Peace Again

Well, yesterday (Sunday) I had food poisoning, the first time for that in 30 years! We went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant the night before and Sunday morning I was not feeling well at all. Had to stay home from church and didn't get a thing done writingwise all day. Didn't get much done on Saturday either, though not cause I was sick. Today though, I turned in revisions on chapters 24 and 25 and several other smaller parts, and started on the first scene in ch 30, since what I sent in with the "final" draft was no more than a place holder.

I hate doing this, and it's been bugging me. I know it's a pain for my editor and I feel like I've failed. I was supposed to have turned it in all at once, not piecemeal. But that was my plan not God's. He's teaching me to accept His timing in things, and to really trust Him beyond what I've had to do in the past. In the past I trusted Him to see the books were done by the deadline, and learned even then, (though to a lesser degree than now) that the deadline was really a human construction and He could work on both sides of the problem -- me and my editor. On one of my first books, it turned out she wasn't even going to get to work on it for a month after the assigned due date. And on this one, she keeps assuring me it's fine. It's no problem.

I guess it really isn't, beyond being a violation of my standards which say you're supposed to turn your book in complete at the agreed upon time. That's professional and reliable. Turning in a book piecemeal like this is flaky and unreliable, and I can really go into a guilt trip on it. But making myself feel guilty is a sin, so I won't. And yes, I failed. But... big deal. Everyone fails. God uses failure. His plan is not dependent on my making perfect execution all the time.

This November, when I was supposed to have turned in the book already, I agreed to try to read for endorsement a new fantasy (due Nov 30), have to decide how many copies of Arena to buy by Nov 30, agreed to attempt an online interview (due Nov 26), agreed to contribute three entries to two team blogs by the end of the month, had to arrange and prepare a birthday celebration, will have to arrange and prepare Thanksgiving, write my November newsletter (not happening) and change my blog over to Blogger beta. This in addition to finishing an online interview begun in October, catch up on email and bookmark mailing, start preparing for Christmas, plus all the other regular stuff in addition to finishing the book. Most of that isn't happening.

That long of a list starts to get me rattled and my brain flits from task to task building anxiety and guilt. Not at all where God wants me to be. It took me awhile but today I finally remembered:

There is always time to do the will of God.

And not all of those things are necessarily His will. So I put them all in His hands and will trust Him to see done the ones HE wants done, not the ones I think need to be done.

"Don't think of all you have to do, just do the next thing. And rest in Him."

So I did. Am. And I have my peace again.

Grace,
Karen

Before the Moment Needed

The Lord always provides the solution even before the moment it is needed. And often afterwards, as well, just for confirmation.

After getting the letter yesterday about Arena's demise, last night's message was on suffering for blessing and as a part of spiritual growth. Perfect. Especially since after a disappointment like that the tendancy is to start trying to affix blame, either on others or on self. But the fact is, God is on his throne, he numbers the hairs on my head and His sovereignty rules over all. Nothing happens in my life that He does not approve, and if I believe that promotion comes from Him and him alone, with no merit on my part, then I must also believe that demotion, such as it is, comes at His hand as well. And be content with it.

I think I am. One of the things I've been praying for is that He would deliver me from being in bondage to what people think, and to the world's system that says success and personal worth is a matter of your accomplishments and sales and how many people like you or like what you do.

Do I seek the favor of men or of God? When you have things like this taken from you, it tests that belief. Are you going to freak out and fall apart because not enough people liked what you did (it would appear) or will you recognize that it's not an accident, it's a part of the plan and the plan is perfect. More than perfect, it is specifically designed with your best interests in mind. If I'm writing for God, sales can't really matter. He's in charge of them. He gives enough or he doesn't, but it's not my concern. My concern is to write the books and leave the rest to Him.

He provided for me in more than just last night's message, too, because in the conference last weekend, the last part of Gideon's story was all about numbers. All about how God doesn't need numbers. And one of the things Pastor McLaughlin said was, "God will place us in situations where the odds are overwhelmingly against us, so we will know that we are not the ones doing the delivering, He is. It's not us, it's not anything about us and it's not with the help of other people, either. It's all Him."

So. We'll just see what He's going to do, because I really believe He's going to do something cool. I just don't know what it is yet. Kind of like Christmas, I guess... all those packages and you know you're going to like what's in them, you just have NO idea what it is. But I know the one I serve, and that is everything.

Karen

The Death of a First Novel

Arena

May 2002 - November 2006

Today I received the news that due to a current sales rate too weak to sustain active publication, Bethany House has declared Arena out of print after a four year run.

The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Karen

November CSFF Tour: Landon Snow

Well, I went away to California and came back to discover a Blog tour had snuck up on me. Given the events of the past month, that's hardly surprising. This month they are highlighting children's fantasy writer R.K. Mortenson's third Landon Snow book, Landon Snow and the Island of Arcanum.

I confess I have read none of these books and generally tend to stay away from discussing or recommending Young Adult fantasy to avoid increasing the potential of my own books being regarded as being for children as well. There is an automatic assumption among many that all fantasy is for children or young adults (Landon Snow is pegged as being for 9 to 12 years old and up). I have nothing against fantasies for children or young adults, I just dislike receiving letters and reviews from disgruntled parents/grandparents/relatives who bought my books for their kids without having read them, under the assumption that all fantasy is for children and how dare I introduce adult situations into the story! They had to rip pages out of the book before they could give them to their intended recipients, and I am a bad girl!

I could almost do a rant about that subject...but I will restrain myself. It's a fact of life, particularly, I think, in the Christian world.

My fantasy can be and is read by more experienced younger readers, but it was never intended for children and in some people's eyes is definitely not for them. R.K. Mortenson's books on the other hand, are designed for younger readers, and do not introduce unwanted adult situations of the sort that have so incensed some of my correspondents and reviewers. So if you are looking for good, clean fantasy stories for middle grade readers, Mortenson might be your author.

Karen

2006 California Conference

Above is a view from our hotel, the Riverside Marriott.

I've just spent the last four days in Riverside, CA for what was, I believe, the fifth annual Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries California Conference. We had a great time, as always. Two classes a day, Friday and Saturday, a question and answer period Saturday night after class and another class and communion on Sunday.

I got some great answers in class and in the Q&A afterward and was so looking forward to going over my notes (I'm a copious note-taker) only to discover that somehow I'd left my notebook in the hotel room! Arg. (One of a number of consequences of going on a trip immediately after a big push to finish a book draft. For the second time now, I have dared to venture out into public without a brain. This time, fortunately, I gave no speeches, but I was amazingly turnip-headed! Leaving my notes behind is just one example!)

Anyway, today I tried to recall some of the things that stuck out for me and here are some snippets and reflections ...

In honor of Veteran's Day Pastor McLaughlin broke from his study of the seven churches in Revelation to do a special on soldiers. He started with the doctrine of Warfare, then went on to a study of Gideon.

Gideon's story starts at the end of the 40 years of peace that followed the victories of Deborah and Barak. Israel is once again doing evil in the sight of the Lord, ie, getting involved in idolatry. I've often wondered about all the emphasis on idolatry in the Old Testament, in light of Romans 15:4 (For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have confidence.) If it's for our example, instruction and encouragement why all the references to idolatry being such a problem? I mean, you don't see too many statues of Baal around these days. Then he defined idolatry: anything we turn to for help, happiness, support, success, comfort, encouragement or security instead of the word of God. By that definition, idolatry takes on new meaning.

Even as Christians, how many of us turn to something besides the word to make us feel better or more confident or secure? How many of us focus on getting that thing we just know is going to solve all our problems and make us wonderfully and finally happy? In fact, without it, we are often desperately unhappy and yearning. It can be a job, writing, being published, getting a mate, having the mate you have act right, having your family or kids turn out right... the options are innumerable. I see the temptations everywhere, but for me now they especially hang out in the field of writing when it comes to getting or being/staying published.

As Pastor McLaughlin moved through the passage the next major subject was miracles and how miracles are the easiest thing in the world for God to do. The much harder thing for God to do is to get a Believer to line up his thinking with God's -- to learn His word and then to apply it to his life. A miracle can be accomplished by a snap of God's fingers, but bringing a Believer to maturity requires that believer's volition. And a lot of time and consistency.

