rejection of the Story

{via pinterest}

there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you :: maya angelou 

i haven't started a blog post with a quote in a long while. but this quote...mm, this one, i felt was all too appropriate for my soul-season right now. 

i have a lot of emails sitting in my inbox right now. one of them is one that has been sitting there since February of 2011. i can't bring myself to delete it, even though i really really really really want to, more than even i realize. 

it's my very first novel rejection letter.

frankly, it wasn't all that surprising. the publisher had asked for my first fifty pages of my {still} unfinished fantasy novel, and i had sent it along with a small shred of trepidation in my heart. and i heard back. they thought it was wonderful. they used words like "brilliant" and "beautiful imagery" and "radiant." 

but it just wasn't for them. 

and i cried. it was the strangest most painful compliment i'd ever received. it was as though they were saying :: your work is good, great even. it's just not good enough. 

i never finished the novel. it's still sitting in my WORD file, completely untouched since that rejection letter arrived in my inbox more than two years ago. 

part of me wonders if it's because i needed to let it die, like a stone-pile monument to the moment i realized that i was officially a rejected writer {rejected as in, a right of passage to have your words turned down}. but then, maybe it was because i got scared. maybe the idea of a monument, a reminder, was romantic in a strange sort of way, and i was okay with leaving it like that instead of facing that fact that rejection sucks and i wasn't looking forward to dealing with it ever again. 

which, as a writer, is laughable. 

which, as a human, is laughable. 

rejection comes, like brutal hammers or like shards of glass in your shoe. it's there, banging down your door, right in your face. it's there, whispering quiet doubts that borrow deep into your soul and lodge there, eating you up into nothing until your story shrivels away into broken twisted stems. 

no light, no air, no water :: the story dies. 

{via pinterest}

and so i'm writing again. it's September. there's a thousand things happening this month, so many challenges laid out on the road in front of me like Turkish Delight, tempting and covered in powdered sweetness. it's a luring concept to take them as excuses to just not write, to just let the story lay "one more day." 

but there's a table laid out before me, gleaming and right, brimming with love and light by the Hand of the Lion with enemies and rejection pressing at the edges. but He growls so low into my soul. 

courage, dearheart

I have known you long. 

and i dine for strength. and my laptop perches gently on His broad back. i write, and He leaps over the kingdom of darkness until we rest on a beach with the gently cresting waves giving me glimpses into His Country across the sea. and i dip my toes into the Light-Water. 

and the Story puts out leaves. 

{want to enter a community of Story, of grace, of Jesus, of growth? Jesus found me in story 101. are you ready to take the leap? you won't regret it.}

send it off // unafraid

{via pinterest}

i stand amazed in the presence 

of Jesus the Nazarene.

and wonder how He could love me

a sinner condemned unclean.

i've been singing these words all morning, my own private worship service.

see, i've been pouring over my old manuscripts in recent days, repeating to my husband over and over again my goal for this year. i will finish one of those novels, and i will get it printed in fine, smooth paper glory in a tidy stack and i will send it off.

send it off. three little words that can strike a lot of terror into my heart. because i've sent my work off before, eager and excited, only to be greeted with the stilted words of the form letter.

thank you for your interest, but...

and then two became three, and now little fingers pat my cheeks and big blue eyes meet mine all day every day. and spit-up covers first one clean blouse and then two and then i'm down to just my yoga pants and that last black tank-top, and bedtime comes exhausted with no writing done.

and i am left with more time to fear in the silence when he snores and she snuffles and the ceiling tiles number twenty-seven in the dim light from the softly murmuring television set.

there are times i press my hands to bathroom tile while the hot water pours down over my head and masks the tears as God and i share a private moment of anguish because His will is perfect, but oh, it is so hard sometimes to see the road less traveled becoming the one i'm called to take.

:: but oh, the glory.

{my little reader}
photo property of DramaticElegance

because i have so many hands on my shoulders, helping my arms reach upward when i get so very tired and all i want to do is toss the papers like confetti to the wind. and i have soft chubby fingers on my neck and little squeaks in my ears, and reassuring words of the man who pledged eternity to me, and there's soup on the stove and coffee in the pot.

so i'll take the leather bound book and i'll brainstorm while they play together on the floor. and i'll write.

because that's what this year was about. it was about release. letting go of what holds me back, standing strong on what He said and living life free without fear.

send it off, daughter.
let Me show what I can do.

and under my breath, in the silence, i'll stop counting ceiling tiles and chant like a warrior instead

oh, how marvelous
oh, how wonderful
and my song shall ever be...

