5 star novel on someone's shelf. That they're taking pictures of for Bookstagram. That they're listing on their top ten books of the year list.

Your book could be someone's favorite novel, the one they go to when they're scared or sad or alone, the one that they hold close to their hearts in darkness.

It could be the story that saves someone's life.

So keep writing, dear one. We need your words. We need to know what He gave you. Last week I talked about how God gives you words, and gave you the stories that you're writing. So now I encourage you--be bold to write it. And keep going.

We need your words.

 college drains you. they don't tell you that beforehand. 

it's a time of productivity, yes. but more than that, it is a time of struggle. you're bouncing between burnout and caffeine overcompensation. if you have a spark, you run. you run and run. and then, because you didn't ration it, because you just ran, you hit burnout even faster. 

we gotta finish the book. We gotta, we gotta, we gotta. I have to. But how can I when words will not come? How can I when the book I truly want to write has burned itself out and vanished? All the stories are gone, hidden somewhere I can't find them. I wander around through the darkness, trying so hard to find the one I can't quite see. My words are hidden.

If I never write again, am I truly an author? If my ideas are dead...who am I? Was writing something fun I did, that now is little more than a chore? Will my ideas ever flood in again like they did when I was younger?

Tired. Burnt out. These are words that matter. For some people, writing is a job. For me, it was a joy. But suddenly, I was tired, and keeping my own head up became the only thing I was capable of. Then getting those grades became far more important. And now...what? As the world grows wearier and I sigh with exhaustion?

I just want to write something that matters. As I delve deeper into great literature through my college, I realize that stories need to mean something. They need prose you can analyze, symbolism that burns, lines that bring tears to your eyes. No wonder a lot of modern stuff feels empty. No wonder I can read a book with a perfectly pleasing plot and it still feels hollow.

That's what I want to write. I want to write the next book that means something. I want my stories to be full of grit and meaning and grief and symbolism and a story that sticks with you long after you finish. It needs to mean something. It needs to not be hollow.

And that's a tall order, especially for a twenty-year-old college student.

So I'm going to keep writing. I'm going to pull myself along. I'm going to struggle, but I will write again. I will write many more words. And they will be beautiful.

And I hope someday, people can read them.

 i have been on this blog for five years.

crazy to consider, really. crazy to sit here and realize: i've been blogging for five years, here on this little corner of the internet. (we all call our blogs corners of the internet--how many corners does the internet have? is it a multi-dimensional shape?) 

so much has changed in that time. i'm not even close to the person i used to be. i know my younger self would never have imagined me being in college for history. in ninth grade, i didn't even know i liked history. now i'm a sophomore in college and i love nothing more. looking back across the years reveals so many things and it's crazy.

i'm still writing but my books have changed, too. my attempts to sound like other ya authors, to match their genius somehow by copying them--that ended so long ago i can barely remember it. i can take inspiration now without having to directly copy it. i no longer feel insecure reading a good book--now i want to write more, so that someday, i will attain my own level of quality in writing, and my books will be good in and of themselves. my stories are still melodramatic and contain too many love triangles, too many messy politics, too much inner monologue and not enough description. but i've learned so much and i've come so much further.

i think my books are less extensions of me, now, too. i remember writing an essay freshman year--a history of myself as a writer. it ended up remarkably raw. my professor read a line of it out loud anonymously, as he did with everyone else's papers, and i remember the embarrassment of having everyone else read it, even if they didn't know it was mine.

at the end of that semester, we wrote more essays about where we saw our writing in the future. mine included this line:

Maybe my books will be worth something, someday.

Even now, they mean something, for they are immensely valuable to me. I don’t know what I would do without my writing and I plan never to stop. ...And hard though it may be… I will fight for my own words. I will dust off the shelves and remind myself that just because I am busy does not mean I cannot write. I will fight for the chance to share my heart with the world, to try to shine the light into the darkest corners.

that's a promise i made. so much has changed over five years, but i want to say thank you to my readers. you've made this place possible.

i know i blog intermittently these days (college, man!) but i'm planning to work on that as time goes on. i have so many things to say, so many new WIPS to share. 

five years behind already. here's to many more.

