Dinking Around With Wordpress

Today I spent the afternoon dinking around over at Wordpress, trying out various themes, seeing if I could upload my header photo. Wordpress is cool in that it has so many options for themes. Maybe too many, because I don't want to spend months on this. And there is much for me to figure out and do.

But anyway, I've got the beginnings. If you are interested in seeing my very much under construction new blog and website you can go to www.karenhancock.wordpress.com and have a look. I have uploaded the header photo, played with the color of the text, made a start on the About page. I've also been over to Feedblitz to see about transferring the old blog's subscribers to the new one. I think I'll have to open a new account for the new blog and then import the existing subscribers. Or do I export them from the old account? Still need to do more reading.

Also, I'm almost caught up on my reader letters now and good thing since responses on The Enclave are starting to come in. They continue to be good. More than good, actually, and from the things people are seeing in the story and getting out of it I know that God really was at work in it. I might share some of those tomorrow.

It's Beginning...

Last week I received my hot off the press copy of The Enclave. That was something of a thrill and a bemusement. It's finally book. After all that... it's finally done and in print. After all those months when it seemed as if I would never reach the end. Cool.

This last Monday, I got my box of author's copies, and on Tuesday, I got the first word back from one of my "influencers" who had just received her copy. She could hardly wait to start reading it. Today came more emails from those who had gotten their books. More excitement and enthusiasm. And all the while I can't help but wonder if all their anticipation will be rewarded with a satisfying reading experience? I have no idea one way or the other.

My dear friend Kelli says she cannot foresee being disappointed. Others have offered similar assurances. I can only sit back and wait to see what the Lord has done in all this. And what He will continue to do, though whatever it is, I know it will be for my highest and best.

The Enclave - A Review

The Enclave received its first review on Monday, from Publisher's Weekly. This is a big deal, I guess. I'm not exactly sure why, because I don't think many readers read Publisher's Weekly, or PW as it's known. But I guess booksellers do and reviewers and such, so if your book gets reviewed -- well or poorly -- it's regarded as a good thing. Arena's mostly favorable review in PW prompted Bethany House to ask if I had any more books in the works and led to them buying the Legends of the Guardian King series before Arena itself had ever even released to the general public.

The Enclave's review, alas, was mostly negative, as you can see:

The Enclave Karen Hancock. Bethany House, $14.99 paper (400p) ISBN 978-0-7642-0328-2

Hancock has cleaned up at the Christy Awards for excellence in Christian fiction with four previous visionary novels (most recently, Shadow over Kiriath), but this one falls short. Researcher Lacey McHenry has a lowly position at the cutting edge Kendall-Jakes Longevity Institute, where a peculiar intruder sets off a complex chain of events that draws together McHenry and researcher Cameron Reinhardt— a man with a powder keg of a past—as the two try to solve the riddles that keep cropping up in their workplace. Hancock has a plot so complicated that a lot of elements are unsatisfactorily resolved or are simple red herrings: Lacey’s abusive ex-husband, a host of intriguing but underdeveloped secondary characters, military action in Afghanistan that is part of Reinhardt’s past. Narrative energy instead goes to didacticism: Reinhardt, an evangelical Christian, argues with his fellow scientists about evolution in an episode that’s more polemic than dramatic. Visionary fiction is a narrow niche, and the Christian biblical literalism driving key action in the plot won’t do much to enlarge the audience. (July)"

I had to look up "didacticism" and "polemic." Though I had a general idea what they meant, I wasn't sure in the specific. Didacticism means "the instructional quality of something, such as a piece of writing," which I'm not sure is a bad thing, really. Not that I ever sit down intending to instruct my readers. I mostly try to express the thoughts of my characters as they come to me...

Polemic means "containing or expressing passionate and strongly worded argument against or in favor of somebody or something." Its usage in the review I found simply odd, since the only people who were fired up in that relatively brief scene between Reinhardt and his fellow scientists, were the fellow scientists. Reinhardt was nervous and distracted... So I'm not sure where that comment is coming from.

But then the PW reviewer of Arena worried that the book's "many rapes" and "occasional stomach turning descriptions" (one, which was provided there in the review) were going to put off Christian readers. It took me some time to figure out they meant the rapes of secondary characters which happened offstage, far from the protagonist in place and time...

I hesitated in posting this. What if it makes readers of my blog leery of reading the book? At the same time, I'm kind of amazed at how much it's not bothering me. It has, however, prompted a couple of lines of thought, which I'll pursue tomorrow and next week.