Miracles are used for many things, but rarely does God use them to deliver his people from their problems. Instead, the deliverance lies in his word -- in changing our thinking and our viewpoint and really believing what God has already told us. And that's pretty much what happened with Gideon. The arabs in the land were the problem, and the miracles didn't solve the problem.

Gideon was visited by the Lord and told right off that he -- Gideon -- was going to deliver Israel. After that he saw two miracles: the fire coming out of the rock to consume the meat and the bread he'd offered, and the Lord vanishing before his eyes. But at that point, instead of remembering what he'd just been told (that he was going to deliver Israel) he thought he was going to drop dead from having seen God. His panic tells us how short his memory had become, and how shaky his understanding of God's very recent word to him was.

Of course he didn't drop dead, but finally got his act together, listened to what God told him to do and went and tore down his father's idol -- in the night. And that was another cool thing. Gideon was too afraid of his father to do it in the day, and his fear (despite having been told directly by God that he was going to deliver Israel and seeing two miracles) caused him to do it at night. Which, ironically was exactly what God wanted him to do since the final operation for which Gideon was being prepared would be accomplished at night. I find the fact that God has incorporated even our failures into His wonderful plan to be extremely comforting. And also the demonstration here of His very great patience with us when we are total doofuses.

Which Gideon surely was. For after he tore down the idol and saw his father suddenly switch sides and defend him against the angry religious Israelites who wanted him dead, and after 32,000 Israelites came at his call to be under his command, he lost his nerve again. This is so much what I see in my own life. Great things happen, you realize God is leading you in a direction, first you're afraid to step out on faith but finally you do it, then the stakes multiply and -- oh, no! What if I make a mistake? I have 32,000 men waiting for me to command them. What do I know about command? What if I fail? Oh, noooo.....

So then we have the fleece episode which is really... well, blasphemy. God already told Gideon what was going to happen, and Gideon just didn't believe him. The God who cannot lie. The God who does not change, and in whom there is no turning or shadow. Gideon doubts Him, so he asks God to prove himself. Give me a sign. How many of us do that? I'm really not sure you mean what you say here in your word, God. Could you make the stoplight turn red right now? Or the lights in my living room flicker? Or have someone call me? And God was gracious. He did the miracle. Only to have Gideon doubt the miracle and turn around and ask for another. And even while being insulted, again, God answered his request.

I liked how pastor emphasized at this point how in Judges 6, Gideon had been doing all the talking and not listening much. As a result he didn't learn much and kept falling into fear. But in Judges 7 God started doing the talking, Gideon started listening and obeying and finally started moving forward in the plan...

Karen

It's Done!

Whoopee! Return of the Guardian King is done!

My fifth book, in the can. Wonder of wonders!

Sort of in the can, anyway... I still have two three-chapter sections to go through and develop/smooth out, and about 5 or 6 chapters at the end to work through (editing, tweaking, bringing details into line with things I've changed) but I can send those in as I finish them.

Yesterday I had even more left to do, but had decided just to send the thing in as it was... only to learn that the guy who processes the e-copies into hard copies for the editor was off to work the election. So I kept it another day, worked through one of those three-chapter sections and made significant headway before sending it off today. Even though I still have work to do on it, it still feels like a huge load off.

The deadline factor is oppressive, to say the least, and the last few days left me despairing. Some of the problems were large and complicated, the kind that require several days to mull over and sort through and I didn't have several days. And by the time you get to the end of a book as long as mine are, you're just sick of your own words. Especially when you're having to write fast. You begin to notice all the times you're saying the same things, the fixation you have with particular words, and you start chiding yourself: "Can't you think of anything else for them to do besides "look" at one another?!" I think that's why I like editing the best: I can cut most of that stuff out or replace it with better. I get positively on fire when I start editing. Just love it.

Anyway, there are more days now, so it's all working out just fine. As the Lord knew, but I was too often doubting. In spite of all the times He's come through. What can I say? I'm dust.

I can say, though, that I have the most wonderful editor alive! She is amazingly patient and so encouraging.

Anyway, I thought I'd take the afternoon off. Maybe clean the house a bit, do some ironing, write in my journal, take a walk, post a blog entry -- all the things I've not been doing lately. It feels like I've been in a long, dark tunnel for some time now and have finally emerged -- only to realize that I lost my dog in that tunnel. Kind of a strange feeling.

The other weird thing is that ... I can't believe I'm saying this... part of me also wants to go back and start looking at those chapters I still need to fix. Talk about obsessive! You know how they say dogs are like their owners? Or owners are like their dogs? Well, that's why the hound is the perfect dog for me. Get them on scent -- or focused on anything else they care about -- and they will NOT leave it alone!

Tomorrow, though, I'm off to another Bible conference, this one in CA. Looks like we'll be having a car caravan heading over there, which will be a blast.

I'll be back Monday and finally regular on posting again. Thanks for all the prayers!

Karen

Oh yeah, and the word count? It came in at 176,000. How about that?

Fireworks Photo by brianteutsch

Second post at Speculative Faith

Today I'm posting over at Speculative Faith today (Wednesday)... "Why I Read Fantasy".

I was supposed to be finished with the book by now... but instead, I'm aiming for next Wednesday. Today I pushed through VERY rough drafts of chapters 30a, 31, and 32.

Time for bed
Karen

Progress

Well, once again, the schedule... is a bust. I talked to my editor on Friday, and I have a few days worth of extension. I keep thinking I'm going to get to the easy stuff, that this next chapter will be the one I just whip through. Not happening.

Not long after I made my schedule (about the third day, actually, when I had already gotten behind) I decided to do two schedules: mine and God's. On God's I just enter in the work as it's completed. I think I'm going to try to post both of them when I'm done.

Funny thing, too, is that Bible classes lately have been all about failure and how God uses it to conform us into his image. That those who most vigorously pursue the plan of God are the ones who're going to fail the most. Failure reminds us we are weak, we can't do anything apart from Him and need His power. So. Once again I'm back to where I was: okay, God, you're the one doing this book and it's going to be in your timing and my biggest responsibility is to rest in that.

As to progress: I reached chapter 30 yesterday, thinking it would be one of those easy, blow-through ones. No. It was all wrong. In fact, the entire first section was completely extraneous to the story. So I cut it and went on to work through the second section. I have yet to type in the changes on that, but I went on to chapter 31. And... oh my. I was bored! It also had nothing to do with the story. SIGH. So most of it has to be ditched as well. I should rejoice... I asked the Lord to show me what needed to be done and He did. But this means I have to come up with something entirely new for chapter 31... which is what I've been doing today. I am definitely NOT adhering to my lovely 2 chapters a day delusion...

Karen

Mourning

Thanks to all of you who commented or emailed condolences about Bear (see previous post). I really appreciate it.

It's been harder than I thought it would be, and I thought it would be hard. I miss my Booboo! Sometimes it's just a sad ache. Sometimes its a big empty hole as if something has been ripped out of my flesh, and it hurts intensely, and there's nothing that will make it better but time.

He was so much a part of my life. When I get up in the morning, I no longer need to check the floor to be sure I don't step on him. And as I get out of bed I realize that no dog is going to come jauntily in to say good morning, and that no matter how thoroughly I search the house, I will not find him.

Yesterday it was finding his stuffed raccoon and hedgehog in one of his many beds that set the tears flowing. And later, finding his doggy coat lying on the washing machine. Today I opened the cabinet and stumbled across his pill box, emptied up to the point he didn't need his pills any more. I wept as I threw them down the toilet. And wept again later, when I had to vaccuum and there was nobody to look out for, no dog to have to stand back and let escape from the corner into which he'd gotten himself in his effort to avoid the thing...

Twelve years of close living makes for a lot of connections and memories. It's hard when that relationship is cut off. I don't think it's a lot different from losing a person, depending on the degree of intimacy and the length of time involved. Hard. Painful.