 It has been a LONG time since my last life update. Like...years, I think. *checks blog* Not since...my 2020 wrapup post. oh my I don't know what to do with that? With how old I am? I am elderly.

I blog mostly when I have something to procrastinate on. Rn that involves my massive research paper. I will finish it. I have to have it done by midnight. But right now, I'm sitting at the kitchen table like I used to as a child, an IKEA bowl of cereal and a mug of coffee at my side, surrounded my textbooks. I am here. I have realized: There is more to life than deadlines. I will get this paper turned in on time though because I actually do care

So here it is. A photo dump (of memes) and also some lyrics and some life things.

i once believed love would be black and white//but it's golden (like daylight)//taylor swift

catch me floating in circles in my fishbowl//TOP

i spent a long time//substituting honest with sarcastic//and i cursed my tongue for being mean//Halsey

she goes at the break of dawn, the rays fall on her dress//she used to be a silhouette deep in the heart of stone//The Gray Havens

Life Updates:

-I am a declared history major! And soon to declare my minor in literature ^_^ my school is teaching me SO much about history and how to write well, and I really think it's having a very good effect on my fiction writing as well.

-Planning for the future is SCARY and I'm still working on it. But I truly believe that God has never failed and won't start now.

-Sometimes, I find, the best thing to do when you feel overwhelmed is to grab a pad of sticky notes and start writing everything you can think of that God has done for you. The list will ALWAYS be longer than you expected.

-Working on some long-term health issues--it feels very hopeful to know that there might be solutions. I've also discovered that it's better to listen to your food allergies than to force yourself to suffer through them for the theory of liking the food.

-There will always be more things to do than there is time in the day.

-Love is a wonderful thing.

-Cherish your friends, y'all. 

I have been cursed with knowledge.

There is not a dream any night, but there could be a dream upon any night. My dreams are like an assault, a frontal attack on my sanity and my heart. I am helpless to hold myself back against the knowledge of a threat. I will always fight for the helpless, the weak, the needy, no matter where I see them. It is why my father says I will be a weak king.

But seeing people in my dreams…

I thought it was a fluke at first. That when I saw one of the palace’s chambermaids bloodied and bruised, it was simply a nightmare from having brushed into her in the hallway. I never expected to see her looking just as she did in the dream when I saw her that afternoon.

Nor did I expect, the following night, for her to appear again and beg me for aid.

 Hello, guys! I needed some ideas for posts for this year (ideas are nonexistent, hahaha) so I thought I'd sit down and puzzle through something that's really been getting into my head lately: settings. We focus so much, in writing, on the story, the plot, the characters, the emotions--but how much time do we spend on setting? 

I've always felt like setting is crucial to a story. Especially as I'm watching more TV shows, I'm starting to see that. I'll probably do a post down the line about stories that use setting as a character and how important that is for fantasy worlds, but that's for another day. For right now, I'm going to start with one of my favorite topics: writing what you know.

Especially in settings, this is SO important. I struggle deeply with visualizing my stories thanks to my lack of a visual imagination. However, what I can do is go find a photo of somewhere I've been. Somewhere I can see in front of me. Somewhere I have memories of. Here are some reasons for that:

1. If you've been somewhere, you'll automatically immerse the reader in it when you write about it.

2. You cannot invent, out of your own mind, a truly amazing setting.

3. Using a unique real-world setting for a fantasy story will make your fantasy story more unique.

4. You're probably not an architect, so basing a building on a real place makes your houses instantly cooler.

 so. here we are. another year has begun. maybe there was a little fanfare, maybe none at all. but either way, the clock now says '22. so interesting that we invented such a detailed way of keeping track of time. We know we aren't supposed to be tied to this temporal reality, and so we overcompensate. time. time. time.