That last line about "the Christian biblical literalism driving key action in the plot" not building the audience for visionary fiction (or, assumedly, for The Enclave) was of particular interest, especially after I looked up "Biblical Literalism." But more on that tomorrow.

~~~

Fossil Hunter

It's been a year since I've read a book. Actually more than a year if you're talking about a book I've actually been able to finish. Last June, I started reading Fossil Hunter by John B. Olson, a book which was released a year ago April. Before I could finish it, though, I got the editor's response on The Enclave and had to stop reading to focus on the rewrite... which, as anyone who reads this blog knows, took me a LOT longer than I'd anticipated.

But, having finished that last week, one of the first things I did was pick up Fossil Hunter again. It had been so long, I had to start over, which was fine since I'd pretty much forgotten what I'd read previously. This time I was able to sit down and much read it more or less straight through. What a pleasure to be able to do that! What a difference it makes in the coherence of a story!

From the back cover :

In the desolate Iraqi desert, a lone shepherd stumbles across a whale fossil. Initial analysis indicates that it could be a new species -- a discovery that might shed light on the evolution debate.

Paleontologist Dr. Katie James is asked to lead an expedition to recover the rest of the fossil before her archrival, Nick Murad, can find it first.

But while she's there, Katie also uncovers the unexpected -- a human fossil so controversial she's forced to collaborate with Nick to analyze the find before it can be destroyed by a fundamentalist faction of the Iraqi government. Their initial results fly in the face of current scientific theory, and it seems the whole world turns against them,including those they thought they could trust.

Then the fossil disappears, sending Nick and Katie on a chase that could cost them their reputations, their careers -- even their lives.

I enjoyed it! It was an easy read, and I think I like stories about groveling around in the desert. Dirt, heat, thirst... fossils... And of course the debate regarding evolution versus intelligent design versus creationism has long been a subject of high interest for me.

And while I don't agree with the evolutionary stance of his protagonist ("directed evolution" is the term, I think) the various discussions he presented were quite thought provoking. So much so that I've decided to do a few posts out of the wealth of thoughts I wrote down. (Okay, and because The Enclave also deals with this debate, albeit peripherally.) Tomorrow I'll post about my background with regard to evolution, and next week I'll set down some of the observations, agreements and objections I had while reading. At least... that's the plan...

~~

To Live in Him

It's Friday. I spent Tuesday resting, Wednesday and Thursday morning working on those Media Interview questions and answers, in case some print or broadcast journalist might want to interview me. Ahem (even after all this time, that still makes me want to laugh.) Anyway, I tried to make them a little more, um, interesting than in the past. I put in stuff about science as religion, evolution, Nephilim, and the person who asked for the Q&A's was happy.

I also heard from my editor by phone on Thursday -- she was working on the galleys which she'd received Wednesday, along with the proofreader's input (there were two that I know of) and expected to have the whole thing sent off to the typesetters by quitting time yesterday (Thursday). So. It's really and truly out of my hair.

And from the proofreaders, we have the first two responses from people who have read the whole manuscript straight through and for the first time. The first said she loved the story, the second said, "Another great Karen Hancock story." I'm thrilled. Delighted.

Despite all the times it was so hopeless and blank, all the deadline extensions, I trusted God to see it done and He did it. It seems to still be on schedule for the July release and for the end cap merchandising plan they have for it. So, all is well.

Of course He did it in the nick of time. I think He likes doing things that way. I think He likes drama and stories, likes bringing things to the screaming edge because it's more exciting that way. We have to trust Him. The angels get to wonder what's going to happen. And well, we are part of a a theatron (I Co 4:9) a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men. So it only makes sense He'd be good at the story-telling and drama part.

I liked the lessons we got last night, not exactly on that but relating. How when everything seems to be going wrong, and I have no idea what God's doing in my life, when nothing makes sense, it's then that I have the opportunity to trust in His character and nature. Trust in the fact that He's sovereign and all His decisions and choices for my life are perfect. The things He's allowed and is doing, are the right things for me.

And the key is, that's as far as I need to go. I don't need to figure out how they are right. In time, I can be confident I'll see that. I don't need to try to figure out what He is doing, or even what He wants me to learn. Because what He really wants me to learn is to focus on Him. To see and trust Him. Which is to say believe and live in, think in what and who He says He is. That's all. That's it. To live in who He is.

Sovereign. Righteous. Just. Wise. Full of Grace.

Full of compasson.

Full of mercy. Toward me.

Because if I'm truly seeing Him and living/thinking in who He is, I won't care about any of the other things. I'll know He has everything in hand and whatever I receive from my loving Father, it is ultimately grace and blessing .

~~~

It's Off!

Today, at 2:43pm I sent off the completed galleys of The Enclave to Bethany House. Now I really am done with it. Hooray! Hallelujah! The book that seemed as if it would never get finished is finished.

It would be nice to just kick back and take a day or two to do nothing but... I have to clean my house for one, and work on media interview questions and answers for another. 7 to 10 of them. Due Wednesday. I know I'm supposed to think of questions that will generate answers that provide interesting aspects about the book to readers/listeners so they can decide if they might like to read it. But...for some reason I have a hard time with that.

There are some writers who, when finished with a book think -- and say -- it's the best book they've ever written. There are others, like me, who have no clue. If anything, every book I write seems like the worst book I've ever written. I don't trust those feelings because I know they're inaccurate, but at this point all I can think of are the things that seem wrong, or not good enough, or that people are going to laugh at or be bored by...

Just goes to show how utterly unreliable emotions are. It will take me some time to see just what has been done, but we are on such a time line, I'm not sure I'll have enough distance to really evaluate for months. I seem to remember too much too easily, so it takes a long time for some writing of mine to "cool" enough I can't recall all the options and all the supposed problems.