But not lasting. I know that. And I've seen how much the pain depends on the thoughts I have and how much I indulge them. I can't avoid the things that set them off -- like the raccoon, or the pillbox, or going outside to hang up laundry and he's not there trotting along with me -- but those memories and thoughts can lead to others and to others and I could spend a long time wallowing.

I haven't been. Because I always come back to the fact that he was a gift from God. And while I may have lost the gift, I still have the Giver. In fact, yesterday I was reminded that Bear was something I had prayed for twelve and a half years ago. Several years before that, my husband had brought home a really horrible dog, a German short-haired pointer with serious personality problems. Of course, my husband didn't know that when he got him, but we discovered it soon enough. The dog didn't like women and would growl and snarl at me for no apparent reason. He scared me to death and actually trapped me in the backyard once, snarling and baring his teeth at me. I threw a Tonka truck at him and escaped, then didn't want to go into the backyard again. We finally got rid of him, and I was ready to have no dog ever again. But my husband couldn't imagine life without a dog, and brought home a Walker hound puppy, destined to weigh 100 pounds as an adult who ended up at six months old having no hip sockets. We had to put him to sleep, but just before that he also had begun to be aggressive with me.

After his death, I started praying that the Lord would send us the right dog. The perfect dog. And when Stu heard about a litter of redbone coonhounds and went up to Phoenix to see them, I prayed earnestly that God would lead him to bring home the one we were to have, or none of them if none were right. He came home with Bear.

I'd forgotten that until the last couple of days when I was going through all the things I loved about Bear and seeing how perfect he was for me. For both of us. Realizing he was an answer to my request -- an answer that exceeded my wildest imagination -- made him even more special. More than that, it made me realize that the one who gave him to us, who chose him specifically for us, could easily do it again. The blessing was immense, but all blessings have their season. There is a time to rejoice and a time to mourn. We mourn now, but I have no doubt that the time to rejoice is waiting up ahead.

Not surprisingly, I lost a day and half's worth of writing because of Bear's death, and have been (obviously!) distracted from time to time ever since. Even so I've managed to reach chapter 23 of Maddie's sequence (I was previously doing just Abramm's). I'm two days behind on my scheduled assignments which means I have six chapters to edit/fix today to bring me up to date. That's not likely to happen. I'm hoping to finish 4 chapters, though I'll be happy with 3 -- which would at least not put me any further behind. Word count actually dropped below 190k yesterday, but added development of some pretty sparse scenes since has brought it back up to 191,337.

Pressing On,
Karen

Hancock's Boo-Boo Bear

PR Hancock's Boo-Boo Bear
Registered UKC Redbone Coonhound
June 25, 1994 - October 20, 2006

Today we said goodbye to our dear friend of 12 1/2 years, Mr. Booboo Bear -- writing buddy, walking companion, inept coonhound, movie star, obedience trained trick dog, computer degausser, Bible doctrine dog, home security system, camping & hiking dog, unrelenting optimist ("Maybe today the ham will fall on the floor and I will get some!"), tireless enthusiast ("A WALK! We're going on a WALK! Whoopee! Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!"), all around lover of life and...yes, I know I said this, dear, dear friend.

He'd been declining for some time, but in the last few weeks things began to really deteriorate. We discovered that he had gone blind in one eye, he was losing his co-ordination and his stamina, and often seemed to "zone out". If he got up in the night, he might get "lost," standing for hours between the bed and the desk, for example, or in the hallway. One night last week he got up while we were sleeping and made his way into the space under the headboard of our waterbed, between the bed itself and the wall. The side he entered through was open, but the other was blocked with boxes. We awoke at 2am, and saw he was not in his bed beside us. I searched the house and couldn't find him, and Stu said he thought he heard him by the bed. So I looked in that space and sure enough, there he was. You can't pull him out of a place like that, so we had to move the boxes and feed him on through.

Anyway, he kept eating, though it was less and less, and he kept wanting to take his walks, though he stopped more often and for longer periods of time during the course of them. This last week he began to sleep almost all the time, getting up only to go outside to pee. When he did, he seemed weak, wobbly and disoriented. I began to bring his food to him in his bed and soon realized that my own interaction with him had been reduced to waking him up to drag him outside to pee or stuff a pill down his throat or stick a needle in the scruff of his neck to give him his fluids. Last Tuesday we decided it was time and on Wednesday I called the vet and made arrangements for her to come out today, Friday, to put him to sleep.

He was lying on his bed in the living room when she and her assistant arrived, and was actually more responsive to her than most of the other people who have come lately. (Which means he lifted his head and pricked his ears and kind of sniffed her hand, as opposed to merely wiggling his eyebrows). The procedure was accomplished very smoothly and his passing could not have been more peaceful.

The vet said he'd declined a lot since the last time she'd seen him six months ago, and that we had made the right decision. she could not believe how long he lasted, though -- dogs usually don't survive kidney failure of the level he had for more than a month. He was a fighter. But he was also blessed with an extraordinary amount of strength and energy. And his enthusiasm stayed with him almost to the very end. He was a terrific dog -- fun, funny, beautiful, cute, smart, vibrant and an incredible blessing. We thank God for the time we had with him, but we're going to miss him an awful lot. Especially me.

God is Always Right

"God is always right. He can never be wrong.
It is only our perception of what is happening that is wrong."

~Rick Kabrick

A Schedule at Last

Saturday and Sunday I worked through the new chapter 4 (formerly 6) and today I woke up, asked the Lord for some encouragement and became convicted that now, at last, it is time for the schedule. I have basically two weeks left and 30 or so chapters, or parts of chapters left to work on. That means I have to finish two chapters (or parts) per day. If I succeed I will finish on Monday, October 30. My editor says she has to have it by Nov 1, and by this outline, it just might happen.

I am now at the stage where I have to give up all the little extra things I thought would be good to do. In fact, I have to let some things stand even if I think they don't work all that well because there is no time to change them. I could look at this and lament, but instead I choose to believe that the Lord has been guiding me all this time and that whatever elements have been left to leave more or less as is are as they should be. Not all the changes we think need to be made, really need to. Not all the changes we think need to be made even should be made. I have learned over and over the fallacy of putting a lot of credence in how I feel about a passage of work, particularly this late in the game. So if I'm not allowed to "fix" all that I think needs to be fixed, I'm going to assume that God knows they don't need fixing.

Anyway, I worked through chapter 6 today and then 8a -- and that one really moved me. Whether or not it is truly a moving chapter, or will move anyone else or will even move me six months from now remains to be seen, but today I was moved. And that is very encouraging! And my word count is now down to 195,499.

Karen

Chapter 4 into Chapter 3

Well, I did decide to cut the scene that made up the second half of chapter 3, and after trimming what was left, added a trimmed version of what was formerly chapter 4 to make a whole new Chapter 3. That gave me a hole where Chapter 4 used to be so I decided to move the material in Chapter 6 into Chapter 4, which moves the hole to Chapter 6. The cool thing is that eventually it will make a place for the extra chapter I gained when I turned chapter 25 into chapter 25A and 25B.

Now I only have to rewrite the opening of the new Chapter 4 to get it to work in its new place and already I can see that that is going to make it a much stronger sequence.

Who Comes First?

Sort of finished ch 29, after spending the day working out one thing and then another. It had a raid on a villa in it. The raid is gone, the villa abandoned and the chapter fairly coherent except for the end which right now is just a sketch. It's about 700 words longer than the original which doesn't make me happy, even as reason reminds me that the original was full of holes. Anyway, I left it rough because I want to get some distance before I run through it one more time.

That one on hold, I turned to the beginning. Originally I'd started the book with Abramm. My editor thought maybe I should move Maddie's first chapter (3) up and start the book with her. That would mean I'd have to do some timing changes, but it would, she suggested, hopefully provide more suspense as readers wonder where Abramm is and what his circumstances are. Well, I tried. For the last two months I had Maddie first and Abramm second. But today when I went to deal with the changes in Maddie's scene I felt more and more certain that it needed to be the way I had it originally. Hopefully now that I've cut a lot of the "telling myself the story" portions my editor will agree. Besides, I asked a test reader today if she thought waiting through a chapter of Maddie's doings would increase the suspense about Abramm and she said that readers have been in suspense about Abramm for nearly a year and don't really need any more.