it's another year.

if you need the motivation, it can be helpful to look at it and think, okay, 365 days to accomplish this thing i want to get done. but at the same time, start now. start now and keep going. while you're motivated, accomplish what you want to. get to the finish line. completing something in april is still something you accomplished this year. it's not bad. you're succeeding. get it done. be reasonable, be realistic, but chase your dreams.

but at the same time--

it's okay to be tired, dear one. you can take a deep breath. you can sit down. don't let this year put pressure on you. just because others make "resolutions" doesn't mean you have to.

there's no shame in rest.

whether you churn things out or do it slowly...you're still accomplishing something. i have written books in 30 days and i've written books that took three years. i'm learning to accept that both ways are okay. that my worth is not tied to how fast i can churn out a book. it hurts a little, to know that my productivity levels aren't the same and may never be again. 

but this is a different me. a me who's been through a little more, who's seen a little more world, who has more sitting on her now. this is a different me from the one who could just write for hours and hours. she gets tired. she falls asleep faster. she's got school school school in every direction. it's a lot. it feels like a lot to handle.

but i can do this. in God's strength, not my own. because it isn't up to me. it's not all about me. my life is not my own and i have been bought with a price.

the way i express my gratitude is by living for him. and sometimes, that looks like insane productivity. other times, that looks like sitting with someone hurting and holding their hand for a few hours. sometimes it means that rehearsal for leading worship comes up, and that's more important than homework. 

it's finding the balance between wanting to do well in classes and remembering that grades aren't always the single most important thing. 

it's going to bed at night, because your body needs to be taken care of.

it's learning what it looks like to show self care, even with chronic illnesses. 

it's loving yourself the way God loves you--as His beautiful creation, who he made and who he loves.

happy new year <3

 hold on for another day.

wake up. open your eyes. get out of bed and take a hot shower.

go to bed a little earlier. when the sun starts to go down, put on soft pants, and get yourself ready for bed earlier so you can rest. let your brain rest.

spend time in the word. there is no better place to go. God will hear your cries and he wants to hold you fast. he will wrap you up in his arms. run to him. pray to him. cry out. he can handle your questions.

chase the things you love. even if it's not for money, even if it isn't your career. time invested well is not a waste, even without money. 

make another playlist. you don't have too many. they are so therapeutic. it helps.

cut your hair. if it doesn't work? hair grows back. 

keep going. showers are good. i know i've already mentioned them but they help so much.

don't isolate yourself. find others who can hold your hand and help you along. ask them to pray for you. sometimes when it hurts, someone else coming alongside you, to carry your pain, can make all the difference. you're not alone--don't let yourself believe that you are.

don't force yourself to read things you don't want to. be gentle to yourself. 

you are beautiful. you are made by God. he put you here for a reason. he loves you. he has a purpose behind your life.

so hold on, my friend. chase your dreams.

one day at a time is enough. there will be healing. 

Note: this isn't entirely personal to me--I've seen so many people around me struggling with mental health this semester, and I just wanted to give a shoutout to all of them. You're not alone. You're going to be okay. Hold onto Jesus. It's so dark right now, but the sun will rise, even if you can't see it now. Someday the sun will rise.

So I'm not doing NaNo this year (what do you think I am, crazy?) Sophomore year of college is killing me dead and I don't know how in the world I'm going to survive some days. Adding NaNo would be the end of at least my sanity.