Right now, I'm just tired. And hoping to sleep in tomorrow.

~~~

Rest?

Did I say something about rest in my last post? "Now I can rest?" [Insert long riff of hysterical laughter here] That was almost exactly three weeks ago. The day after posting the last entry, I did rest. And also prepared to travel to Oregon on the next day (Thursday) for the Oregon Bible Conference in Salem, Oregon.

Thursday we were up early and off to Portland by air, then Salem by land. Lots of rainy weather, a trip to the beach, a feast of fellowshipping and talking with royal family, and some amazing, life changing doctrinal teaching about the Christian Stand when it comes to relationships. I got answers and validation for things I'd been uncertainly applying over the last few years... More on that later.

After five days of all kinds of stimulating, encouraging and substantive conversations about the Christian life and application of doctrine, as well as getting to spend about three hours a day concentrating on the teaching of God's word, we returned home. Tuesday, Mar 31, I was wasted. A shell. All my words used up. I did get the laundry done. And started juicing and zesting lemons to freeze before they all go bad.

Thursday, April 2, I was beginning to get back to normal. That evening, at 7pm, the galleys of The Enclave were delivered to my door. The book turned out to be about 500 pages long, and they gave me 10 days to go through it. Which is why there have been no blog posts since March 24. Everything since the trip has been consumed in working through the galleys.

Galleys are like page proofs of what the book will look like in final form, only on separate 8 1/2 x 11 pages. It's my last chance to make any changes, and in this case was my first chance to actually read through the entire book from start to finish and see what was there. I'm pretty pleased with it.

I opened this post with a picture of the entire stack. Here's what one of the pages looks like:

This one has some of my corrections on it, and shows the little post-it tabs I use to mark places that need extra thinking.

In order to get them back by the deadline they gave me, I'd have to pack the whole thing up tomorrow morning and send it off. Alas...

Does this sound at all familiar? Here I am again, not done, not able to make the deadline. In this case, I pretty much have to get it there by Thursday, so I may upgrade the return postage envelope from second day air to overnight or something. Actually I have the whole thing done except for a series of flashbacks that I've scattered throughout the story. There are some inconsistencies and contradictions in them that I need to deal with, and some of those pesky questions that drive me bats that must be answered.

But after all this time, I figure I will be a pretty big idiot if I haven't learned to just trust the Lord to do what He's going to do in His timing. It would be awfully nice though if things could clarify tomorrow and I could get this thing out of my house before Wednesday! Especially since I am soooo very close to being completely finished.

~~

Now I Can Rest

Today I finished up the last of the questions and problems my editor had for the last five chapters, and when I turned the last rewrite in, and received her positive response, that was the first time I really felt like I was done. (Yes, that is the complete manuscript in the oversized notebook above. 51 chapters, single-sided, double-spaced manuscript pages.)

She seemed to be pleased with it and asked what I thought. I have no idea. But when I consider the fact that I have yet to read the whole thing through at one time, and that each scene or chapter was interrupted by three days of trying to figure out what comes next, what of all the options I had that I was going to use, choosing some of those options and writing a scene, then changing my mind and writing different options, finally getting something that seemed to go right, and then repeating the process all over again... well, it doesn't surprise me that I'm not really sure what is there.

I know that I was excited about the ending that developed. Not one I'd planned or even expected. (Actually there, was no plan, if you'll recall... I was taking things one day at a time, waiting for the Lord to show me.

It's a little longer than they wanted. Here's another shot of it. I think if I had been seriously considering the 120,000 words Bethany House would have been happier with, I shouldn't have proposed the story be told from three different viewpoints. Maybe for the next book (I still have one more contracted) I'll try just one pov (point of view) character and see if I can keep it closer to that word count.

And then tonight, Bible class was all about the Sabbath, resting after six days of work in the age of Israel, and resting moment by moment in the age of the Church. It seemed weirdly appropriate.

I've Turned it In

Hooray! Yesterday (Thursday) at 2:53pm I sent Bethany House my last installment (chapters 47 - 51) of the final draft of The Enclave. I'm done! It ended up being 51 chapters long, but many of them are short chapters. (Still, I know it was much longer than BHP wanted).

I cannot believe how challenging it was to write this. Challenging in itself, but also challenging to my faith and my peace of mind. Every new chapter, every new scene, it seemed, would begin with a dark stage, a couple of unrelated elements, and sometimes a general idea of where things needed to be at the end, but not always. As one of my journal entries says, "I have a shoe, a stone and a spoon. Now how do I fit all those together?"

Because that's how it started, there was almost always a day or two worth of waiting at the outset, where I just could not get anything to happen. No matter what I did. After awhile I realized that sitting around waiting is kind of boring... Well, I could've gone off and done other things, but I don't believe that's what I was supposed to do, because that inevitably leads to me getting too distracted and distanced from the work. I don't routinely get ideas in the midst of doing something else. I just think of more things to do besides write.

Anyway, it's been a long march of every day having to completely trust the Lord for whatever He was going to provide. When I got to the blank spots, it would be, "What should I do here?" and then, "What specifically should I do with myself... sit? nonstop? outline? do housework?" And the answers were always different. There was a never a pattern that consistently produced the scene, the dialogue, the words. Sometimes a nonstop would do it. Other times, I'd be working on a birthday card and then sometime later, with no real awareness of it happening, I'd be in writing. Sometimes it would just be a matter of reading the rough sketches I'd set down. Or writing down questions about the material on index cards and noting whatever options as answers came to me. Or lying in bed staring at the ceiling.

Whatever it was, it wasn't consistent and I began to understand that God was indeed releasing the story in His time and in His ways. We've been learning in class about not making rules, not trying to come up with our little formula for the Christian life and then running off to execute it, but to stay in a moment by moment, intimate and real reliance on the Lord's direction. And to accept whatever He portioned out with peace and contentment.

That was really a challenge. Especially at the end. I would look at the material I had left and think, "Oh, yeah, now I see where we're going. I should be able to do this in a couple of days. And then I'd tell my editor. And as soon as I went to do it, there'd be that silent, empty stage again. Another day of doing nothing. Even yesterday. I'd thought last Friday that I'd have everything done by Sunday night the 15th. Then spent the weekend stuck. That broke and I thought okay, I'll still get it done by Tuesday. Then Wednesday. Then Thursday morning. I'll get it sent in early Thursday morning... then by 10am, then noon... at the very latest 1pm. Every time I came up with a time I wanted it to get done by, there'd be something else I needed to do, or something else I couldn't figure out, and there I'd be. Whatever I'd written just falling off a cliff and no idea what to do next.

I asked Him for those times. Asked Him to let me be finished by 10 and noon and so forth. And He said no. I kept trying to control it, kept setting deadlines for myself, then feeling tense because I knew on some level I wasn't going to make them, then confronted the fact that once again I had to relax in His timing and really trust Him to deliver. Whether I agreed with that timing or not.

The way I could tell that I wasn't doing that was that I would begin to feel tense. My thinking seemed fine, but emotionally I would start to slowly and subtly get out of whack. Then I wouldn't want to write, and would have to step back and look at what I was doing, and confess that and once again remind myself that He works all things together to those who love God, and that He will accomplish all His will, and He's faithful... I really started to learn the value of focusing not on the details of the problem but on Him. Focus on the problem, what it is, what needs to be done, how it can be solved... tension. Focus on Him, and forget about all that... peace.

So it's done. And now I can sorta have my life back for a couple of weeks (the galleys, I hear, will be coming the first week in April) maybe read a book, watch a movie, clean my house, wash my car, play with Quigley (who's become a fantastic dog, by the way, but more on him in a later post)... try to answer my terribly backed up reader mail. Rest. Two weeks will go by in a flash.

But then so will the two weeks after I get the galleys...

Hooray! I'm done!

Another Enclave

A reader just emailed to ask if I had heard of a book called Enclave by Kit Reed. No. Not at all. So I googled it.

It's put out by Tor, released February 3 of this year. As in last month.

Jeff VanderMeer of the Amazon blog Omnivoracious, says, "Called 'One of our brightest cultural commentators' by Publishers Weekly, Kit Reed has a new novel out called Enclave. Others include Thinner Than Thou, which won an ALA Alex award. Often anthologized, her short stories appear in venues ranging from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov's SF and Omni to The Yale Review, The Kenyon Review and The Norton Anthology of American Literature. A Guggenheim fellow and the first American recipient of a five-year literary grant from the Abraham Woursell Foundation, she is Resident Writer at Wesleyan University."

According to the Publisher's Weekly review, the book is about an ex marine who plans "to make millions while protecting children from the self-destructing modern world. He turns an old Mediterranean monastery into a combined impenetrable fortress and school, and enrolls 100 filthy-rich children," most of whom are trouble makers. Isolated from the rest of the world, they are "fed only canned news stories about wars and natural disasters." And then things go wrong...

Vaguely similar to my book, which is called The Enclave (as opposed to just Enclave), both of which involve a society closed off from the world. Which I suppose is inevitable given the shared title and the fact that enclave means, well, "a distinct territorial, cultural, or social unit enclosed within or as if within foreign territory ". (thanks to Merriam-Webster for that definition)

What's cool is that since I have had all these deadline problems, The Enclave isn't going to release until July, so I think that's a good thing. Plus being part of the Christian Book Publishing industry as opposed to the secular literary/science fiction/fantasy industry (-- Oops. I mean, "general market" literary/sf... industry) sets them apart as well. But still, what a strange thing to discover in the final week of finishing up the book (or at least I hope it's the final week) that another with almost the same title has just been released...

Another Update

Well, now that I've no doubt lost most of the people who used to read my blog, back when I was actually posting something to read, it looks like I might (stress on the future, uncertain verb form there) be getting back to things pretty soon.

Last Wednesday I turned in chapters 35 - 43 of The Enclave just as my editor was finishing up her line edit on chapters 1 - 34. I have about six or seven (maybe eight... we'll see) to go. I would really, really, really, like to get them done by next Wednesday, but that is probably wishful thinking. And, as I've said before, every time I set down some predicted Time of Completion. It's wrong. Remember that quote of Douglas Adams's I put up awhile back...?

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

Well, I feel like I'm on a airplane the way the whooshing as become so constant.

Still, the end is in sight. I think.

And now, back to work.