At this moment I'm in the middle of chapter 3 (formerly 1) and wondering if I can just cut the scene that makes up the second half entirely. I'm very tempted to do it. After all, I still have quite a few words to weed out of this thing and I think much of the scene's content is covered elsewhere.

Hmm... tune in tomorrow for the decision...

Karen

Perfect Timing

Recently I've been contemplating aspects of who and what God is... and the fact that, as Ephesians 1 tells us, He actually blessed us as His children even before he elected us. That means His first act toward me was to bless me, to give me the gift of His son, but also many other blessings -- spiritual and temporal -- on deposit, as it were, waiting for me to acquire the capacity to receive them. Being perfectly just, He knows it wouldn't be fair to give me blessings I have no capacity for. Without capacity they wouldn't be blessings, they would be causes for misery and might even destroy my spiritual life. Or my life altogether.

But capacity or not, they are still there and that is very cool to consider: that there are incredible blessings I can't even imagine, incredible open doors just waiting ahead of me -- and ahead of every one of God's children -- to walk through. And how about the fact that God is outside of time? That means that in eternity past He had an infinite amount of time to consider all the options relevant to my life and all the ramifications of those options and has chosen only what would be best for me specifically. He's put all those choices into a perfect plan that is based on His perfect omniscience, his perfect love and justice and righteousness. And timing.

God always does the right thing in the right way at the right time. Always. He can never make a mistake and He has complete control over my life. There is not one detail that He does not know about and has not taken into account. In fact, many of the details -- the ones I enjoy and the ones I do not -- were specifically chosen to bring me to the place that I am now.

These are things a novelist can really understand. We do the same sorts of things -- not perfectly, by any means-- with our characters. If only we had all eternity to do it. But we don't and so right now these are things this novelist is really holding to her heart. God knows what I want: to have the story in this book I'm writing revealed to me in its entirety in the proper time. He is going to do that, but it will be in His perfect timing, not mine, and all my anxiety and fussing and trying to force it is a total waste of time. I just have to relax, and wait for Him to unveil it. No matter what sight tells me. I am not to live by sight but by what His word says.

No change to the word count because I spent all day struggling with what was supposed to be the easy edit of Chapter 29. Instead, I got through pages 1 through 8. Out of 15. Not at all my plan. Not at all my timing. But He knew. In fact, tonight in Bible class He literally said to me, through the pastor, "Don't let the kingdom of darkness come and say you're going too slow. That you're not where you should be. God will tell you that, and it will be a conviction not a condemnation. Stop being so worried about where you are..."

Resting then in His timing, not mine,
Karen

Progress Report

I've come to realize that if I want to keep doing blog posts during these last few weeks, I'll have to content myself with posting mostly progress reports. I have no spare brain cells or time to contemplate much of anything else.

In addition to revisions, I'm also supposed to be cutting words: from 210,000 down to about 185,000. I would rather just concentrate on the revisions and then do a cutting down pass after that, because trying to do them together can be distressing. Like when I just spent the last several days turning chapter 25 into chapters 25A & B -- kicking and screaming as I did so but it had to be done. The section is pivotal, and now significantly rewritten, which means it's probably also pretty wordy. I can hope anyway. Before I expanded 25 into two chapters, I had the word count down to 198,000, but A & B shot it back up to 201,000. So then having gone through all the turmoil and mental labor of writing two chapters and having it going pretty well, you can still end up disappointed.

But that, too, is God's problem, not mine. And yesterday, happily, I went through chapter 27 and cut about 2000 words. My current word count is 199,679. I'll be reworking chapter 29 tonight and probably tomorrow. This is just Abramm's thread. I've not yet looked at Maddie's or any of the others. And I dare not contemplate the list of chapters yet to be done. Just carry on, business as usual -- okay, a bit more intense and focused and sustained than usual -- and do the next thing.

Karen

Fantasy Artists

In my last post, referencing comments regarding my covers over at Speculative Faith, I was asked if I could have any fantasy artist do my covers who I would pick. Well, right off I named Michael Whelan. I love the cover he did for Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice. It made me buy the book... okay, I bought it second hand, because of the cover, because you see, I really didn't think I'd like a story about an assassin. Boy was I wrong. But anyway, I LOVE that cover. And the covers for Anne McCaffrey's Dragon books. Wow. (Click here for a larger picture of Assassin's Apprentice.)

Second would be Tom Canty. I love his watercolor style with all the stained glass panel effects and the voluminous fabrics.

Third, Janny Wurts who is also a writer. In fact, she is a fantasy writer who paints her own covers. I am seriously impressed! (Her website, however, is quite irritating the way they have it set up with floating navigation bars that prevent you from seeing the entire painting at one time.)

Those same comments at Spec Faith also prompted Mirtika Schulz to start a contest of sorts over at her blog. She is challenging readers to pick what fantasy artist they would like to see do my covers and will be giving away to the one who suggested an artist she likes best, whatever one of my books the winner desires. You can find that contest here.

In the process of that I've already found another artist I like:
Todd Lockwood. Check out his Temeraire. Awesome.

Okay, this is fun, but I HAVE to get back to work!

Karen

Distracted

Well, I've been terribly distracted now for several days, with one thing and then another. I'm creeping through the Return of the Guardian King rewrites and thinking about ways to disconnect my Internet connection. Maybe I'll have to go out into the back yard. Or take another plane flight.

My self discipline only seems to last until around noon and once I turn on the computer... sigh... it's all over. And sometimes I NEED to turn it on in order to work. Though I'm doing a lot of editing on hard copy right now, sometimes all the arrows and changes and overwrites and additions get so confusing I need to type it all in RIGHT NOW and go from there. So. We'll see.

For more informative/interesting reading, check out this Speculative Faith blog by ACFW's recent Genesis winner for SF/F Mirtika Shulz on ideas to stimulate the popularity of Christian SF/F: Moving the CBA Mountain: Out of many small voices, one large voice

Be sure to check out the comments there, as a couple are from readers who bought The Light of Eidon in SPITE of its cover which, far from drawing them, instead drove them away.

I hope to make significant progress tomorrow. Actually I did ten pages today, which is significant, but seeing as I'd hoped to do two chapters a day starting last Tuesday, and only managed one a day until yesterday when it got down to none, and then only the ten pages today... I want more. The distractions were legitimate, though, so I guess I can't get too down on myself.

Pulling up the drawbridge and barring the gates...
Karen

OR Conference: Doctrine of the Open Door

This is the brand new Salem Conference Center where our Bible conference was held last weekend. It was directly attached to the hotel, so it couldn't have been more convenient.

A week ago Wednesday my friend Kelli and I were talking about some tapes she had given away to someone and couldn't find -- one of which was on the Doctrine of the Open Door. "Oh," I said, "I really want to hear that one." But it turned out there was only part 1 of 2 on the shelves back at Grace Bible Church where she'd gotten it and she didn't think they could make any more of them. And the doctrine wasn't available online either. "Well," I said, "I'm sure he'll repeat sooner or later. Maybe he'll even teach about it at the conference!" It was a totally random remark because we had no reason to think that would be the case, and we both laughed to think of that happening.

Thus we were absolutely blown away when Saturday night, as part of the line by line study of Rev 3:8a ("I know your deeds. Behold I have put before you an open door which no one can shut...") the pastor began a study of the Doctrine of the Open Door!

An open door refers to a grace opportunity God provides us related to giving meaning, purpose and definition to our lives. God puts before us many doors -- as many, in fact, as we have positive volition enough to walk through. Some are universal, like salvation, and, for believers, the door of communication of truth, while others are individual-specific, like the open door of service.

