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.}

because I wrote a book. a real one.

in 2014, I made a resolution -- the kind you make with the chime of a clean slate right in front of you over lifted glasses of champagne. I resolved to write a book.

the words have been slow here, practically non-existent, I know. three posts in September, nothing so far in October. every phrase, every sylablle has been directed toward this growing little project inside my laptop. it's been a process, one that I didn't expect, one that nearly broke me.

there were little things :: a toddler who has made the transition from containable to toddler-unchained in the space of a month, a laptop that went from reliable to held-together-with-electrical-tape in a matter of twenty-four hours.

there were big things :: my grandmother's death which rocked me to the ground, sickness and frailty, exhaustion and a word well run dry.

but I found words, clusters at a time, like grapes hanging along the wall. I found love and support, a rallying of beloved friends and a husband that surrendered to thin-crust pizza and at-least-they-came-from-the-oven chicken nuggets from a bag tucked like a faithful friend into the freezer.

but oh, beloveds. I did it.

I wrote a book. and it's almost done. and I hit buttons and cried so many tears. and maybe this post should be deeper, richer, full of more things spiritual and scarred and holy ground and all of the things I've become known for in this space. but honestly, it was less beautiful and far more broken of a process. I can only call Him Lion because He has been roaring holy cheer-leading chants into my soul in the death of night.

there's been nights of whispering phrases on repeat from The Book of Common Prayer and grasping fervently to His mane with white knuckles. and writing. so much writing.

I wrote a book.

Portals of Water and Wine. 

and you can find it on Amazon for Kindle pre-order + add it on Goodreads. and then you can read all the posts from this journey + the book page is here for your perusal. because somehow, over the longest night, I became an author. and on December 1st, the book is released.

and I'm not promising a whole lot of words here in this space, but I will come back. I will. it comes back and forth, ebb and flow.

because I am an author. and I wrote a book.

I'm no John Green.

as you might have gathered, I'm writing a book. I've been quiet about it here for no other reason than because my words have been channeled in a different direction.

sometimes it feels more like I'm throwing words at a page hoping some will stick. even more often than that, I find myself sobbing my way through yet another John Green novel and wondering, why can't I write like this? 

{in case you're curious, comparison is a bitch. steer clear, loves}

I've been trying to figure this book out. I've spent hours pouring over the FAQs for indie publishing on Kindle. see, the big dream is to be picked up by a publisher. to have someone read your words and fall in love with the characters and the worlds you've invented. but that isn't the only road.

and so I'm in the process of becoming an indie author. just writing those words is terrifying. in the best possible way.

when you're a writer, terrifying is what you sign up for. when you're a writer, don't expect little things. because if you do, you will get little things. if you walk in with your eyes open and your fingers twisted in that half-prayer, half-nerves kind of way, you're going to get big things. 

even if they aren't the big things you imagined.

sometimes I sit back and I laugh at the very thought of what I've undertaken. I understand that moment when Gideon stared into the eyes of the Son of the Most High from the bottom of a fear-stained threshing-floor and said, me? but I'm no one. I'm the least of the least. 

except I'm not. I'm sitting at my computer, wielding words that have turned into holiness by mistake. this wild magical book, this tale of portals and spilled blood and triumph and a song that breathes magic back into drained-dry bodies. and I'm realizing more and more that I am writing the essential story.

I'm no John Green.

and that is the very best thing.

{this book is closer than you think. did you know it has a fan page on Facebook? find me there!}

the silent-growing green

today I cracked eggs into a bowl and blended them with milk and garlic powder and hand-cracked black pepper from my own little grinder. the jagged little lines on the edge of the broken eggshells are as tidy as I've been lately.

expected sharp edges.

today I climbed on my hands and knees under my art table set up kitty-corner from the washer and the drier and picked up little pieces of torn cloth and ripped paper and matchsticks and little boxes of laundry detergent. the mess is where I've been at lately.

it felt good to tidy it up.

:: ::

sometimes i think we get lost, as writers. we find a goal and pound toward it, head down and jaw set. at least, that's how it is for me.

and it's so easy to get lost in the words and the ever-rising word count and let my own story get lost completely in the haze. my fictional self is the kind that delves deeply into worlds made from scratch. and when I sink my fingers in, I let the story ooze all around and fill in all the spaces that aren't made from flesh and bone and blood and skin and family ties. that's how it works in my head.

other spaces become quieter. I used to think it was me dropping the ball, letting my blog fall slack. now I realize that it's an expectant hush.

a friend of mine asked the other day, is it okay if I still write books even if my blog has quieted down? the answers were resounding. do you. yes. oh yes. 

