The year is done and that's all that needs to be said about THAT *wipes sweat off forehead* BYE BYE 2020 we all know that 2021 won't be much better probably but like...bye to this one

With that out of the way...no further intro, let's do this

Music of 2020

Books of 2020

Recommended by Nicki//enemies to lovers//sort of arranged marriage but also really good?//a labyrinth//so many of my favorite tropes in one book//the SHIP tho

Everything I wanted in a series finale//my SHIP//I just love Morgan L. Busse

My edition is prettier than this//so much about humanity lol//so many references in pop culture?

Can't believe this series is done//it was my childhood and adulthood and EEK//so good//so pure//DOOLEY//LACE//FATHER TIIIIIIM

guilty pleasure aka a TON of content//but also just FUN//I love McManus' mysteries

Brooke made me read it and honestly I should've listened to her sooner I've owned it for like five years but it was just QUALITY//so good//still uncertain on the ships? but otherwise ACK

Gotta share the whole series at once//OH MY GOSH//a new all-time favorite//just perfection from start to finish//MALINA FOREVER//Nikolai is mine//the Darkling is filth//just everything//buddy read with Brooke and ACK so good//Brooke: you might like this//me: nah//me: YES//Brooke: -_- did I not tell you

I didn't read enough indie this year and that makes me sad//but next year will be different//I LOVED this//high fantasy and HOPE

Writing

-I wrote...a lot of stuff I don't even remember all of it

-I fought Pentegreens 4 for pretty much the whole year

-Rewrote The King's Daughter A G A I N...yeah we're not doing that again *she says as she looks over at her outline for version 10 hahaha please help*

-Finished my story Not the Chosen One

-Wrote an entire random novella that no one will ever read, known as Stealing Me Away

-Wrote an entire book called Holding Up the Sky and then edited it

-Wrote about 60k of Holding Up the Sky's sequel, If the Sky Falls

-More with Pentegreens 4

-I started another WIP that I haven't mentioned yet

-Lots of flash fiction!

-Yeah Idek at this point 

Life

-JANUARY: went to see my grandparents//started working for Havok//some stuff went down that was a surprise tool to help us later//spent SO much time in a ski lodge

-FEBRUARY: took an online college class//tried to apply for scholarships//did my taxes//TANGLED AND AGENT CARTER MY NEW LOVES

-MARCH: what a weird month//anxiety maybe ate me alive//read a poem about my villain that could have literally been about him//oh yeah have you heard of COVID//decided I wasn't ready for trad publishing//

-APRIL: turned eighteen//stuff started getting cancelled for real//read a lot//Massive Life Events 

-MAY: FINISHED SCHOOL//went full time-ish at work//realized I didn't care if I got COVID and started being less afraid of it//digital piano lessons//

JUNE: GRADUATED//applied for scholarships//still didn't get any//went shopping for school//my mama is the bomb

-JULY: sent letters//tried to start digital art, failed//changed churches//went mini golfing with the fam//still working so so much//babysat//visited a Fren <3

-AUGUST: move to school//ordered textbooks//lived on my own for the first time//realized I had no control over my sleep schedule//yeah

-SEPTEMBER: college!

-OCTOBER: college!

-November: college!//also Thanksgiving//home//fun times//YAY//first time voting

-December: we be vibing at home//work//Christmas? maybe?//

somehow, this year I was both

me daily in college

"hiI'mthemanagerohI'msosorryma'amhowcanIfixthatforyou"

meeeeeeeee

it's me i'm girls 

yep

Tell me about your 2020! Read anything good in quarantine? Let me know down below!

 That's a title, I know. Sorry *hides*

I wanted it to be magic. I wanted a full semester of hope and nothing but me knowing who I was. But that's not what happened. 

I moved into my dorm and immediately started to think I'd made a mistake.

I went to the school I went to specifically for their government major. For their internships. For their foot in the door. But almost as soon as I walked in the door, I realized something. Majoring in government...that wasn't me anymore. That wasn't who I wanted to be. I didn't want to be a politician or a lawmaker or a policy maker. I didn't want to be in campaigns. There are many who do belong in that world, and I wish them well. But me? No.

No, I want light. Stories.

I briefly considered journalism. I picked up another class after one day of classes and got a job and was basically in wayyyyy over my head.

My thoughts were a mess. Friends? What were those? I called home daily for at least an hour a day. I was so desperate for some sort of...anything. Meaning. A reason. Dropping out became even more enticing. I thought about transferring. I went back to researching my second choice schools.