But I'm a writer and it would be an affront to my identity to refrain from writing this November, so...here we are. I'm writing something a little new. You may recognize some of the names in this blurb. That's intentional. There are a lot of changes going on around here, things I'll explain later. For now, I'm going to introduce this little story. 

wip//knife in the back

credit to Brookie ;)

He saved me. He keeps me alive. And I owe him everything.

 there's something about this idea

this concept that we all have to be okay all the time

it makes you feel worse--

because you look at the people around you and they're all fine 

but it makes you feel better--

because that one person who can't hide it anymore

at least you're not her

and it makes you feel worse--

you're not fine and you know it

but it makes you feel better--

at least no one can say anything about your facade

and that's why it hurts

but it's a comfort

to fake it, tie on a mask

pain, the masked vigilante 

ready to murder the people who don't get it 

if they understood 

i wonder if they'd be kinder 

but understanding their pain means you understand your own a little better

if you can read someone else's heart

you take that first step

you suddenly understand why your pain hurts

it's valid for them why not for me? 

and you start to wonder...

what if the mask fell off

and we were left 

with the truth

would we die...

or would we fly

I'm so excited for this book to come out! Preorder will be up soon, so go put this one on your list--it's going to be so good. I've read it, and y'all need it ;) Absolutely one of the best books of 2021, and I'm so honored to call its author my BEST friend <3 <3 Even without bias, though....this book is EVERYTHING and y'all need it in your lives.

it started with a playlist. a fun little playlist about happy emotions I've been having, with some happy, bouncy love songs. I went to make the playlist. and I ran into problems.

namely, that there are no such songs by female artists. which is awkward when you're looking for love songs, but every love song is about the manic pixie dream girl, which in my case makes me sound like I'm making a playlist about how much i adore myself. that's not exactly the goal.

so why are there no songs by women about joy? why are we not given the chance to express our hearts about something other than heartbreak?

two artists I love released new album artwork recently. I won't name them, but you may know them. two girls, neither of whom are anything close to christian, but both of whom have largely been willing to keep things classy. posing nude, for mainstream albums. this isn't some sort of niche art. this isn't a secret tape. this isn't a scene in a MA-rated movie. this is two girls who have decided that the best way to reclaim their bodies, to take them back from the industry, is to feed into the cycle, to strip down and say "this time, it's for me."

Why have we reached a point where women feel like the only way they can be empowered is to do exactly what they're "supposed to do", but under their own instructions? why does being our own boss suddenly mean that it's empowering to expose our hearts and our bodies and our deepest hurts?

we can't write about things other than our grief. we can't speak to our joy. we are not permitted to HAVE joy. why? it doesn't sell. i have not seen captain marvel and i don't plan to anytime soon, but i have seen marvel's other female-headed story, WandaVision, and I speak to that when I say: our grief is marketed.

but WandaVision does it differently, because it takes the story of a woman's grief...and shows her desperate quest to find joy. despite the fact that we know what's going on...so much of the story is a slice of life. a home. a family.

disney princesses were what we were raised on, but now we're led to think that's a fairy tale, something we can't have. "don't get your hearts set on finding a prince," they've told us. sometimes, that means we need to be realistic.

what it leads to is this expectation that men can treat us like dirt, and because fairy tales aren't real, because we are the damsel clawing out our own existence from dirt with no knights or fairy godmothers to save us, we are nothing more than dirt. we are cinderella. we are the maiden made of dust, the girl whose only worth is what she can give. not her heart. not her abilities. not her dreams.

it's not realistic to imagine a happily ever after, or a man who loves us and would fight dragons for us, and so we stop. we settle. we get ourselves hurt. and the cycle starts all over again, as we tell our sons it's okay to not be a prince charming, as we tell our daughters they should never expect to be a princess.

I want joy. i want beauty. and sometimes it feels like I'm clawing for those things with my fingernails. because i haven't wanted to settle. because I don't just want any man that comes along, I want a prince. is that so much to ask? it shouldn't be.

but no, if i want my dreams, i have to get them. i have to rake them in and give away all the deepest darkest parts of myself. my grief and my heart? they are yours. my body? belongs to the highest bidder. i am not trying to break into hollywood, but when i want to tell stories, isn't it the same? my heart split into a thousand pieces and distributed among all of the people i invent.

and you all want to make sure it's truly my experience. that the trauma is actually mine. that the hurt belongs to me, and i didn't invent it.