I especially appreciated the information given in connection with the door of communication of truth -- that it has two sides. One side where the communicator must be given an open door to communicate the truth of God's word and the other side, where the receiver is given the open door to receive that communication. And this part is what really struck me:

"If you stay receptive to the communication and application of the truths of God's word, live in your spiritual gift and the niche He has for you, He will bring everything to you: your pastor-teacher, the word of God, the spiritual gift itself, and even an occupation that gives you the time and money to do what He wants you to do. Whatever your spiritual gift is, prepare yourself in it and God will provide the people to feed off it. That means you don't need to employ all the gimmicks and publicity efforts the world systems says you do. He will do it. It's simple.

"He will nourish, nurture and mature your spiritual gift, not you.

"In Col 4:3 Paul asks for the Colossians to "pray for us that God may open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Chirst..." Paul realizes he needs help -- the people must be lined up to receive the information and Paul must be in the right place at the right time to provide it."

This meshes so well with the whole concept of gathering readers for one's books. The readers have to be lined up -- they have to have the time and inclination, in a way they have to be prepared to receive what a writer has been led to provide.

At the very the beginning of my published life, I received confirmation of this fact in an email from a woman who said she'd walked into the bookstore looking for a devotional to help her with some tough times she was having in her life. She looked through all the books on the devotionals shelf and found nothing that interested her, turned around and there was Arena standing on the shelf behind her. For some reason she picked it up and that is the book she bought and took home. Then she wrote me to say it helped her far more with her troubles than any of the devotionals she'd considered would have.

It's all His work, His plan, His grace. We just have to rest in that.

Grace,
Karen

PS. I'm posting over at Speculative Faith tomorrow (Wednesday) continuing my reflections on how obvious to make the Christian elements of my work and what has come of my decisions. I hope you'll check it out. It'll be my last time to blog over there until the first Wednesday in November.

Oregon Bible Conference

Well, I'm back from the Oregon conference and it was wonderful. Fantastic. So many amazing things happened. We got to fly, drive a brand new rental car, stay in a palacial hotel (the Phoenix Grand Hotel, pictured above) and eat wonderful food -- in addition to the classes and the fellowship. But we did have something of a time getting there, as our Delta flight out of Tucson was "permanently delayed" when we arrived to check in. Actually the lady at the counter said "Cancelled" at first, immediately amending that to "delayed". Even though all the people on the flight were now being parcelled out onto other flights.

But they were very helpful, and got us rerouted through Phoenix instead of Salt Lake City and arriving in Portland at 5pm instead of 2:30pm. Because we were rerouted, we were "randomly" selected for being searched. Now the young lady I was with, a long-time family friend, is a top student with impeccable manners, and also very slender, very innocent looking, and was wearing a fairly tight tee shirt that day. Seeing her getting patted down was one of the funniest and most ridiculous things I think I've ever seen and I couldn't stop laughing about it. It was funny to be patted down myself. I don't think the lady who was doing the searching particularly appreciated it, though. She was very serious about her work... and I guess I just had a hard time taking it that seriously.

Anyway, we had to spend about two hours waiting to leave Tucson and another two in Phoenix. We both had work to do, and so the time was well spent. I also think perhaps I should invest in my own private plane cabin because I became incredibly productive stuck in a tiny aisle seat next to people who are completely engaged with each other, with nothing else to do. Sheer boredom forced me to do my editing work on Chapter 21, despite all the obstacles I kept encountering in the work!

At the end of the flight the young man seated next to me, seeing my earplugs wrote me a note: "Is Haiku 5, 8, 5?" Now poetry is not my strong suit. I think I skipped that unit in high school. I did know Haiku had a formula but I had no idea if it was 5, 8, 5, or 5, 7, 5, or something else entirely, and had to admit this, and also that no, I was not an English teacher! He thought, given the way I was marking up the manuscript that I must be grading papers. Oh, my. Woe to any student who would receive grading like that. I'm not sure I'm even going to be able to follow what I did!

Anyway, at length we got there and later that night we learned that my son and his traveling companions were also delayed out of Tucson, though not permanently -- just enough to miss their connection in Phoenix. As a result they did not get into Portland until 2 or 3 the next morning. Given all the things that were going on -- all the problems and hindrances that were hitting not just our group, but almost everyone we talked to who came -- we knew it would be a fantastic conference. And it was.

But more about that tomorrow.

Grace,
Karen

When All Around has Fallen

A reader recently emailed to share these lyrics from When All Around Has Fallen, a song by Delirious?, suggesting they express the feelings and themes of the end of Shadow Over Kiriath. I think they do, and also touch on the beginning of Return of the Guardian-King:

When all around has fallen, your castle has been burned
You used to be a king here, now no one knows your name
You live your life for honour, defender of the faith
But you've been crushed to pieces and no one knows your pain

Come, come lay your weary head, be still my friend
Come, rise, I'll place my sword upon your shoulder
Come, rise with me

When tomorrow has been stolen and you can't lift your head
And summer feels like winter, your heart is full of stone
Though all your hopes have fallen, your skin is now your only armour
You wear your scars like medals, defender of the faith

Come, come lay your weary head, be still my friend
Come, rise, I'll place my sword upon your shoulder
Come, come lay your faithful head, be still my friend
Come rise with me

From the album Cutting Edge by Delirious?

Listen to a very small clip of it on Amazon here.

Well, I'm off to Oregon tomorrow. No more blogging until Monday...

Have a great weekend,
Karen

Erratum

So... This is the problem of putting up one post referencing another post before you've put the second one up and you don't have enough brain cells active to keep things all together. After I posted here last night, I went over to Spec Faith and put up my post there about my early days of writing The Light of Eidon. And in the course of the final polishing and tweaking, I decided to change the title from "No More Hiding" to "My Writing Roots," reminding myself that I had to go change the title I'd referenced in the first post.

But then it was time to do fluids and I forgot. So, if you already tried to find the post at Spec Faith and couldn't, please try again. It is called "My Writing Roots" and if you click on that title it should take you to the right place.

I am really looking forward to the Oregon trip -- taking a few days off to be with dear friends, meet new ones, focus on God's word and not think about writing at all! (okay, I'll probably do some editing on the plane tomorrow but after that...)

Grace,
Karen

Spec Faith and Christian Worldview

I'm putting this up Tuesday night to catch the Feedblitz delivery at 1am, but this post is really for Wednesday, when I'll be posting over at Speculative Faith. I'll be continuing the tale of my writing odyssey from the SF writer to Fantasy writer of hidden Christian fiction... or, as time went on, not so hidden Christian fiction.

One day till we leave for the Oregon conference! Bear is still hanging in there. The last couple of nights he's gone for three and four hour stretches so that's been really nice. Thanks for the prayers.

I thought I'd finished chapter 19 yesterday, but on glancing it through it today, large inconsistencies came popping out at me, so I am back to that, trying to resolve them all and as usual, it's not going easily. But I have been VERY distracted by life issues -- all the problems and self-esteem smashing things that typically descend in the week prior to a conference. That's why I was so heartened by Becky Miller's Tuesday post recommending The Light of Eidon. It was very kind of her, totally unexpected and gave me a great a lift in the midst of darkness when I very much needed it.

I'll keep this short so you can check it out, and then hop on over to Speculative Faith for my article on my experiences and conclusions in working with the Christian elements of Christian Fantasy, "My Writing Roots."

Grace
Karen

United 93

Last Friday we rented United 93, the movie we thought we were seeing when we rented Flight 93 last month. When we went through Blockbuster the week after the Flight 93 mess-up we asked the man at the counter about U-93 and he said that as good as F-93 was, U-93 was better -- definitely worth watching.

And it was. But the interesting thing to me is that I don't think it was in any way lessened by having seen the other one first. In fact, I think it may have been good. F-93 focused more on the passengers, introducing them, showing their loved ones on the ground, and all the character and personal interactions and grief and horror that happened in connection with that day. United 93, on the other hand, focused more on the Air Traffic controller aspect, both the civil and the military. In fact, the man who was chief of air-traffic-control operations at the FAA's command center in Herndon, Va that day, Ben Sliney -- the man who made the decision to ground all flights -- was played by himself, which I thought was amazing. He was ... excellent.