About halfway through the semester, my constitutional law converged into one of the most stressful events of my life: the schoolwide moot court tournament. If you don't know what moot court is, count yourself blessed. Basically, you dress up as a lawyer and you go argue a case to upperclassmen (or real judges, at the law school level) like you're at the Supreme Court. 

This was so much stress. So much anger. And yet one of my most distinct memories was just frustration that it kept me away from the highlight of my Monday, Wednesday, and Friday: History class.

World history was a lifeline. a breath of fresh air in all the other stress. I went and I learned. I understood. I got excited.

And then one day I found myself in the history department head's office, pouring out my heart about government and not knowing what to do and needing a job and student loans and...

And that wonderful man looked me in the eye, this professor who wasn't in it for money or prestige but because he genuinely cared about his students, a genius, and he said, "You can get a job with a history degree."

With those words, with that reassurance, my world was transformed.

It was in the way I tutored a friend the morning before a quiz for history and saw the whole thing coming together in a storyline. It's in the characters of history, bright and brilliant people like anybody from a novel, but REAL and living. It's in knowing that without knowing the past, we'll repeat it--but also knowing that there's beauty, and hope, and that the darkest hour of human history is always behind us and before us both.  It's in seeing my Creator's fingertips throughout the timeline. It's in the hope of seeing how the world spins on.

I fell in love. Hard. Romantic love, the sort Taylor Swift would write a song about, the sort that makes you giddy and grin whenever you think about it. It's the kind of love that gets me ranting at the lunch table to a group of unimpressed friends of a friend. It's the love that takes my Saturday mornings and turns them into a chance to explore the niches of history, the little moments that we don't talk about. And yes, this is all about my soulmate. My degree. The hope I have for the future in loving a line of study, a subject, a line of work, a knowledge.

God brought that love to me and I can never thank Him enough for that.

 Hey, y'all. It's been a month (what the heck?) College ate me at the end, and then I was busy trying to find my sleep schedule and energy again, and then I went back to work...all this to say that I haven't had a chance to blog before now. But here I am xD

Today's update is on what I've been writing: Namely, Draft 2 of Pentegreens Book 4, the title of which is still somewhat confidential.

This book has been painful to edit. It's been like ripping out a part of me and reshaping it--but it's been a part of me that HAS to come out, a part of me that I don't want anymore. I want to heal from some of the darkness that made its way into that story, and pulling all of that out has been a process.

But I'm starting to make it. And it's almost done as I write this. The hope is to finish it when this blog post is done.

Here are some stats to show that you can, in fact, write the book that's so hard to edit. You can do it.

• 10 months
• 122,550 words on this draft (up from 119,000 on the last one!)
• So. Many. Stabbings
• Less kissing than last time (thank EVERYTHING)
• Soft, soft moments
• Also more stabbing
• Several deaths RIP to those unfortunate souls
• Some kids being kids

Esma: The girl whose heart burned

I can't see the ending//there are people who know my every secret//Ellie Goulding

Got my fingers laced together and I made a little prison and I'm locking up everyone who ever laid a finger on me//Lorde

I'm heading straight for the castle//they wanna make me the queen//and there's an old man sitting on a throne there saying I probably shouldn't be so mean//Halsey

losing//never giving up//sass at the most unexpected times//a soft, soft heart//brokenness but strength in the pieces//unwavering faith//she'd die for him

Rishatta: The boy who loved

I won't break you, I won't let you down//open up again, I believe in second chances//Imagine Dragons

I can't control myself when I'm around you//absolutely hypnotized//drawn into the light that surrounds you//Walking on Cars

I'm not leaving here without you now//no matter what they say//SVRCINA

fight to the end//will punch you in the face if you even try to get in his way//didn't come all this way for nothing//others first, always//a heart of ice but it's SO soft

 Hello friends! Look at MEEEEE posting again mwahaha. College is starting to grind to a halt, but first it’ll probably run me over like a steam engine, so this maaaaay be the last post y’all see from me for a couple of weeks. We shall see. I’ll definitely have one every week over Christmas break ;) (which starts at Thanksgiving…) 

 I am tired.

My body is run-down with exhaustion and no matter how much I sleep it's not enough. The deadlines come fast and furious, and college is a sea of masks and papers and exhaustion.

What is the point, I wonder.

This last week, I'll be honest: I sat down and cried over the US election. I strongly dislike both parties and I hate everything about what this election is doing to our country. I very much and very firmly believe that Jesus is on the throne. I believe that he can do ANYTHING he wants out of this. 

But oh, that doesn't mean I have to be excited about the prospect of what's quite possibly coming.

There is so much pain and brutality among our land right now. We're so divided. Sometimes I wonder how long it really will be until the second Civil War. I'm tired. I'm tired.