~~~

No, No and No

Well, I see again that I have let my blog posting languish. This is partly out of embarrassment, partly out of mental exhaustion.

No, I did not turn in the manuscript on the February 9, deadline, now some 10 days ago (really? Can it really already be 10 days? Alas...)

No, I did not turn in the 38 chapters of manuscript on the adjusted deadline of February 11. I turned in 34.

I did, however, assure my editor that I was confident that I would finish the manuscript by Mar 1. Ha. I am a slow learner. God has a plan here, and I don't have a clue what it is, but it sure doesn't seem to be "Help Karen meet her deadline." (I think it's something more along the lines of "Give Karen the opportunity to trust Me no matter what happens.") The very day after I turned in the 34 chapters, I went into blank mind mode. I could call it writer's block, but I don't think it is. Any more than the first 8 months of a pregnancy are "mother's block." Or maybe "baby's block". When the oranges are tiny and green early in the season is that "orange tree block"? No it's just a normal function of growth.

I have learned that in the cycle of cell division, by far the longest period of time is spent resting. Or at least, not dividing. Instead it is preparing to divide as it carries out its normal cellular functions, growing in size, reading its DNA, doing whatever it's supposed to be doing in the body. The time it actually spends in division is very brief.

So it is with me. In the creative process, I do spend more time thinking or even just being blank and trying to think than I do writing. Two days of nothing, trying to write, trying to think, trying to make something come, put two thoughts together, find the next portion... getting nowhere, getting distracted, getting frustrated and anxious when it starts to go on too long (although how I would know what "too long" is, is beyond me.). And then after all that, the next thing I know I find myself writing something, words are coming together to make sentences, I start seeing how the various elements can fit, this one here, that one there, this other one next... Sometimes within an hour it's all come out. But I can't force it. I have to wait for it.

So that's the process, and I'm getting used to it, and I know that I don't know what God's plan for my life looks like and that I have to accept His timing without complaint, frustration, anxiety... But...I wasn't expecting to have any more of those periods when I turned in the 34 chapters. So it was quite dismaying to promptly run into a 3-day incubation period. Then, having resolved that, to run into a 2 day incubation...

Right now, a week and a day after turning in the first portion of the manuscript I've got two chapters done and three close to done. And looking at what I have left, which is chaotic and incoherent (the living-color results of what happens when I just sit down and force myself to write) I suspect there are going to be a few more simmer periods before all that is done.