give us your grief, they say. give us access to your grief.

tell us exactly where your grief is.

and I say: no.

my grief will inform my stories. my truth will be there.

but you don't get to know where.

you don't get my heart.

you don't get my grief.

i might be a woman, but that does not give you access to me. my empowerment comes from my joy and the fact that i want to chase it. i hold myself to a higher standard. i hold the man who will pursue me to a higher standard.

watching world? you do not get all of me.

industry? my heart is not yours.

i am not a sexual object. i am a woman, and i have hopes and dreams and my heart bleeds but it also sings. i will have children one day. i want love. and that is not your business.

my heart is not yours.

 there are so many people out there

people with souls

people with darkness in their eyes

the sadness taken and twisted into something worse

and then there are those who are still alone

still hurting and still so sad

but i wonder...where is the divide?

when did we decide some were hopeless

and some had a chance

why do we get to make that call at all

there are monsters in our midst

but we're far too eager to view them as misunderstood

to let the true monsters slide by

excuses excuses

while we blast those who need our help for their behavior

and truly, who am I?

what is this world that we live in

full of souls

full of the dark

but i am full too

full of questions

uncertainty and loneliness

but also filled up

despite my unworthiness

by the love of One who will see me through the darkness

a Father who will not leave

who loves all his children

because I'm not anything

not without Him

but maybe i am not so empty

because even though the world is full

He saw me, and He loved me

This poem came to me as I sat here trying to figure out what to blog. I hope it resonates with you. 

 It's been a hot second, I'm aware, and now I'm just...wondering how to pick up with what I've left off. How to return to a world that feels like it's fading away. No one blogs anymore, it seems. No one speaks. These diaries are preserved for eternity, but without endings.

So I sit here and sigh as I type these words. And I wonder: Who am I?

I am not the same bright-eyed girl I was posting three days a week. I no longer write a book every month, can no longer brag of 120,000 word NaNoWriMos. Nowadays just writing a chapter makes me struggle beyond my wildest dreams. Creative burnout hurts. You miss the page, miss the words coming, long for them... but then you realize you don't actually want to write. You want the rush of success without the need to try. I have started story after story after story in the last months, and yet finished not even a single one. The things I'm currently working on I don't want to share, because I fear jinxing it.

I get home from school, and I sit on the couch and sleep at home, then go to my job, where I deliver orders and make orders and cry internally and wonder: is this all that matters? This grind, making food and taking other people's money and drowning under the weight of consumerism?

Sometimes, I feel empty.

Sometimes...I feel like I'm a husk of a girl. Not even a full girl, certainly not someone who can be used by God.

And so I stare into the sky and I think about the future of this online diary, the one you all read, the one that you're free to comment on. I wonder: who am I? Why would you read my words? Is there something about me that makes you want to know what I have to say?

What is there, truly, about the girl behind the blog that's worth knowing?

But I persist. I've been gone for a very long time. I'm coming back uncertain what I want to do. This blog will likely change; my URL may change. I don't have a plan. I have always been a pantser, and that will continue. 

So let's see what the future holds. If you're interested in watching that journey: welcome. And thank you. I'm a bit weird. I'm a bit of a mess.

But I'd love to have you.

<3

Hello everyone! I know it's a little late into the year, but I'm writing these posts way in advance, and I have a feeling we could all use some encouragement. So my plan for April is to write a bunch of posts that will serve as encouragement for writers--urging you to keep writing, to write stories that are beautiful, and to push through. With that in mind:

He gave us these stories.

You could have been passionate about anything. Plants. Chemistry. Particle engineering. Movie set design. Maybe you are passionate about those things, too. Maybe you can cook up a storm. Maybe you can draw a sunset so beautiful and real it brings tears to people's eyes. Maybe you run marathons no problem, or you can train the most vicious dog to love humans, or anything else. There are infinite things out there to fall in love with. Vocations, pathways.

And even with all of that--even with all these other things available, these other paths, these other choices--He gave us these stories.