Saturday night I went to a Halloween party, and it seemed like every time we lost sight of the fact that this wasn't normal, someone started screaming for everyone to social distance. And the moment was broken. And the new normal flooded back in, and the pain was very much there again.

I wear the mask when I can, but the asthma has been getting worse and worse lately as seasonal allergies fluctuate and I've had a couple of minor colds. There are so many people looking to inform me that I must wear a mask, that Covid will hurt me if I get it, that I'm one of the high-risk people. I struggle with that daily--I know the averse effects of my health if I get Covid, but if I wear the mask, the asthma will make daily life a struggle. 

My heart hurts.

And I want to know where I'm going. What my future looks like. They always told me college was a time of transition, but trying to imagine the transition out of here and into the Real World, a world changing and falling apart. 

I'm not sharing this looking for pity.

I share this to say: You are not alone. If you have a strange sense of both security in the Father and a constant halo of question marks swirling about your brain, you aren't alone. God's got it under control. Of COURSE he does. That is a fact.

But the fact doesn't just...get rid of all emotions.

And it's okay to be tired. It's okay to be scared.

We don't know what this world will look like at the end of this week. But humanity continues, and God is still on his throne. There is GOOD in the world still. Maybe we have to look a little harder to find it. But it's there.

So let's all take a breath and give ourselves permission to be tired and to sleep and to take some time off. It's okay if you can't do it all.

You're still enough.

It's hard. It's HARD. Don't forget that it's okay for it to be hard.

And remember: It is enough that Jesus is on the throne.

Maybe it doesn't feel like it yet. But it is.

He is still God. He is still good. 

How are you doing? <3 If you're doing NaNo, how have the first couple days been? Chat with me and tell me how YOU are doing. I want to hear from you.

 Hello, my friends! I keep being insanely sporadic with my posts, but I'm FINALLY here to post again. Today, we're going to deal with how to write a ridiculously shippable romance, using a single example. Yes, I said just one. One example of how to write the perfect relationship (if you ignore the last three songs of the musical).

That relationship is Orpheus and Eurydice from Hadestown.

(all photos in this post courtesy of Pinterest)

If you're into musicals, I would absolutely recommend this musical. It's so powerful, it's (99%) clean, it's got the best romance of ever. It's something I can recommend with almost zero qualms. It will definitely break your heart, though, so bear that in mind (I've already broken both Brooke and Nicole with this, so...yeah).

(I see we're back fast and furious today with the parentheses.)

Today I'm going to do less of actually looking at the plot of Hadestown, and instead going to deal with how to write a romance using Hadestown's Orphydice (a thing?) as a model! So with no further introduction, let's jump in!

1. If your hero is going to be weird, make him endearing

2. Make BOTH characters compelling

3. Give each character their own desires and wants

4. If there's going to be conflict in the relationship, it needs to be something complex for both characters.

5. The single most compelling thing you can do is make the guy willing to go to the ends of the earth for her.

Yes, before I continue, this can go both ways. But come on, ladies. There's just...SOMETHING about a guy fighting through all odds for us that feels like magic. 

I love this trope so much. Orpheus just embodies it so well. He loses sight of his goals--and when that causes him to lose Eurydice, he decides to follow her "to the end of time...to the end of the earth...with all my heart". The songs when he chases her down across the ends of the earth are just *chef's kiss* He doesn't do it through physical strength, but he's still SO strong. And it just....ARGH do this more often, people. Please. My heart. 

In the end, it doesn't matter what the guy fights for her--just let him fight SOMETHING. My little romantic heart will pass out in a flurry of joy. Like literally. There is almost no better way to make me fall in love with a story. 

 Sometimes, He seems so far away.

Those are the days I have to look around and honestly ask myself: am I seeking? Am I following him? How much do I care? Do I actually understand that I can't make it on my own?

One of the most important things to remember as Christians is that we can't actually do it on our own--but there is the rub. We CANNOT do it on our own. However, with God, we can do it. And that word--do--is so very important.

Christianity isn't just church attendance, or singing, or knowing the truth, or choosing to surround yourself with people who agree. It isn't just sharing the gospel with people. It isn't just raising your hands in worship. All of these things are included, and they are all very much important.

But that's not all Christianity is. It is not a religion that consists of doing works for one's own purposes. My sisters and brothers, we serve a higher calling.

It's all for Him. We are put here, on this earth, for the blink of an eye in comparison to the timeline of the world. We are, as the Psalmist puts it, like the grass of the field, there one day and dead the next. Our good deeds are worth next to nothing. They are the scribbles drawn by a four-year-old in thick red crayon.

But that--THAT is where we see the most importance facet of Christianity. If all we had was the scribbles of a four-year-old to get us into heaven, we would be doomed.