So, No, I no longer have confidence I will finish this thing by Mar 1. I have given up trying to predict. It will be done when God has decreed it to be done, and that's all I can do.

~~~

God's Sense of Humor?

This Wednesday I'm supposed to turn in to my editor all the chapters of The Enclave that I will have finished by that time. Last Thursday I told her I expected to have 38 chapters finished because I was very nearly there at that time. The very next day, as always happens when I make any sort of prediction with this book, I started working on chapter 31 -33, which are extremely mushy chapters and, as is also usual in this situation, found myself frozen and blank. Lost. Confused. Completely overwhelmed with puzzle pieces and ideas... all day.

Saturday our waterbed sprung a leak, but I refused to take ownership of that problem and left it to my husband to solve. Which he did. I continued to be frozen, lost in index cards, whiteboard circle-and-spoke outlines, scene and sequel models... and trying to keep my mind in the present and stay out of the future. Trying to fight my way through the jungle.

Today, after a wonderful Sunday morning lesson on how God puts us in difficult situations of suffering in order to break the power of the old man, (the flesh) in our lives, I came home and continued to be blank. I am waiting for God to enable me, to release the story; I'm praying for His help. And growing restive with His timing. But that, too, is part of breaking the power of the old man.

It's not our timing, it's His, and we have to be willing to fully trust Him even when it seems all wrong. Even when people tell you, you've got it all wrong and He's really trying to tell you that you've blown it by writing the wrong thing in the wrong way, and that's why there's all this delay... It's your fault. Your responsibility. Not His. And you need to do better!

But what about, "So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy." Ro 4:16

Or "For it is God who is at work in you both to will and to execute for His good pleasure." Phil 2:13

Or "For the Lord God helps me, therefore I am not disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint and I know that I shall not be ashamed."

Or "He makes all things meaningful in His time."

Or "'My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,' declares the Lord. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts...'"

"Cease striving and know that I am God... I will cry to God most High; to God who accomplishes all things for me.

"If there is any man who respects the Lord, He shall be shown the path he should choose..."

"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow, we shall go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.' Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow..."

So I claimed all those. And then, sometime after 5pm, the hopeless muddle began to organize itself. Where before I would consider the material and nothing would happen (or at least nothing that led anywhere), now words formed into sentences, and sentences into paragraphs, and they kept on like that, as step by step I moved through ch 31.

Which, when I account for the chapters I've split but not renumbered, is actually ch 34. I might be able to make it through 32 and 33 (i.e., 35 and 36) and maybe even 34 (37) by Wednesday. But not 38. And I can't help wondering if that might just be part of God's sense of humor...

~~

What's This?

A blog post! Where has the time gone? Well... starting late January 15 our 2009 Arizona Bible Conference unofficially began. It lasted until late Sunday, January 18th and was the best conference I've had yet. I was amazed by the way God orchestrated things, from the teaching, to the living examples of that teaching, to the challenges people wrestled with both from the teaching and from each other, to the interactions between them. It was truly like a living organism, the way people fell and rose again, and came and went, bringing challenge, inspiration, nourishment and encouragement, and carrying away the waste materials of old, wrong thinking, pain, bondage, condemnation and failure.

God told me through the classes and through nearly every person I spoke with that I have to stop trying to do things, stop trying to take control with this book. He will do it. He told me that I cannot make the deadline an idol to which I sacrifice my life and time and peace (and really, my relationship with Him) in hopes of satisfying it and not bringing its wrath down upon my head.

He told me that Jesus was late to the wedding at Cana, and when the people came to tell him about Jairus's daughter who was dying, he dawdled and thus missed His deadline, which was a true deadline: the girl died before He got there. Ah, but He's in the business of resurrecting the dead, and missing that deadline was part of the plan.

The lessons have continued since, and I have fought them. At least until the last few days. This all sounds so trite and superficial in light of what has happened. But for the longest time I have been so confused. How do I relax and let Him do it (speaking specifically of writing this book) and yet do the work? When I relax, I always think I get too relaxed and wander off into distraction. When I try to work, I get too wrapped up in it and start to try to take control.

There are many aspects involved in this whole situation. One of them is the fact that our sin nature doesn't just produce sin, it produces good. Good that is disgusting to God (as Isaiah 64:6 reminds us -- all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment). The trouble is, it doesn't seem disgusting to us. It seems good to the natural mind. It seems right. And sensible and professional.

And that's been part of my problem with this whole book and deadline thing. What God has been working on in me (not me working, I've given up) is not my sins and weaknesses, though they come out, but my strengths. My tendency toward human good. I want to fix things. I want to make that application. I see that I'm not supposed to care about the deadline or whatever, and now I want to make myself not care. I see that I'm supposed to do my work heartily and now I want to make myself do it (even though I may not be sure what "heartily" means and may not even stop to think I might not know -- or, maybe, can't know?). So part of what I've concluded in the last few weeks is that I just can't do it. Which is really ironic, given how many times I've told other people that we can't change ourselves. Oh, but I want to. So badly, do I want to.

I want the Life beyond Dreams. I want to be a winner. I don't want to be ashamed in heaven. I want to do what I'm supposed to do and to obey. And what I'm grappling with is the reality of how the old self can take those perfectly good and legitimate desires and warp them. Seize them for itself and go running off on a plan to make them happen. And it doesn't seem wrong or wicked at all. It seems very right and good and even doctrinal. Which, as I said, is often how human good seems to the natural mind.

The laughable thing about it all is that it's not very long before I've fallen into frustration, dismay, anger, anxiety, guilt, condemnation, etc, because I can't execute my plans. I told the Lord, "I don't know how to just let go and still do the work. I don't know how to wait and still be ready. If I start trying to make sure I'm taking every thought captive and sort out what doctrine to apply I end up tying myself in knots."

And He told me I don't need to know. He'll do it. I just need to relax.

He reminded me of One Day at a Time and Stay out of the Future. What I must consciously do is STOP thinking about anything related to the future. Focus on today. Focus on the work I'm doing today. Not the work I have yet to do, or the work I will do tomorrow, only the work I have to do today. And of that, really, only the next thing. Whatever is the next thing -- the next chapter, the next scene, the next paragraph. That's all I need to do right now. When that is, done, then I will focus on the next thing.

He reminded me to believe Him when He says He will be good to those who wait for Him, to the person who diligently seeks Him. (Lam 3:25) To rest in His Hands. The book is His production, not mine. When someone else is in charge of an operation, you don't have to think about the big picture, you only have to think about the task you've been assigned in it.

He reminded me that even if everything seems like it's wrong, it's not. Everything is actually right, because it's exactly as He has chosen it to be in eternity past, for His glory and the blessing and benefit of His creatures. Like me. Whatever happens, whatever comes in that looks like a disaster, a hindrance, a delay... it's okay. He's got it all in hand. He's decreed it to be.

He reminded me that when I'm confused or lost or tired, I can come to Him for answers, guidance and renewal. This may seem like a "DUH" point, but I lose sight of it sometimes when I'm deep in the mire of paragraphs and lines of dialogue and bits of scene setting and elements of world building that all need to be integrated somehow in a way that makes sense, moves the plot, is internally consistent, doesn't use too many words, and sounds good. I was formerly getting frustrated and overwhelmed and backing off. I still do that, but now, after a break, I go back and ask Him to show me. He has been.

As a result I now have, in finished form, the first 29 chapters of The Enclave. I don't know how many chapters there are going to be. Maybe 40. Maybe more. I told my editor that I didn't think I would finish it all by the 9th but that it would not be too long after it. Maybe a week. Maybe two. We're playing it by ear. And things are finally starting to get clearer. Not flow, necessarily, but it's gathering shape and substance and clarity, which in itself is motivating. It's hard to keep pushing yourself through a sea of mush...

Anyway, that's kind of where I've been for the last couple of weeks. And oddly, I've had no words for the blog. I wasn't even intending to write this one, but suddenly the Spirit moved. And here it is. How about that?

