it smells like everything but smoke.

{via Unsplash}

2015 showed up without warning. One minute, it was the year of precipice -- the year of death and life, the year my book was born, the year my marriage passed the five year mark, the year our daughter turned two, the year we found out that we were adding a fourth member to our family.

The year that turned me inside out and rubbed salt on my skin.

And then I blinked. And 2015 arrived.

My year of burning. 

Every year, I pick a word. Or rather, the word picks me. It finds me in the snow, in the dark, between the clinking of dirty dishes and the noise that my vacuum makes when it sucks up a sock by mistake. It slips into my soul the way water slides around stones. It doesn't move them, it just makes itself at home in the spaces.

And this year of burning // it's already started. It started when I dared to speak the release date for the second book to my writing coach, and she smiled through Facebook chat and said,  HOLLA. Just like that, all in caps. From anyone else, it would have made me smile and I would have moved on. From her? It's a tattoo on my heart-walls.

Holla. You got this. You do this.

It started when our entire plan for birthing this second child was turned on its ear by a cowardly stranger, leaving me scrambling for plans B, C, and D...and maybe even E. It all went down between rushed footsteps to the bathroom and a smell-sensitive husband standing outside the bathroom door with a water bottle and a hairband and a soft apology. It happened in my weakest moments, leaving me feeling even weaker in the process.

2015, you're already burning shit away. And I mean that literally figuratively. All the crap, all the stuff that I came into this year carrying? It's burning away. And it stinks and it's making me gag and feel weak and empty in the moment. But then I feel lighter, better, when I walk away.

It's the kind of year where I stop apologizing for making metaphors out of morning-afternoon-evening-all-the-time sickness. It's the kind of year where I acknowledge mistakes and dig my hands in deeper until the mud creeps up to my elbows, the kind that smells fresh and earthy and full of growth potential.

I can't help but wrap my entire body around the story of the three men in the fire that turned into four, because Glory was made perfect in flames and they were never alone. And they came out without even the smell of smoke on them, because they were wrapped up in Lion's breath -- flame retardant from He who would eventually fight a path through hell all for my soul.

Burning is beautiful. Burning is deadly. I'm okay with both.

So basically, this is where I leave you. Or begin with you. I'm not entirely sure which is more appropriate, but both apply ::

2015 is a year of burning. Of birth. Of rings of fire, physical and mental and spiritual. I can anticipate the raw that will be in this place. Less censored, more jagged.

Less talking, more words.

And a hell of a lot more burning.

savoring the book {Portals of Water and Wine}

{photo by Emily + Joel}

you have the ability. I push you because I know you can. so go and do. you don't have an excuse. 

I was sixteen, perched in an uncomfortable metal folding chair, my too-heavy backpack leaning against my calves while Jane Austen nestled on the table in front of me. all the other students had left. it was just me and my Literature teacher, her black dress severe as a Bronte sister and her eyes piercing with knowledge.

you don't have an excuse. she tapped the paper in front of me, covered in scrawling red pen. rewrite this. I won't even grade this one. you can do better. so much better. 

and so I did. I wrote. I wrote papers until midnight the day they were due. I read books and underlined and highlighted sections and fiddled with weirdly thick paper from the Barnes and Noble "Classics" section.

I never stopped. even after school was long over and those books were tucked away into the first, and then the second, batch of moving boxes, I never stopped.

and then I wrote a book of my own.

Portals of Water and Wine

{you can find the paperback version here and Goodreads here}

:: :: :: 

Naya lives in chaos. Her family is shredded, with only bare threads of her long-dead mother and her absent father still lingering in her house. And then she hears the name -- Alonthiel -- spoken as a promise of freedom and escape, if only for one fleeting summer. 

And so she goes, hand in hand with her two best friends, allowing herself to slip into a new world of ancient origins, magical and sacred. 

Inside the gates of the hidden Fae city, Naya finds more than she could have ever dreamed. So much is waiting for her: magic, strength, and answers to the secrets kept from her since the death of her mother -- all lingering mere miles from her doorstep.

 But when a dark force threatens to raze her newfound home, leaving only rivers of blood in its wake, she must harness her fire -- or watch Alonthiel fall.