But we are not just any four-year-old. When you become saved, you become the child of a King.

And when you run to that Father, that kind and gracious King, with your scribbles, screaming, "DADDY DADDY I THOUGHT YOU WOULD LIKE THIS", he smiles, and he is proud. He loves the gifts you can bring, even if they are nothing by the world's standards.

Even if they can never be enough to save your soul.

This is the deepest heart of truth--we have been saved, not by an aloof and distant ruler, but by a King who calls himself our Father. He is the father we all so earnestly need. No matter how great our earthly fathers might be, they can never compare. And if your earthly father has failed you...well, I promise God is a better one in every way. He is the best father. He is the reality that all earthly fathers are mere images of.

And God LOVES his children.

He calls us to love him too.

So don't fear him, O his child. Run to him. He loves you.

We are in real relationship with Him, and he will hold us. 

So don't be afraid. Take that step of faith. Raise your hands and lose yourself in his goodness. Worship Him in spirit and truth. Run to Him when you're afraid. Love Him. He is good.

We don't have to be afraid.

HER BLOG IS HERE GO READ ITTTTTT

What made you decide to revamp your blog?

Honestly, I was feeling really drained and burned out on blogging in general and it was getting harder for me to keep going with it. Finally, it came to me that I needed to switch directions and make my blog more of an author/writer haven, like the blogs that inspired me to even get started in writing and blogging. Thus the new concept was born! Also my best friend, Faith, I don't know if you know her, she inspired me a lot with this. She's amazing. 😏 

Oh, stop xD What are you hoping to do with it now that it is revamped?

I have four main topics I want to cover, things I'm passionate about and can blog about. I want to talk about Indie publishing, because that is where my experience is. I also want to talk about writing because that is what we're all here for. Book reviews and bookish topics are also a big thing, and mental health. I am a big advocate for mental health awareness, especially with my own struggles. So those are the main things I'll be talking about. Of course, I'll have a short story or poem here and there, along with updates on my books.

YOUR BOOKS! Tell me, what is your biggest dream for the future? (Think BIG. No limits of reality here.)

Whoa, that is quite a loaded question for me. I have a lot of dreams. I think one of my biggest dreams would be to have my own library of books, with so many books filling the shelves. I would also love to work somewhere in the publishing industry, helping writers with their dreams. I don't know if I have any BIG dreams at the moment. 

Those dreams are beautiful. Now, on the topic of writing: Why are you so cruel to your characters?

Is it cruel or is it realistic? 😅 I like to go dark. I like to give my characters depth and trauma and have them go through things. I want it to be real. And it's fun imagining the readers getting mad at me for some reason. 😂

Tell us your feelings about dairy? 😉

😑😑😑 depends on the context my dear. 

So since we know cheese is a no-no: Best fast food joint?

I'm from Texas so the BEST fast food place in Texas, in the country, dare I say in the world is Whataburger. It's one of the best places. The food is good. It's just the experience. 

While we're talking about Texas: Best State in the Union?

I would say Texas, because it is, but Texas is a mighty country of its own. So I'm going to have to go with where my best friend lives because anywhere she is will be the best place. <3 

Dude *sobs* You're the BEST. 

Awwww, no I'm not, stop that. 😭😭 only after you boo. <3 

Thank you so much, Faith, for having me here on your blog. This has been fun. We need to do this more often! <3

Go read Brooke's blog right now, and let me know in the comments if I should do more interviews here with her/other blogging frens/etc. because this was a BLAST. 

LE BLURB

LE STATS

(The following very adorable illustrations are by Lisa Elis!!!) 

LE SNIPPETS

“If there’s one thing I don’t like, Dulcinea, it’s witches.” Daverby was pacing on the other side of a room, holding a book in front of him. Dulci bit back the urge to mention that he was holding it upside down.
“What do witches have to do with that book?” She didn’t usually try to poke at him, but right now she had nothing to lose, and the music was gone, and she wanted to just let go.
“It’s a book about witches!” Daverby shook it as if that would make the words more clear. “It’s very annoying.”
“Dave, that book is about the wild plants native to Isondata.” Dulci turned back to the piano and reached for the keys. Just a single chord, repeating over and over and over and over until her heart could bleed a little less. She had to use it as a bandage, tying herself shut after the bleeding and uncontrollable pain.
Daverby groaned. “Fine. Fine. Who am I fooling?” The next second the piano bench rocked as he thudded down at her side. Dulci flinched. She didn’t stop playing, but her dislike for Daverby flared into the music and she let a dissonant chord or two make it into the song.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, keeping her voice gentle as much as possible.