~~~

Perplexed...

...but not despairing.

Well, according my schedule based on time I have left to finish The Enclave, I needed to get three chapters completed a week. Last week I did indeed do three chapters. Unfortunately one of them I hadn't counted in my assessment of what I had left to do, so I really got only two chapters done.

This week, I ran into a series of severe time inconsistencies in the narrative I had no idea were there and set about fixing them. That's led to yet another recasting of events in chapters 15, 21 and 25. And to perhaps changing quite a bit of what's going to happen in ch 29, which is where I left off with the other plotline in this book of two parallel plots/worlds last week.

So. I don't think I'm going to meet my goal this week either. (What a shock! LOL) But that's okay because some very cool stuff has been happening spiritually. The last two messages (tonight and last night) from GBC were amazingly on target with what I was experiencing. Or, considering how often that happens, maybe not so amazing, but I guess it's not a bad thing to be continually surprised and delighted when God makes it so very clear He knows exactly what's going on not just in my life but in my head, and answers me.

Anyway, today I was thinking that it must really be my fault that I've had such problems progressing through this book. I just must be failing to exercise the proper self-discipline. I need to be more disciplined. As I was concluding this, I remembered there was a quote on the matter somewhere in one of my little books I gather such things. I went searching for it, but couldn't find it. Oh well, I must not have needed to read it.

Four hours later the message from the pulpit tonight said the exact opposite. It's not a lack on my part. It's God putting me into a situation where I'm not comfortable, where I'm not being successful, where I'm perplexed (and the definition of that word was so right on target it blew me away: "not to know what to do, not to know what to decide, not to have enough resources, to be embarrassed!").

God's the one who's releasing this story, and I've always known that. He's not doing it as fast as I'd like because it's a distressing situation. It's a pressure situation, a perplexing situation and those are the situations where He is really able to show us His love for us. It doesn't make sense from human perspective, because we don't show love for each other that way. But He knows what's best and the only way we're going to learn certain things, and the only way sometimes we're going to see His hand in a way that will really make an impression. That's usually a pressure situation. The one I'm involved in right now demands that I just keep going back to him again and again.

Today I likened the experience to chasing madly after a rabbit over hill and dale, down one street, then another and suddenly the rabbit leaps through a wall and disappears and you, chasing it, crash hard into the same wall and fall stunned in the street. That is literally about how fast a thought line, a plot line, a flow of words and thoughts can dry up on me. I'm following a promising sequence along, and suddenly hit a dead end. What would I do if I'd really slammed into a wall and lay there in the street, no idea whatsoever where the rabbit is now or what to do about it? I'd go to the Lord. What do I do now?

So I did. And a little later something else developed... I don't think I have quite managed to express what I'm trying to. I think I must still be processing it all.

But it was cool to be told this wasn't my fault. That everything that's involved in this situation is by His decree for my blessing and His glory.

"We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body... " 2 Co 4:8-10

And now, I shall go and ponder this further.

Yet Another Extension

A week ago Monday, on Dec 29, I chanced to look at a calendar, which I had consciously not been doing, and realized there was no way apart from a miracle that I was going to finish The Enclave by Jan 15. So I emailed my editor to see if she was in the office. She was. I explained that no matter what I tried, I couldn't get things to flow any faster than about 2 chapters a week, and sometimes 3. I figured I had loosely 18 chapters worth of material left to go through. At my past and present rate of progress, that would take me 9 more weeks. I could just bull my way through, I said, and let it be bad, illogical, inconsistent, etc. At least then it would be done and maybe no one but me would notice.

