Lord God,

It is difficult to watch the summer fade for the first little bit. The heat is still blazing, and our hearts long for it to end. But as the flames of orange begin to overtake the trees, I realize what this means. In wishing away the seasons, we have wished ourselves into the cold of winter.

Autumn is the transition. How gracious you are to give us a transition. A lesser creator would have simply flipped the seasons on their head, dropped us straight into the ice and cold. But you are greater than that. You have given us an entire season to function as a time of reflection. And it's beautiful. You did not just let the leaves drop in death. Their fall is beautiful, another sign of the endless cycle you have given us.

Teach us to count our days, Lord. Help us not to look at this world as an endless race. My heart so often longs for one season to end, for the next to begin. But you give every season for a purpose. And in wishing away the heat and slowness of summer, I hurl myself into the reality of cold, dark winter. This is why your plans are better than mine. Your plans will always be better than mine. Help me to remember this without getting lost in the future.

Teach us to number our moments. Each leaf that falls from the trees feels like a smaller and smaller sacrifice. Their glory fades. Their color is gone as they crunch below our feet. Like the leaves, we are temporal beings. We also will fade. But you never fade. You never grow weary or old. You are eternal, outside of time, a God as unchanging as we are changing. And yet you do not grow weary with us in our change. 

As the leaves fall from the trees and the temperatures begin to sink, let us be filled with thankfulness, and not with dread. You set this world to spin, and it spins as you created it to do. Your timing is always perfect and this world functions exactly as you command. We think we know all things. We think we know what is best. Help us to see that you and only you can create the patterns of the stars.

We live in between the spinning of planets and under the changing of solar systems. This is infinitely greater than we can understand. These bodies are so much higher and larger than we are. No matter how many zeros we place behind a number, we will never understand how big and far apart and immense the distances and spaces are. But you are greater still, and you do not leave us to the mercy of the planets. No--you set the planets spinning to your will, and used that to make us a home. All praise to you, Lord. 

Teach us to count our days and to number our moments, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Amen.

We'll be using Deal of Knives as an example (because that's the current editing project). I'm super excited to get through this one and get it to a point where it's actually good to attempt publishing. So let's get going!

Step One: Pretend Everything Is Good as I Draft.

Step Two: Have a breakdown.

Step Three: Read Back Through and Outline.

Step Four: Color code.

Step Five: Write the new chapters.

Step Six: Re-outline with the new chapters.

Step Seven: Keep rewriting through a tighter and tighter lens.

Tears filled Abby's eyes. “I can’t be what you want. I want to be…but it’s not possible.”

Mother sat down and stared at the wall. “I don’t want you to be anything but yourself,” she said, her voice flat. It wasn’t true. They all knew it wasn’t true. Mother wanted a perfect little dancer and gymnast and ballerina. The perfect child, to be what she’d never been able to do.

It wasn’t Abby’s fault that all she’d ever wanted was to get married. It wasn’t her fault that try as she might, she still wasn’t a good enough dancer to be professional.

She was eighteen. It was time to figure out what she wanted, not what her mom wanted.

Mother was sleeping in the easy chair when Abby loaded up her jeep that night. It was a quick jaunt, a quick trip to the highway. She didn’t have a lot of things that she actually wanted to take with her—a can of extra gasoline from the garage, her books, her laptop. Really, all she wanted was to get in the car and drive as far as she possibly could.

Time to choose her own way in the world.

She got into the driver’s seat and started off, pedal to the metal, as fast as she could go.

The highway blazed by under her. Arizona was hot and the desert was endless, but she left the top down anyway, drinking several bottles of water as she went. Her phone rang a few times—Mother, probably, looking to find her before she had to go to the trouble of reporting her missing—but she ignored it.

The highway opened up in a swirl of golden light. Abby hit the brakes, hard, but not hard or soon enough. The jeep’s brakes squealed. Someone behind honked.

The swirl of light engulfed her jeep, devouring her whole.