You don't have stories in your blood by accident, dear writer. You are not accidentally in love with words. Your characters aren't real in your mind because you just happened to be in the right place at the right time. You've been imbued with the words. Our Father gives us gifts, and He gave you the words.

They're a gift. They flow out of you for a reason.

So use them.

Write the words when they come. Put your pen to paper and your fingers to the keyboard and tell the story that sits so heavy on your heart. There is beauty in stories. God gave the story you want to tell to you, and there is a reason that it exists. So tell it.

You never know--your words might be exactly what someone needs to hear.

There's a kid out there--a younger you, a lonely and sad one--who still needs a shot at hope. Maybe they'll read your story and find some.

There's a woman out there, your age, who's looking for a reminder of the wholesome love that can really exist, and you can bring that to her.

There's a boy who wants to see knights and heroes in his own time, and that's possible.

Emily Dickinson once said, "If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not have lived in vain."

God gave you your words and your stories for a reason. So keep going, dear writer. Keep writing.

We need your words. And they're a gift from him.

Keep going.

Welcome back, everybody! I hope your weekend was good. Today is Writing Advice day, so let's dive right in!

Most writing advice likes to say "write what you know." It shakes out to a matter of...not pride, exactly, but certainty. If you're writing what you know, then research becomes unnecessary, the story becomes easier to write, you don't have to wonder if you're getting it right...

You get the picture.

(I definitely don't write what I know to avoid research, nuh-uh, I'm a history major and I love research *nods adamantly* always)  

If you've ever felt this way, like writing something less familiar is too intimidating or even scary, you are not alone. I mean, I think all of us have felt this way at some point. *points to self aggressively*

But the truth is--you don't HAVE to be scared of it. Because writing what scares you? It can make your story better.

Some quick rambles about this:

1. This doesn't have to just apply to characters' experiences! Writing what scares you can be as simple as writing a different genre--if you would normally write fantasy, choosing to write that steampunk or horror or contemporary or wHATEVER because it's what you're excited about. This one has been the hardest for me--I'm a hard fantasy author, but I frequently get ideas for other genres. Which is...scary.

2. Flash fiction can be the BEST way to experiment. Going back to that last item: Let's say you have an idea for something sci-fi, but you don't know if you're ready to write an actual sci-fi novel, since you've never done that before. So instead, you write a sci-fi flash fiction. That's what I did for one of my stories for Havok, the flash fiction e-zine I typically write for, and it's possibly one of my favorite pieces I've ever written.

3. If you ARE trying to write a character who has something you've never experienced--don't be afraid to ask someone who knows! This could range from something as big as asking someone about their life with disabilities, to learning about another religion in order to portray it well, to even something as small as asking a fast food worker what drive-thru rushes are REALLY like. If you're really in doubt, ask a few people! Your story will only be better from adding the real experiences of other people--instead of just writing what you know, you're writing what they know.

4. If something really does just feel like it's too much to write: don't be afraid to shelve it for later. I've had to do that multiple times in the Pentegreens series--a few concepts might bounce back in later drafts of that same series, and others may well make their way into different works of mine. That doesn't make it bad that I couldn't handle them at the time--it simply means that sometimes, it isn't a story's time.

5. Writing your most personal experiences can be scary too. Sometimes, it's best to put a slightly different spin on such things. Some of my deepest darkest stories have made their way into my books, but always under a different name, in a different form. Allowing them to INFLUENCE the story rather than letting them BECOME the story is often a wise decision. And remember--most of the time, people will have no idea that you're writing something personal when they come across it. They'll simply proclaim the characters masterful. ;)

There's no right or wrong way to write YOUR story. Your words matter, and they're important. So don't be afraid of them, and don't let fear stop you from writing the story you want to tell. 

What's your go-to genre and one you might want to dabble in someday? Do you enjoy research for your novels (and if you do, teach me your ways)? Chat with me in the comments!