She said she wanted it to be the best story it could be and so has given me yet another extension for this book that will not end. Or maybe it's just that from the beginning I underestimated the amount of time I'd need to write it. Because I've been writing for 30 years, and during all that time 2 chapters a week is probably a good average rate for me. Anyway, bottom line she gave me 6 weeks because that worked out well for the schedule. It's now due February 9 and if I make that, it should slide right into their plans for a summer release.

And if I don't? Then I guess God has another plan.

~~

A Private Retreat

Well. I was supposed to go to the San Francisco Bible Conference last week, scheduled to leave Thursday and return today (Monday). I had my plane ticket, my hotel reservations, and had even gotten my suitcase out in preparation for packing. But Enclave had not been going well, and distractions just weren't ending. We had a birthday celebration for my mother on Tuesday night, during which Thanksgiving and Christmas were discussed. Maybe that triggered it.

Or maybe the Lord just used it. I don't know. Whatever the case, I was awakened at 4:15am Wednesday morning by a hot flash (not unusual) and was flooded with the sense that I should not go. That I needed to stay home and concentrate on the book.

Lately the Lord had been dealing with me on the matter of taking this part of His calling on my life more seriously. If you've been reading this blog for any lenght of time you may have noticed that I've been struggling to apply some of the principles I've been learning -- most notably the concept of rest. I have never been sure how to rest and at the same time do the work. Most problematic of course was that horrid deadline. Should I completely ignore it and just live my life like a normal person, doing whatever came up, writing as I could and let the Lord handle it? Well that was one way to maintain rest.

Sort of.

But over the last few weeks I think I was being shown something else. Not that I need the deadline, but that I have an unusual calling, one that seems to require solitude, and much time for contemplation. The sheer number of things that had crowded into my mind compromised my ability to concentrate on the word. And maybe I should be taking that work more seriously. Not to the point where I obsessed about the deadline, but where I started choosing for it over other things.

So there I was Wednesday morning, faced with the sudden conviction that I should stay home. Yes, it's a good thing to go to the conference and fellowship with the other attendees, to build them up, to encourage the pastor(s). I've done any number of them. I'd sacrificed time to work on the book just last August for one. Maybe it was time now to sacrifice time at the conference (for I absolutely love going to them) for the sake of the book.

It was one of those choices where both seem right, but you can only choose one. In the the end, talking it over with a friend, she pointed out that I was only seeking to do what God wanted me to do. Whatever I decided he would bless it, because the motivation was right.

I had already decided that I would go and work on the plane and in between lessons... so the whole idea of fellowshipping was already curtailed in my thinking. To go, to have to spend Wednesday preparing, then Thursday traveling... and how could I gather my material properly to work on it somewhere totally outside my comfort zone, as one of the pastors taught over the weekend? Not just out of my comfort zone, but on an old laptop I never use, with a different program, a flat keyboard, no printer. I wouldn't have my files, my papers...

So I decided to stay home, looking at it as a matter of caring for my own vineyard, which is a concept we've been repeatedly exposed to of late in our Bible classes. I canceled my flight (I love Southwest -- didn't lose any of the money, and have it for the next conference I need to fly to. Maybe Florida???) and my hotel reservations. Except for the one friend I talked it over with, and one other, I kept my decision secret, deciding to act as if I was out of town, still get the lessons, but beyond that devote all my time to writing.

Wow. That level of concentrated focus really made a difference. What I thought I would work on, I didn't. What I did, was very difficult. I became enmeshed in a dilemma of which of several scenes to put in what order, and what day should I start them on. Should I begin the narrative on Monday and just do a summary til I got to Wednesday, or should I start on WEdnesday. Should I start with Cam? Or Lacey?

In the end I had to go back to chapters 19 and 20 and redo the endings on them, putting in material I was trying to stuff into 22 and 23. It's made 19 and 20 much stronger. A lot of things emerged over the weekend, time which I had mostly to myself, since my husband had other activities that kept him away most of the days. I really started learning how to listen to the Lord.

It's been so cool to be blank and just go to Him and say what should I do? Then I listen and He tells me. It's step by step. Moment by moment. I am not thinking about the deadline at all. I've given it over to Him. Again. I've also given over myself to Him, too, since I have been so utterly incompetent at managing myself. He'll have to do it. The cool thing is, he's eternal and omniscient so in His perfect plan He's already factored in all my screw ups.

So this marks the end of my little "retreat" but it's been very enlightening and I think I will be doing a lot more guarding of both my time and my mind in the days to come.

Guidelines, not a Schedule

Hmm. What happened? How did I manage to "forget" to blog three days in a row?

My husband has been out of town for a few days, and last Friday I felt like maybe I should make a schedule. Not a schedule, really, more of an assessment. The problem with making a "schedule" in the past has been that after I make it, I turn it into a god. An idol -- it becomes my master. I have to obey it. If I don't, wrath and disaster will descend... etc, etc.

But what if they were just guidelines? And more than that, what if I do miss the deadline? Am I going to drop dead? Will the book tank because of that? Where does God fit in this picture? Well, He doesn't. I've not used a schedule for months now, because I haven't been able to figure out how to do it without getting all anxious and frantic. And also maybe because I hadn't reached a point where it would be remotely accurate.

I might have turned a corner. Or maybe it's been the Lord's guidance that led me to do it. I did ask Him if I should, and the notion remained. It was something I wanted to do. Maybe it really was time.

So on Friday I took the number of chapters I have left, plus 5, and plotted them onto the number of days I have left. If I complete roughly a chapter a day, I should reach the end by Nov 30, which was my deadline. I know that I will not do what my schedule has outlined, but that's okay. I can still use it. It's a goal, a guideline, I'll do my best to follow it and if I get too far off, I will make a revised schedule.

