for when you're the {literary} odd one out

it's hard when you feel like the odd one out, when you feel like you're surrounded by people all doing one thing, all focusing their energy into something that is the exact opposite of "your thing." right now, I'm surrounded by memoirs. I'm seeing book after book moving from the hands of my friends and fellow bloggers and landing on bookstore shelves.

and it's hard when I feel like the odd one out, standing in the corner with my dragons and my faeries and my portals made of water and wine and looking glasses and I wonder, what am I doing? really. what am I doing?

I've talked about this before. I've talked about being the blogger that hasn't written a book. I've talked about my resolution to write a book in 2014. both of these are edging their way into my soul again, but in a completely different way. see, my word for this year is precipice, this thing of standing on the edge of a cliff. everything's been shed, and now I'm free to jump. right? 

maybe not. 

because I'm the blogger who writes fiction. I'm the blogger that can't seem to make memoir come out right, the one that watches beautiful personal stories flow from the hands of the ones I love and call "friend" and "inspiration" and "brother" and "sister." and I'm the blogger who, up until today, was planning on giving up fiction entirely.

it's burned me, this thing of writing magic and make-believe and inventing worlds and people from the recesses of my mind. February was a hard month for me, a month of feeling more and more drained away from the fictional calling that I've felt since I was four years old. it left me feeling silly, fragile, like a little girl who watches the butterflies flit from flower to flower, gluing wings to her back and then nursing a broken leg from her plunge from the roof of the garage. 

I might have never taken a literal top-of-roof plunge. but my soul has done it and it landed in the flowerbed hard enough to crack. it made me want to quit, to hang up my fictional scarf and don the far more practical garb of non-fiction author. this is my vulnerable, somehow, more than writing accounts of my own life. I don't know how that works :: I would explain it, if I could. 

I have a tattoo on my leg, a quill pen and flowing words :: we are all stories in the end. and it's funny that I've wanted to quit with this thing of stories inked deep into my flesh. I'm starting to realize that maybe my stories aren't the ones that match the rest of the blogging set. maybe I need to start my own set with my own pieces. my stories could open wardrobe doors. 

I'm not quitting. I can't take credit for that, not even a little bit. it's because my husband has his own sweetly blunt way of telling his wife to write though the spastic ramblings on the other end of the phone. it's because my thinker best friend spent forty-five minutes on the phone talking me out of tearing out the pages and burning them. it's because my tribe rallied around me and breathed life back into my words. 

it's because the Lion is holding me mid-air with His breath. not falling, but flying. 

so yes, I'm still writing a book in 2014. I'm still rallying around my words, or at least, I'm trying. they're just not the same words as everyone else. I'm not standing in the corner alone with my dragons and my faeries and my portals. not anymore. 

I'm stepping out and extending my hand. 

hi. I'm a writer. I write fiction. 

when you haven't written a book

{photo by Jennifer Upton}

I'm the blogger than hasn't written a book.

it's funny, and then, it's not, because everywhere you look anymore, having a book with your name on the cover and your picture on the back is becoming the norm. at least, in my circles, it is. and it's damn intimidating.

it's hard to feel like a lioness when you're mewing and scratching at the door in your own head.

recently, I wrote for Preston Yancey about what women want from the church. my answer was voice, the chance to stand up and speak on par with all the other masculine heads that tower above me. and then i start to get a good look around me, and I start to think, well, maybe my voice doesn't count because it's never been between two covers. 

I am Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole with nothing to hold onto, finding myself flat on my face in a strange sort of Wonderland. I'm a flower with the wrong kind of petals, they whisper...or am I just imagining it because I'm too scared to admit that maybe I might fit in here after all?

I don't have an MD, but then, I'm not a doctor. I'm a healer with a satchel of words. I feel like a midwife in a world full of modern medicine. and it's not wrong, because there's a time and a place for those who have greater experience in other areas than me. but sometimes you just need that silence, the hands that wrap around your shoulders and whisper, breathe through this. I've got you. 

this is how I will {eventually} write my book. this is a vow to myself. it's a pledge that my words belong in hands, shared over coffee and firelight, breathed from one mouth to another.

I just hope that I'll eventually find my corner and admit to myself that I myself am breathed from the lips of Holiness, that every fibre of my being hums with the chorus of the Spirit-Song composed before the dawn of time.

I'm the blogger that hasn't written a book.

yet.

the first page :: havah

{via pinterest}

i've been reading a book.

it's not all that uncommon for me to be found reading a book, actually. i'm an avid reader as well as an author. can you be one without the other, really? can you write well without the example of fluttering pages and the comparison of knowing where one has gone before you, and soared?

i'm reading Havah. this volume gifted from the heart of a sister to my mailbox this week. and i cannot put it down.

Tosca Lee put pen to paper and wrote this book, her own heart's picture of the beginning and end through the eyes of the first Woman.

Havah. 

Life. 

Eve. 

and as i pour through these pages, overwhelmed with the beauty of the first portion, my heart swells. this connection to the Creator they feel, their bonding with the One who Spoke them to life...it makes me crave this same communion with Him. because the beauty is almost overwhelming to my soul.

and then the anvil drops. and i can see it coming in slow motion because i know the story and i know what's coming and i know, oh how i know what the cost will be, and i want to scream at her to stop and open her eyes because how could she not know?

but then comes a bite. and a second. and feminine hands outstretched toward husband's lips, and another bite. and with simple movements of lips and teeth and throats, their fate is sealed in darkness. but not just theirs -- ours. every last breath becomes thicker, harder, and every last heart is now blackened with sin.

but there is hope. there is Light.

for with darkness comes a glimmer of Hope. for with the disconnection from the Holy One comes a promise of reconnection.

you will bruise His heal 

but He will crush your head. 

even in anger, God knew. and God would not let His people, His newly-broken ones, go without a hope. do we forget this part of the story? we weep with horror and wail if only if only. 

{via pinterest}

but in a week, we celebrate that hope. 

the hope of all things new. 

for unto us a Child is born

unto us a Son is given

and the Government will be upon His shoulder

and His name shall be 
Wonderful Counseler, Mighty God, 
Everlasting Father

Prince of Peace.

and He came to save and live and walk and die as one of us, so that He might rend the curtain and let the Light in again. 

this is one of the pages in the Christmas story that we forget. the darkest of pages that we swiftly attempt to overturn in our hurry to get to the angels singing and the Child coming into virginal arms. but it's a big picture story, this thing of Jesus' coming. 

because even her name -- Havah -- it means Life. a promise from the beginning, a hope so sure as to not be shaken. 

and Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight

the clouds be rolled back as a scroll.

the trump shall resound and my Lord shall descend

praise the Lord, praise the Lord

oh, my soul.