It really gave you a feel for the frustration and confusion the air traffic controllers were going through. For one thing, no one believed that, even if the planes had been hijacked, any American pilot would have flown their aircraft into the World Trade Center. Instead, they would have ditched it in the Hudson. So they couldn't figure out what was happening.

The military was just as hampered but in different ways: not being able to get good information, then unable to get clearance from the FAA to get their jets off the ground. And at the same time Sliney over at the FAA was trying to get the military to get their jets off the ground -- "I don't want an update! I want action!" he told the poor military liason whose job description apparently did not match anything he was being asked to do that day. They just didn't have the communication connection they needed for the problem. Which I suppose it the occupational hazard of large organizations. And when you think of how fast it all went down, it's not surprising. Everything was just too far out of the box for most people that day.

Flight 93 told you the names of the principal passengers, whereas United 93 only named Thomas Burkette. The rest you had to guess at. Flight 93 showed a lot of phone conversations and who was on the other end. United 93 only showed snippets, so having seen the first movie you knew more of what was happening in those snippets during the second.

I think United 93 was more believable, more realistic in some ways, less overtly dramatic. For one thing the people were not as attractive. They were more regular appearing. Another thing was that the passengers, especially the men, were shown as being more afraid and really in some cases nearly falling apart. Then they had to suck it up and do what needed to be done. I think the inconsistency worked well. Cause that's how we are. Wimps one minute, and then we pull it together and become heroes.

The terrorists were more believable too. Fascinating. Relying upon God to get them through, trusting in Him, etc. Which just goes to show that just because you are trusting God and relying on Him it doesn't mean you are actually in His plan.

Another difference: United 93 shows the passengers actually breaking into the cockpit at the end.

All in all, having seen both films -- plus the ABC miniseries The Path to 9-11 in the interim -- I felt as if all of it went together into one lengthy presentation that made the incidents of the day much clearer than they'd previously been for me. The things that happened, the choices that were made on 9-11 were difficult and far from clear. One thing I hadn't known was that they were tracking some dozen or so flights suspected of being hijacked which hadn't been. Which definitely justified the reluctance to give the order to fire on the airliners. Not that it was even an option from what the movies showed. When the military finally did get the jets airborne, they were unarmed. And going in the wrong direction!

All of which, to me, shows just how much we have been protected as a nation by the Lord's mighty hand.

Karen

When is it Time?

Well, things are getting intense around here in terms of distractions. We're going to a Bible conference next weekend and that always brings out the attacks, but also I'm moving into the final month for revisions and that is usually a bad time, too. Right now things with the book do not look good. I am confident that God will work everything out as He always has before, but sometimes it's hard to remember that!

The photo, by the way, is Bear as a young dog. We had taken him on his first campout to Northern Arizona, only it snowed. We're in the van and I'm holding up my parka so my sister can take the picture without the bright background of the windshield. Of course, he's being a sweetie with his head on my shoulder.

Speaking of Bear, I'm getting up now at two or three hour intervals every night to let him out, because the kidney failure means he is producing copious quantities of urine in his body's attempt to get rid of the waste materials. He is virtually blind now in the dark, and senile, I think. He no longer barks or whines to be let out. He just gets up, walks in the general direction of the door and if you don't wake up and get to him in time, he just lets loose where he is. Then there is clean up and washing all the towels again and... So it cuts into sleep.

Sometimes, if you actually wake him up out of his night time sleep he stumbles and staggers around as if he's lost all control of his muscles. Sometimes he can't walk over the threshold of the door, trips and collapses and can hardly get up. We also suspect he has episodes of a balance disorder. And if he has the disorientation and lack of coordination from not being awake, plus being blind in the dark, and not knowing where he is or what's happening, he will snarl and act scary. Since most of the time he is completely docile, a very sweet and friendly dog, this is weird, too.

They say it's a symptom of aging, but I suspect it can be of kidney failure, too, since the unfiltered toxins running rampant through his body attack all his organs, including the brain and nervous system.

Anyway, he had a bad night last Thursday -- three episodes of snarling and disorientation -- and we decided it was time to put him to sleep. But then we couldn't get hold of the vet, and he's been sweet and fine every since. Fragile, a bit weak, skinny and not eating enough, but he is eating. Especially if it's food he likes. And he's been up and alert and he loves his walks. So... second thoughts have set in.

Which means we're on a kind of emotional roller coaster. Thinking, Okay, this is it, he's going to be gone. And then, oh... maybe not.

There is the question, too, of whether he is in pain or not, if his quality of life is really worth the other stuff. How do you answer questions like that? People tell us that we will know when it's time. But so far, we don't. He really was supposed to have died months ago. It's been almost a year since his acute kidney failure episode and at first the vet thought he'd die when she took him off the continuous intravenous fluids he'd been on when in the hospital. Even if he survived that, there was a good chance he'd not last the month.

All this is just one tiny aspect of this whole thing. There are also the meds to be ordered, received/picked up, and administered in their schedules. (But there are also the times when he is terribly cute, the way he follows me around, his joy in the walks, his ongoing interest in his treats and finding the marro bone treats we put about the house.... So. That's been part of what's been going on since I last blogged.)

Amazingly, in spite of it all, I have finished chapters 15 and 17 and have moved on to 19. It is slowly taking shape, though I've not had a lot of time to work on it.

And, I have to say that our Bible classes for the last week have been incredibly enlightening and appropriate. Well, the sun is going down. Time for Bear's walk.

Pressing on,
Karen
P.S. If you feel inclined to pray for me, ask that I would have the energy and sleep that I need, and the ability to concentrate on the work at hand. Thanks.

Friday Chat

Well, after the craziness of yesterday (in addition to the Internet weirdness I also had a visit from two Jehovah's Witnesses -- I've decided it is somewhat like opening your door and having someone attack you with a rapier. Suddenly you have to be on guard, parrying and feinting and lunging... very disconcerting! Especially when your knees start shaking and you have no idea why) and having done the two posts, this one's going to be brief. I want to get back to work on ch 17. I did want to note, though, that I will be taking part in another chat at the fan forum Kiriathan and King this Friday, Sept 22 from 8 to 9pm EST. At this time there are 107 registered members in the forum. We'd love to have you join us.

Okay, back to feeding Bear and ch 17 which I am rewriting from scratch.

Karen

More Edenstar

Final day for the Blog Tour during which we are featuring the Edenstar Books and Games website for Christian-themed SF/F. Wednesday is also my first day to post over on the team blog, Speculative Faith, a group of bloggers who write about all aspects of reading and writing Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, instead of working on that post this afternoon I've been wrestling with my computer and the Internet instead. I've been visiting that blog for weeks, no problem. Then, starting Sunday, I couldn't get on. I thought the page was down (since that's what the error message said). Turns out it's not. I tried removing and reinstalling the updates I got recently, cleaning out my caches... nothing. Then my son called and had me unplug and replug in the cable modem and router and voila. It works. How weird these computers are. He said sometimes the routers make decisions about things they shouldn't be making. Hmmm. Reminds me a bit of Prey.

So, since I've spent most of my post-writing time fooling with the computer, I decided to just give a bit of a commentary on my explorations of Edenstar today.

When I was growing up, I sure don't recall very many fantasy books. But looking through the site I was reminded of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. A combination of fantasy/sf, actually. I read all three of the books. I'm not sure when I read them, but I'm pretty sure I was too young for them, because the main thing I remember about them is that while I liked them... I don't think I had a clue what was going on. In fact, when I read the little blurb about it at Edenstar and then on Amazon I was amazed. I don't remember anything like the story they described! In fact, I couldn't have told you what it was about had you asked me. I see I shall have to read it again now that I may have a chance of actually understanding it.

I also read and liked The Phantom Tollbooth, which is not mentioned on Edenstar, owing, most likely to the fact it's not explicitly Christian. But I recall having liked it better than the L'Engle books. Maybe I need to reread that one as well...

When homeschooling my son, I discovered Five Children and It, by E. Nesbitt, which I think maybe deserves a place with the others on Edenstar. It's not explicitly Christian, but it is a wonderful story of what happens when you get what you wish for -- it's not usually what you expect, and often not at all what you like!