I wasn't the one that asked the original question. but I've been asking it for a long time. and I've been getting lost in this story of mine. I couldn't help but wonder, is this a bad thing? to turn my focus toward my book and my family and let my internet voice fade a little bit? 

there are writers that fill the internet, voice after voice after ringing chiming voice. they seem to be doing all the things, filling up pages upon pages of books and tending to their little wild ones and loving their spouses and writing blog posts on the regular.


but they aren't me, are they? and they aren't you.

:: ::

I talk about the wave a lot. that wave that separates Earth from Aslan's County, the one that crests and hides and then dips just enough for a sneak peak of what is to come. and sometimes I feel like I'm surfing that glorious wave. I can taste the salt.

I'm writing my book. still plodding on, adding pages and paragraphs, watching the word-count go up and feeling the excited prickle as things fall into place in the story that my dreams wove and my mind is baking from scratch like a new muffin recipe. I have no idea how it's going to turn out in the end. but I know that I can bake, and I know that it smells amazing.

so I'm on that wave. and yes, this place has fallen quiet, waiting in eagerness for the next wave to come. there are nights I sit in the darkness of my house at my desk with my candle flickering and the aroma of incense filling my nose as I compose just one more set of a thousand words. and I'm basking in the holy ground that is this particular kind of creation.

:: ::

today I went outside in my bare feet with grass between my toes to scrape away dead leaves and sticks and growing maple seed trees away from the roots of my hearty little rose bush.

it felt good to see the silent-growing green.

and that's where I'm at right now. I'm cresting a wave and catching just a glimpse of what lies on the other side. I'm feeling Holy Ground at my feet and my sides and my back. it's glorious, loves. and it's so frightening and so new and there are days when I cry a lot and swear that I cannot do this.

but then I get back up and I feel that salt water splash in my face. and I know. this is my place. this is my calling, where the God who sees me has shifted Heaven and Earth to place me. He shed precious crimson blood to dye a thread to hang in this window.

here is where I want you. 
come dwell here. come write here.
with Me. 

keep your eyes open for the silent-growing green.

the theft of words

you want the truth? I forgot about plagiarism.

I'm not in high school or college anymore. the word stopped being something I heard all the time. but somehow, it was one of those things that slipped away from me.

plagiarism is one of those things that almost seems surreal. it's the concept of taking the work of someone else and putting it out into the world under your name. in the literary world, it's the taking of words. someone else's words, breathed from their spirit, and putting your name on them.

it's theft.

and then it happened today, right in front of my nose. a post made its way around the internet, a good post, one that felt familiar but it felt good also. I shared it, so did others. we commented and ooh'd and ahh'd and tweeted the link to our corner of the internet. and then today, we understood why it felt so familiar.

{photo by Jennifer Upton}

someone else had written it, long before it made its way to this new space. the words we were sharing, they didn't belong to this new voice. they were taken. stolen.

it makes me feel like I'm watching The Little Mermaid. a voice stolen, pulled from a throat and swallowed down into someone else's body. it's a deeply personal destruction. if you take someone's television or their wallet, you're taking a piece of earth. something physical, something replaceable.

when you take someone else's words, you're taking a piece of spirit, a piece of themselves. sometimes, it's not replaceable. the words can be repeated, but there is something deeper taken. it's a guttural, visceral violation.

i don't understand why it's ever done.

****

there's a big lie out there, one that seems to slip in among the writers like poison gas that can kill us while we are completely unaware. it's the lie that you don't have words. it's the lie that you have no story, that you have nothing to say of worth. it's the lie that your words don't exist.

but there's something we've forgotten. there was a Voice in the beginning, speaking words over empty space and watching light and earth and sea and sky and plants and creatures appear from the void. simply through words. His words. His song.

and then, on the sixth day, there came more words: come and let Us make man in Our own image. hands and words joined together, art of a whole different sort began. He spoke, and there was Life.

do you know what that means? do you understand?

{photo by Jennifer Upton}

you are made of words. 

your skin. your soul. your wild parts, your sacred parts, your everyday parts. it's all words. they're waiting, lingering just beneath the surface. you have your own words.

you don't need someone else's words to make you a writer. 

you have a story. it's pulsing beneath the surface. you have thoughts, points, valid observations about the world around you. you have a voice. and maybe it's a little rusty from lack of use. maybe it's a little skittish because of the way you were treated. maybe it's a little soft because you weren't taught how to raise it up.

but it's there.

you don't need someone else's words to make you a writer because you already have your own.

because you already are your own. 

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.

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.}