S'ensuivre (Follow)

I know I've already posted today. Maybe I need to break this habit of posting more than once a day.

But in all honesty, this topic has been brewing in my mind for quite some time now. And after reading today's post on Jocee's blog, my heart's whisperings have been confirmed.

Blogging is not a popularity contest.

I don't know when the focus shifted from beautiful words and stunning photography...just enough to make you catch your breath and really thing...to the pursuit of comments and high follower counts.

It has stopped becoming a place of elegance, of soul and depth.

It's become high school all over again.

The ones with the most followers are the ones to know, if you're lucky enough for them to cast your gaze over you.

Please understand --  I know I'm generalizing a bit here, as there are so many of you who have the most beautiful hearts that only amplifies your popularity.

I'm not saying that having hundreds of  followers or a high view count is a bad thing. Not at all. It's a very nice thing, I will admit.

But this is my point.

Blogging is not a contest. 

It's not a war to be won, or a status symbol to be proclaimed. 

50 followers or 5,000. 

Since when did it start to matter so much? 

I won't lie and say that it doesn't feel amazing when I see my follower list increasing, or when I read more and more comments flooding a certain post...or that it doesn't sting when my numbers go down, or my page views decrease. 

But I don't understand why. 

I just want to write. I just want to sing. I just want to paint my watercoloured poetry across this tiny corner of canvas I've been given. 

...since when did that become not enough? 

It's about light. 

It's about words.

It's about friendship.

It's about Him. 

Be my friend or don't. Follow me or don't. Read my blog or don't. It's starting not to matter anymore.

But I will be your friend.

Regardless. 

Blogginista

"A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely un-happen." ~Edward de Bono

I never set out to be a blogger.

Or maybe I did.

I'm still honestly not sure.

Like I've said in previous posts, this blog is actually the third in a string of online attempts to start some sort of place in which to ramble, think, and process my life...

...not counting my now ancient and long-untouched Xanga and Myspace pages...and yes, I did just date myself and make myself feel incredibly old for almost 21, but that's beside the point.

I never wanted to be one of those bloggers...those that penned their every waking movement and each step they took into an online play-by-play. The same goes for my Facebook...breakfast food choices or private boy-girl-best friend-off and on again drama are simply not topics for public display.

I was only going to post a few mental thoughts, maybe a paper napkin poem or two...maybe I'd post, maybe I wouldn't. Maybe I would share this place with my friends, or I might just keep it to myself forever.

...whoops.

I seem to have accidentally become a blogginista.

I have the sweetest and most precious of friends that I have never met, and yet seem to know me so well.

I have fallen prey to faithfully reading "famous blogs," such as Aspire, Of Horsefeathers, and (life is too short not to) wear red shoes, marveling at their following and longing to be like them one day.

I've started carrying my laptop everywhere, and caught myself overwhelmed with excitement..."I have to blog that!"

I've fallen in love with my corner of the internet.

I draw my heart on my sleeve, and write my dreams up and down my arms.

I'm not writing down every little moment.

But this dramatically elegant gypsy is making her own memories.

Keystroke by keystroke.

Post by post.

Minute by minute.


As I felt the even tide / Deep in my shallow dreams.  / And then, when the empress run aground,  / And my eyes turned blue and green, / I heard a gorgeous sound, / And that's when it became a dream, / When the sky fell in, / When the hurricanes came for me, / I could finally crash again, / And that's how I became the sea. ~Owl City, How I Became the Sea

Soul

You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body. ~C.S. Lewis

I haven't posted for two days.

Yes, I know this goes against my plan to post every day in the month of February.

Honestly, though, I couldn't bring myself to post.

I just wasn't inspired.

And I couldn't force myself to write meaningless posts that didn't come from my heart just to fulfill a "goal."

Because, you see, when I write, I don't just scribble down random, trivial things for no reason.

I just can't bring myself to write like that.

Everything I write has a purpose.

I pour part of myself into everything I write.

I never understood writers who used their writing as a cover...

...a disguise to hide themselves from the world and remain anonymous.

Maybe it's my personality, but I am unable to separate myself from my writing.

I want those who read my blog to be as observers gazing through a picture window, gazing up at the stars and moon set in the black fabric of the night sky.

I want them not to see mere words -- black marks upon a page.

I want them to see into my heart.

I want them to see my soul.

I want them to see Him through me.

So read with caution, gentle reader...

...for what you see here is my heart.

So please, handle my soul with care.