Hmm. George MacDonald's Lilith looks interesting. I've not read any of his work, and him being regarded as one of the classic fantasists, I feel that I should. Or maybe I should read Phantastes. Charles Williams looks kind of interesting, too, though I confess to being somewhat put off by occult stuff.

Turning to more contemporary authors -- I've already read Lawhead, Myers, Peretti, Dekker, Faller, Gansky, Graham... ah, but here's James Beausigneur. Haven't read any of his yet. Maybe I'll try one of those. And someone said that L.A. Kelly's Tahn was good... hmm. James Byron Huggins. I've heard about him, too... Leviathan looks interesting, given my fascination for komodo dragons. Cain, too, though. Well, here I am, already having more than I can read when I have my own book to finish writing and another to get started on... Best quit this now before I get really frustrated! Besides, I still have that Speculative Faith post to write.

Happy Reading (those of you blessed enough to have time for that sort of thing!)
Karen

Edenstar Day 2

In years past, when the general market fantasy industry was taking off -- with The Sword of Shannara (LOTR Lite) leading the way -- there was a sense of embarrassment in admitting that you liked fantasy. It was okay for kids, but not for adults. If you did like it, there was something wrong with you: you needed to grow up. I don't suppose the SF conventions helped. Nor the covers on the books

Ursula LeGuin wondered why, years ago, in her essay "Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?" She suggested the aversion to fantasy was because as a culture we saw ourselves as being beyond that sort of thing. Reason had triumphed, we didn't believe in supernatural forces anymore, we knew what made things tick (I think that's mostly an illusion, myself, but that would take another post entirely) and so had no room for fairy tales about other worlds and supernatural powers and so forth.

I'm not so sure that's the case, since as time has gone on and we've developed even more technology and acquired more knowledge about what makes things tick, fantasy's appeal in the general market has only increased. In fact, I read recently that engineers and other technogeek types make up a large portion of readers of this kind of fiction.

So overall, I think this stigma has been erased where general market readers are concerned. Unfortunately it seems that some aspect of it still holds with the Christian market. The question of why has been debated at length among Christian SF/F fans. Maybe it's because when today's Christian adults were growing up there really wasn't much Christian fantasy to choose from, and so they never acquired a taste for it when they were young. Maybe it's because fantasy is a bit more difficult to read than your ordinary woman's fiction, romance, mystery, or suspense. Maybe it's because fantasy (and SF) is harder to write than the others and we writers don't always do it as well as it could be done.

Maybe it's because they don't really see how it can be relevant to their adult lives or their relationships with God. What do nonfantasy readers really think fantasies are about, anyway? What do they expect to find, that they dismiss out of hand as irrelevant, childish, boring or silly? Kings? Battles? Exploding things? Do they expect the protagonists all to be children or talking animals because Narnia is what they're most familiar with? (The lion is a Christ figure. Ho hum. What does that have to do with my life? Where are the relationship issues that really matter?) Do they expect great battles as in LOTR because they've seen the movies and the battle for Helm's Deep lasted nearly an hour, the one for Minis Tirith... even longer? Are they embarrassed to be seen reading it?

Maybe it's like broccoli for some people -- it looks weird and I know I won't like it and there's no point in my ever trying it. Or then, again, maybe it's that we're all just different, and fantasy (especially Christian fantasy) is for an odd few out there on the fringe.

I have no idea. As I write this I have the nagging suspicion it doesn't matter. Those of us who like fantasy, like it. Those who don't, don't. We can try to share with them what we love about it -- heros, for me; the element of the battle of good against evil, the obvious parallels to the unseen angelic conflict, the surprising, intriguing places or things; often the characters themselves -- but in the end they'll either be enticed and intrigued or they won't. What resonates with some, falls flat with others. And sometimes you just can't explain resonance. It's not something that can be shared or conveyed, just something that is.

God has made each of us different. We have widely differing ideas of what is good and fun and appealing, widely differing backgrounds and frames of reference. And we have to respect that about each other. I guess the bottom line of this rambling post is that I am extremely grateful there are actually enough others out there who like to read what I like to read (and write) that there can actually be a market. It might not be as vigorous a market as we'd like, but it is there. There are books out there, as the Edenstar website shows us. And that is cause for rejoicing.

And maybe there really are a lot more readers out there than have shown up yet, simply because they don't know that Christian fantasy (and SF) exists.

Grace,
Karen

Edenstar Books & Games

Even though fantasy as a genre has its roots in Christianity with such authors as John Bunyon, Edmund Spencer, C.S. Lewis and JR.R. Tolkien, it has not yet really caught on with Christian readers in today's market, particularly adults. The last of the genres to find a place in the Christian publishing industry, speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction and horror) continues to struggle to find its readers. For one thing, those who love this kind of fiction often do not go into Christian bookstores or even the Christian fiction aisles of the general bookstores because they know the offerings will be slim to nonexistent.

In Feb 2003 Bill and Cheryl Bader opened their online store Edenstar Books & Games to provide a place for such readers to find and purchase the relatively limited number of books in this subgenre. And it is the Edenstarbooks website that will be the focus of our Christian SFF Blog Tour this month. There, classic fantasists like J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald share the listings with contemporary big names like Frank Peretti, Stephen Lawhead and Bill Myers, as well as lesser known writers like, um, Karen Hancock! (smile) Also Donita Paul, Bryan Davis, Kathy Tyers, Randall Ingermanson, James Beausigneur, Michael Warden, Lara Lond, L.B Graham, F.W. Faller... slowly but surely, the list is growing longer.

Over time, the Baders dropped the store part of their enterprise and transformed Edenstar into a database of over 600 items for "those who enjoy a good, clean science fiction or fantasy story in books, videos and games." Out of print and hard to find titles are included and each title is linked through Amazon.com for purchase. Originally the Baders planned to have reviews for each entry, but this proved to be more time-consuming than they could accomodate. So while a few books do have reviews specific to Edenstar, most come with links to other review sites for those who are interested.

You can find a list of books reviewed by Edenstar (which includes my own The Shadow Within) HERE.

In addition to reviews and booklistings. Edenstar also features a few interviews of contemporary Christian SF/F authors (including me) which you can find HERE.

I find the site very attractive and easy to use, and a great resource, though I would like to see them return to the effort of providing reviews specific to Edenstar of their titles.

Besides fiction, they also have listings for commentaries on Christian speculative fiction, biographies, and other non fiction related to the field. I invite you to investigate the great wealth of information they have gathered and organized with respect to what is available in the realm of Christian-themed science fiction and fantasy: Edenstar Books & Games.


Grace,
Karen

Back Story

Yesterday I talked about how I had finally gotten the key to what I needed to do in Chapter 15 but had no time to implement. Well today I had time and began the day with visions of completing the chapter. Instead, I got completely hung up on how to get into it. I knew what I intended to do once I got it going, and I kept getting all kinds of good ideas for what was to come, but I couldn't figure out how to begin it.

I stared out the window. I walked around. I did nonstops by hand and then on the computer. I checked email a bunch of times. I did a lot of fooling around with Bear, but that's normal. I started to get frustrated and angsty and worried. So I sat down and confessed those sins. Prayed about it some more. About 3:30 the answers began to come.

The problem was, the last scene with Abramm has happened months previously to the one I'm working on now. If I were simply going to continue with the events that immediately followed that last scene it would have been easy. And I considered that: starting there and running forward narratively. But I don't have the space to do that, and I think that would be boring, anyway. Conclusion: the place where I thought the action should start is where I still think it should, and I'm just going to have to figure out a way to deliver the backstory as efficiently and interestingly as I can. And... silly me... that is ALWAYS difficult.

But at least I've gotten it started now, for which I am very grateful.

Okay, back to work!

Karen

Larger than Life

Well. Yesterday I started chapter 15, and soon realized it was all wrong. So was ch 17. Neither are appropriate now given the changes that I have made -- conversations rehash issues already discussed, attitudes are wrong, and there is a now major inconsistency in the actions as a result of changes upstream. What to do? I had no idea. At all. Every time I tried to engage with the material, my brain switched off.