Right after I had decided to make this thing my editor called to say she was coming to town this week and we could go to lunch. I jokingly noted the coincidence that I'd just been thinking about calling her for more time, and here she called me! Right away she said that if I thought I might need another month, she'd speak to the powers that be before she left and... I have December now. That means The Enclave will not release until summer, but really that's not looking like such a terrible disaster. A disaster would be to publish what I have right now...

And anyway, as one of my friends said, "Is continuing to be published something you believe you have to maintain? If you lost all your contracts, do you believe that the Lord wouldn't give you a new one if He wants your books published? Are you afraid that you can blow this deal? Because I don't believe that if getting your books published is from the Lord that it's even possible to blow it."

I think she's right. After all, He's able to "equip me in every good thing to do His will, working in me that which is pelasing in His sight..." And wants to. It's a verse which has been repeated often in class over the last week.

So. I have some guidelines, I have a new deadline, one for the first time I actually think I can achieve, AND things have finally started to move somewhat consistently. Since my husband was gone, I could concentrate more on writing and completed chapters 16, 17 and 18 and today worked on 19 and began to think about 20. Which is a big reason why I forgot to blog.

Oh, yes, and I've, um, been reading news sites maybe more than usual with all that's been going on...

Lunch with my editor was wonderful. The weather was perfect. We ate outside on the patio of Tohono Chul, drank apricot tea and talked. Turns out editors really do get it that writing is not like picking peas or making pots. You can't necessarily force it. And when we can't make the deadline, they can handle it. In fact, I'm not the only writer who's having unusual trouble getting her book to move.

Other tidbits of interest:

Light of Eidon is actually still selling quite nicely.

There's a remote possibility that BHP might repackage the Guardian King books in new covers....

And female faces on the covers of books sell better than male faces do.

Or so I'm told.

~~~

Interview with the Palin's - NOT

Hey, it's election time. Politics is beating at the doors and windows. You can't turn on the TV without being told to vote for this one or don't vote for that one. Nor can you drive down the street without being reminded that some people are for Obama and (around our neighborhood) very few for McCain/Palin. So I guess I can be excused for putting up a few posts on the subject ...

Except that everything seems to be going wrong. Neither of my last two posts, the one Tuesday on Barak Obama as Messiah, and the one Wednesday on Biden's warning that if Obama wins he'll be tested, went out through Feedblitz. I didn't get either of them in my Inbox, and neither did one of my friends. Though of course it's always possible we were the exceptions, rather than the rule.

Then tonight, when I went to post the bit I'd already written about excerpts from the People Magazine interview with the Palin's, Todd and Sarah, which I'd enjoyed, I discovered that it had been really excerpt-ized and they didn't even have the pictures that had been half the fun.

I'd really liked the things she said. I like them both, actually. And while some people say that with politicians you can't believe anything they say, there are some politicians that say things I can't stand, totally disagree with, find abhorrent and evil -- especially when they say them as if these are great and good ideas or policies -- and others who say things that I totally support and affirm. So whatever lies behind, at least I can support the surface.

Anyway, I wanted to share it, but now it's gone, and the only place I could find it was here, on People's site where it was broken down into ten pages of teeny snippets surrounded on all sides by ads, other links, pictures of other people, other stories... very distracting and annoying. And no pictures.

To make matters worse, when I tried to see if someone else had posted it, I only found the blogs of snippy liberals making fun of it. It's a "puff" piece, heaven forbid. "Can you believe she actually thinks she's intellectual? Ha! She couldn't even name one magazine or newspaper she read!" (She named the book she was reading, and probabaly had she named anything else the blogger wouldn't have heard of it anyway) "She says she's only bubble-headed when she acts like Tina Fey.Ha!" Their arrogance and condescension really is amazing.

In fact, so amazing that instead of the People interview, I'm going to link to another article I read recently in, of all places, the Boston Globe. It's on The Dangers of Liberal Bias by Joan Chevalier. It expresses a lot of what I just discovered.

---
Enclave update: I went back to ch 14 today, and reworked and reworked and reworked it, trying to get Cam's motivations right. Why does it all have to emerge sooooo slowly? But I've got it half done. Now just have to finish up the last scene to make it fit with the new stuff. Then I can hopefully get on with ch 17, which is what sent me back to 14 in the first place.

~~~

Marketing Questionnaire

Well, the colonscopy went very well. I have a normal colon, complete with pictures. The preparation for the colonscopy is something I am glad I will not have to repeat for ten years, by which time, I suspect that procedure will not be something I'll ever need to bother with again.

Got in some good work on Saturday. I'm now to ch 16 and for the first time ideas are starting to flow. Today I had to work on a Marketing and Publicity Questionnaire for the Bethany House M&P Department to use in selling my book.

I've had to trust the Lord to guide me on this. As may be obvious to consistent readers of this blog and my books, concise and pithy summations are not my forte. Here are some of the questions:

1. Why did you write this book?

2. How did you develop the initial story idea/plot line for this book?

3. Did you encounter any interesting challenges while writing/researching for this book? Please explain if so.

4. Did the book involve special research? Please explain if so.

5. What is the underlying theme/message of the book? Is this what you set out to write?

6. What is the take-away message you want readers to receive after reading your book?

7. Almost every author puts a little of themselves into their stories—what did you put of yourself into this one? (personality traits, life events/jobs, settings, characters based on people you know, likes/dislikes, etc.)

There are twenty of them in all. As I was pasting them in here, I thought... hmmm. Maybe my blog readers would also be interested in the answers I gave. Perhaps I should use these as blog posts...

I'll have to think about that. I already have my post for tomorrow written, however, so it won't be till after that.

~~