Down the Rabbit Hole

Happy Wednesday!

July is officially almost over! I feel like this month went by super slowly, which has actually been kind of nice. I feel like this month went way better than June did, or any of the other months of this year so far, maybe because we got to start the month off with my brother's birthday and the Fourth of July. But I also just think... I finally got to this place with God where I've just handed it all over to Him and He's given me a lot of peace in everything that's going on. He's been doing a lot of work in me and speaking to me a lot this month and I feel like that's made July a whole lot better than any of the other months of 2020.

July Writing: This month I got into the habit of writing 1,000 words and editing two chapters of Emerald Phantom every day. I don't think I've ever been so rigid with goals like this before or so committed to them, but I think that's what I needed this month. Nothing else was going to get me to write or …

Happy Wednesday!

I've been thinking a lot about the fruits of the spirit and having peace lately. Mostly because I've needed peace a lot the past two weeks. Things have just felt really heavy and hard... I mean it's been like that for a while now, but for some reason, the past two or three weeks have felt even heavier and harder than it already was and I've found myself asking for peace a lot more, asking for peace daily because I haven't been feeling very peaceful lately.

Let me preface all this by saying that I do absolutely believe that God can give us peace. The minute we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior we have the Holy Spirit within us and the fruits of the spirit are planted within us. We can nourish them and they'll flourish within us, growing outwardly for the world to see. But I do think that God and the Spirit can give us peace even when we're in the most difficult and scariest moments of life. He blankets us in supernatural peace, the peace t…

Happy Wednesday! 
Did you know that Noah was a conspiracy theorist of his time? People thought he was crazy for building an Ark when there was no storm or rain or even a hint of a flood in sight! He suffered name calling, ridicule, shame and hatred because he was speaking out and following his Lord’s commands. I was reading through Hebrews the other day and under the section about faith Noah was there. In Hebrews there's an entire chapter - chapter 11 - called Faith in Action and the author lists one Old Testament character after another and their faith in God and what they did to put that faith into action. Near the top of that list is Noah. It says, "By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith." His faith in God was so great that he built an ark when God told him to as the rest of the world peered up at the sky, s…

Alright, so I had a very different post prepared for today. One about Jo March and writing. It was fun and insightful to write... but that's not what is needed this week. I want to share something a little more serious, a little more passionate.
Sunday evening I was talking to my mom about some of the things I've been feeling lately. How I've been feeling this cloud of doubt settle over me for a month or two now and how I couldn’t figure out why. I started to doubt my identity in Christ. I started to doubt whether or not I was one of God's children and for the life of me, I couldn't recall a single time God had moved in my life (which is insane because He has moved and worked so many times in my life). I couldn't remember a single time I felt the Holy Spirit. There were a few times I started to get a little nervous about the whole thing. I legitimately started to think maybe I've been kidding myself this whole time. That verse of how when Jesus returns, and …

This was an all of a sudden, spur of the moment thing. Defiant had been ready to be published for months, but I kept putting it off for some reason. Time just seemed to keep getting away from me. But on Monday, I felt this burst of I need to do something with this story. I love that story and Castian and Shia too much not to share it. I didn't want them just sitting on my laptop gathering dust.

I wrote Defiant in the middle of April - right in the middle of the height of all this Covid stuff. It was when I was feeling frustrated and angry, discouraged and stuck in my writing and maybe even a little hopeless. I remember praying to God for some sort of story, some sort of reprieve from the dry desert of creativity in my head and heart. Then I opened up Pinterest and saw this guy:

and was inspired to write. That was my Castian. His name came to me just like that. I sat down and I just started writing. Castian and Shia taught me how to let my characters make mistakes and live with th…

Happy Wednesday!

I've been thinking a lot about my writing lately and everything that goes along with that. My blog, my social media, and my newsletter all center around my writing and my author "brand." Brand is such a buzzword right now in the author community. I've heard it more and more throughout 2019 and going into this year. Everyone who wants to sell their books and become an author is all about making themselves a brand. I can't remember exactly who was talking about this, maybe it was Victoria Schwab and Dohnielle (I think that's how you spell her name?) on Victoria Schwab's No Write Way Instalive. But whether it was them or not, I listened to some author talk about how branding has evolved through the years. At first an author was known for the publishing house they published with. That was your brand. If you published with Disney Hyperion or HarperCollins, that was your brand. You were known as a HarperCollins author. And then there was a shif…