Abby gasped for air, hanging on to the steering wheel with both hands. The road was gone. Now, instead of being in the desert, she was in a forest. A huge, dark forest. Nothing in sight besides tree trunks.

Abby swallowed hard. “Hello?”

This was not how today had been supposed to go.

Her Jeep’s gas still worked, she discovered when she hit it. But with this many trees and no road, that didn’t feel like a very safe course of action. Abby got out of the Jeep and started walking, searching around for any sign of life.

There was nothing.

Finally she saw it: a tiny billow of smoke, out there in the darkness between trees.

Abby walked slowly toward the smoke. It’s coming from a tiny cabin nestled in the woods, made of logs. The shutters are painted bright green, and ivy grew over the walls. The whole place looked cozy and inviting.

Abby raised both fists. That was exactly the kind of place where a kidnapper would live. She’d read Hansel and Gretel. She might not be any good at fighting, but she could turn some flips and do some jumps if she needed to.

The door opened and a creature emerged. 

Abby shrieked and raised both fists. It wasn’t human. It was far smaller, only up to her knee, small enough that she could have picked it up and thrown it.

It screamed, too, a loud scream so shrill it could have shattered glass.

Abby grabbed it before she could stop herself and raised the thing over her head. It was a very small man, with a long white beard. Joke was on them. She’d read Snow White, too.

“Wait!” the thing shrieked. “Wait!”

She paused, but left him raised above her head. “Talk fast, thing,” she growled. “I’m not in the mood to play around.”

“What are you?” the thing asked.

“What am I?” Abby laughed out loud. “What are you?” 

“But it is a valid question! You are so big.”

“You’re so small! I was just driving on the highway and then I got pulled through…a portal or something? I don’t want to be here! I was on my way to Phoenix!”

“To Phoenix?” The thing’s tone brightened. “Set me down! I must fetch my brothers!”

Abby kept her hands raised. “No! Absolutely not. You’re not fetching anyone.”

“Too late,” the thing said, far more cheerful. “I am Loris, should it matter. And you are?”

“I’m not saying.” This thing already had too many ideas.

The door to the house opened. Abby’s jaw dropped as ten more tiny creatures, the same size as the one she held prisoner, swarmed out onto the lawn. Their shrill cries filled the air, and she set Loris down so she could cover her ears.

“It’s her!” Loris shrieked.

“Someone tell me what’s going on!” Abby yelled back.

Loris cleared his throat and raised a hand. The shrieking ended. Thank goodness. Abby rubbed her sore ears.

“Legend has it that a girl will come from another world. She will be on a quest for the great phoenix and be fleeing the way things were to form her own destiny. Does that sound like you?”

Abby swallowed hard. “Yeah, it does.” SHe didn’t want another destiny. She was her own person—she had to be. “Do I have something I’m supposed to do? Is there a…quest to fulfill? I don’t want it, if there is.”

The things exchanged glances. Whispers filled the air. After a moment, Loris shrugged.

“The quest is of your choosing,” he said finally. “All we must do is help you get to the city.”

A quest that she got to choose. In a different world entirely.

Abby smiled.

“Where do we go?” she asked. “Let me get my Jeep.”

I've kind of gone into most semesters flying blind at school. I'm really bad at being intentional with my school, so I'm setting exactly 5 goals for the semester. There's one for each of the main categories of my life. They're kind of the big five: Academic, Spiritual, Physical, Emotional, Financial. (We all have these, although next semester I suspect I'll have to add another category: career. That feels wildly vomit inducing and I hate the idea, but there's only so much a girl can do to keep herself from getting a job).

Let's talk about my goals! 

1. Academic: Finish Senior Fall with a 4.0 GPA (FOR THE SEMESTER).

2. Spiritual: Start going to adult Sunday School and doing one other church thing per week at school.

3. Physical: 3 workout plan every week.

4. Emotional: actual willingness to change when it comes to therapy/cousnseling/etc.

5. Financial: stop obsessing over money.