{photo by Emily + Joel}

:: :: :: 

it's been out for eleven days now. honestly, I've been buried in the swirl of book sales and the tummy-lurches of pregnancy's first trimester. that's part of the reason that I haven't shared about the book in these past days since release. 

the other reason? I've been carrying it all in my heart, savoring and treasuring it like Mary did as her growing Son changed her paradigm on a daily basis. 

I wrote a book. I never had any excuses. 

{all the photos in this post were taken at my release party. we were able to record the Google Hangout where I did a short reading/Q&A from the book, which you can watch for yourself right here.}

the synchronicity of birthing

{via pinterest

when I started 2014, He gave me a word :: precipice. and I knew it was a scary word, a big word, a word that held a lot of power and shivering potential. and it might not all be good. because weather high-up can be harsher than the weather close to the ground. when the word found its home inside me, I literally shook and sobbed and begged for another. because I knew :: big things, heavy things. and I was afraid.

I had no idea.

I lost another grandmother, the second in twelve months. upheaval became the name of the game. there was emotional turmoil, loss and brokenness in a community that I thought was solid ground. my family groaned under the weight of ache after broken-hearted ache.

and in the moments between the weeping, I wrote a book. words became sentences became paragraphs became pages became chapters because an entire volume. and yesterday, I finished it. officially. the proofing is done, the uploads are complete, the cover is the correct size. and then I clicked the button and ordered fifty copies. thirty-nine copies are already spoken for, which is overwhelming and more than I ever expected.

but on Friday, two days before, we got more news.

our family is growing. 

another tiny pair of feet are forming beneath my skin. 

and again comes the feelings of unworthiness, like last time. but this time, there is something more. there is something powerful that drowns out all the whispers of fears and cries of "too much too soon all at once." 

there is hope. there is a breath of restorative life. there is an echo of synchronicity that I've been waiting for...finally. it's been forever. 

this year, this precipice year, it has been a year of "He takes, blessed be. He takes, blessed be. oh, again, He takes. blessed be..." and the words have started to falter on my tongue, quivering as though I might not believe them as much as I did the first time. my lips ache from the wind-burn of being so extended on this precipice, and my fingers are bleeding from the grip against the stone.

and then I remember that He makes the stone crack. that death starts working backwards.

this year has been heavy. but now there is life. 

life on paper, words from my own soul escaping into the world. 

and life under skin, growing to be birthed into the world when the appointed time comes. 

abundant, He promised. 

life. 

the sufficiency in price tags

{photo via Unsplash}

I've reached the point, the rather terrifying reality, that people -- strangers and friends alike -- are going to be paying good, hard-earned money for my book.

I feel awkward even attempting to write this post. my guilt is irrational, silly even. and it all comes down to self-doubt. a mistrust in my own words.

the fact that my words are being brought down to dollars and cents makes me uncomfortable. mostly because I'm facing the weird reality that my words are actually worth people reaching into their wallets and pressing money into my palm. that the nine months I've spent pouring my soul into vowels and consonants and syllables and paragraphs are actually worthy of purchase.

:: it almost feels like I'm putting my soul on the market. 

people ask me all the time what this book is about. it's the first question that comes after the words "I wrote a book" leave my mouth. and my answers have been stumbling, faltering, mostly some excuse as to how it's "a faerie tale" and "I feel so silly." but recently, I've started channeling the way I feel about this book into my explanation.

so really, it comes down to this.

this story isn't about Faeries. well, it is, but not really. it's about people. it's about magic that IS them, that is an extension of who they are. and isn't that kinda deep, in a way? so what, it's not an existential theory. so what, it's fiction and fantasy. 

so what, maybe I want to be like J.K. Rowling when I grow up.

and you know something? people pay for J.K's books. she doesn't just drop them like manna from the skies. she presses those hefty volumes into hearts and whispers, "they cost money because I know they're worth every cent."

and my book isn't Harry Potter. because I'm not J.K. and my book isn't The Fault in Our Stars. because I'm no John Green.

but pricetags don't equal selling my soul. they mean that I'm putting value on myself, assigning value to my art and my words and my work.

and I can't help but lean heavy on the words Aslan spoke to a frightened boy-turned-king:

"if you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been proof that you were not.” 

{I'm going to live in Aslan's Country. where He makes me sufficient}.