Then I spent about an hour trying to print up some online postage (mostly because I thought I had an account for it, but couldn't remember the password, or the user name I'd picked, nor had I written it down. Eventually I realized I had not set up an account after all... SIGH... and so set one up.) Then I mailed the package, ate lunch, went back to the chapter... and it was time to go to the Y. Well, maybe exercise would help my brain.

I didn't know what to bring to read. I'm in the middle of Donald Maas's Writing the Breakout Novel, and just was not in the mood to be further depressed by his suggestions of all the things I should be putting into my novel if I want it to be really successful and lack both the word count, wit, and time to incorporate. But...Freya Stark's adventures in Iran didn't appeal either, nor did I want to start reading the Writer's Guide to Fantasy, so I took the Maas book after all.

And it was just what I needed! I had forgotten about making your hero larger than life. I tend to get all tangled up in angst and problems (conflict!), but I saw after reading Maas that it's finally time to drop all that and move forward. As soon as I did, the lights went on and the brain started working again. I had hoped to make some significant progress today but alas... Bear had an allergy attack last night involving his ears after missing his Benadryl on account of throwing up. So I was up for several hours holding him still while the new dose kicked in. (Shaking his ears can lead to an aural hematoma, which he had a couple of years ago, or the ends getting all chewed up when they hit things and spraying/dripping blood everywhere, which he just healed up from a couple of days ago) So I didn't get up until late and had a foggy brain, and people over for Wednesday lunch... Maybe tomorrow.

Pressing On,
Karen

Grumpy

This is our first hound, Grumpy, a black and tan/bloodhound cross. He's two years old in this picture and in his later years was the model for Trap's dog Newbold in The Light of Eidon. I've used Bear as a model too, but only an unpublished short story I've written called Fairy Toads.

Grumpy was as much a character as Bear. He used to pull the socks off the clothesline when no one was looking. And if I waited in hiding for him to do it again so I could catch him in the act, he would wait until I left. Then pull them off.

We lived in an apple orchard at the time, and in the fall people would come to buy apples. He seemed to have a thing for scaring little old ladies who came up the walk. He didn't bark at them, he'd just quietly come up, the mild mannered hound, circle gradually around behind them and then, when they thought he was long gone, stick his nose in their, um, posterior. Upon which they would jump and shriek and turn and he would back away and bay. Okay, I know, you're not supposed to laugh. But it was funny. Especially when he kept doing it to new and unsuspecting victims!

Another time a lady came for apples and went with me off to pick a bunch for her from one of the trees. When we came back to the porch where she had left her purse, it was gone. She looked all around. Where was her purse?! She had set it right there and now it was gone! I suggested perhaps she'd brought it out the tree, but investigation proved otherwise. Then I thought, Where's Grumpy?

Sure enough he was out in the back of the orchard with the purse, which he'd taken off the porch. Somehow he'd dumped it out and was lying there in the tall grass, its contents spread around him. Why? I have no idea. But he did it more than once. Probably the smells were just more than he could bear to leave alone. Really, I assured the lady, we did not teach him to do this!

Grace,
Karen

Feedblitz

Finished chapter 13 today! (Technically it's only 13A since I'm just focusing on Abramm's plot thread, but still, a few days to finish is better than a week) On to 15B...

I have been meaning to mention for awhile now that I've signed up with Feedblitz so that readers can have this blog sent directly to their email Inbox if desired. The service sends out the blog posts for any given day at 1am the next day(morning?) and it's taken me awhile to figure out when the best time to post is so that the delivery won't be days after the initial post is made. Sometimes 9:55pm is fine. Sometimes 9:15 is too late. But over all I think I've got it down so that if I post late in the day it will show up in readers' Inboxes the next morning. (I've also learned that if you fool around with the date function on a particular post -- pre date it or post date it -- this so confuses Feedblitz that it won't send out the post at all.)

Anyway, if you are interested in this service, you have only to enter your email in the box on the sidebar and respond to the "Are you sure?" confirmation email to be signed up. The emails come with all graphics and links in place, and you can easily click back from it to the online blog itself if you wish to comment.

Grace,
Karen

PS. The sketch in the last post is of aspen and spruce in the White Mountains of northern Arizona where we used to take a yearly camping trip each fall. The golden aspen leaves falling around us like rain was an experience I gave to Carissa in The Shadow Within.

His Great Things vs Ours

Recently I read a question posed by Shannon McNear on her blog (here) asking "Where does one draw the line between Believing God for Great Things, and setting oneself up for disappointment?”

Well, having asked this question myself many times, I have some thoughts about that and thought I'd share them.

I don’t think there is a line. I think the problem isn't how much to believe but what. It's the failure to realize that His idea of great things and ours are not the same. We know He loves us. We know He wants to do great things for us. We know that He is far more concerned with our happiness and blessing even than we are... but we don’t think about that.

Instead, we think, "Ah, a great thing would be to see God prosper me in the area of being published. Or causing my books to become best-sellers. Or (fill in the blank). I want this thing so badly! I've asked him for it because I’m certain that if I had it, I would be happy, satisfied and fulfilled. I’m certain because I have thought about it at length. I have dreamed about how if I had it, all my insecurities and doubts and lack of confidence would be gone. Everything would be wonderful. I have looked at others’ lives and seen how confident and secure and happy they are with this particular blessing... I know that having this thing would feel good, not least because I would have seen God come through with a wonderful blessing in accordance with his promises to do great things for us."

So we ask for what we are so certain would be the best thing, the great thing for us. And maybe He doesn’t give us that. And instead of realizing at once that we are wrong, and that being published or having best selling books or whatever would not be a great thing at all for us at this time – would, in fact, be a total disaster for our spiritual life and our happiness -- we think He doesn’t care. We think He doesn’t have great things for us after all. We think He can’t be trusted. When His very refusal to give us right now what we want and strain for, is actually part of the great things He has promised to do for us.

Yes, He does want to bless us with prosperity, success, wealth, health, etc. Maybe He even wants to bless us with the things we think we want. But if we get them when we lack the capacity to receive them, they will be as disastrous for us as giving a ten year old the keys to a Porsche. Or giving a fourteen year old free access to his million dollar inheritance. They will not bless us, they will consume us.

We don’t think that will happen because in our daydreams we don’t see it that way. We think we have capacity. But the truth is, we don’t know squat. About ourselves, about what is good for us and about what things will be like should we receive this thing we so desire.

God, on the other hand, knows all of that with perfect accuracy. More than that, He, as our loving Father, is waiting to pour out blessings upon us. He will withhold no good thing to them who walk uprightly (Ps 84:11) But first we must be prepared (by God, not us) to receive them without being destroyed by them.

So yes, believe God for great things, but don't necessarily try to pin Him down on some specific item that may not be a great thing for you right now. If you ask for publication, recognition and/or success and do not receive it, count that a greater thing than if you did. For His ultimate goal is to conform us to the image of His son. And that happens most during the hard times, the times of suffering, not in the times of blessing and everything going right.

Ask, but focus on who He is, on the fact that His glory is in His goodness and that, if you are a believer in Christ He is FOR you. (Ro 8:31) If He sees fit not to give you what you want right now, know that is absolutely the best thing for you. Because if the desired thing was good for you, you can rest assured you'd already have it.

Grace,
karen

Happen vs Have Happen

Finished chapter 11 today.

Sometimes during the writing of the first draft you don't always know the things you want to happen in your story and the things you want to have happened, the things you can just mention as happening, versus the things you have to show. Not surprisingly then, I tend to have a lot of things happening that I only want to have happened in my first drafts. Which means I'm cutting a lot of those kinds of things and slowly pulling out the central elements that I want to actually show, and then developing those in greater depth and detail. I'm feeling fairly decent about it all today. This is the part I like -- where the Lord seems to be pulling the waters away from the dry land and at last the true story starts to appear!

On to chapter 13 tomorrow.
Karen

Prey

Prey
Michael Crichton
Harper Collins 2002
From the inside cover:

"In the Nevada desert, an experiment has gone horribly wrong. A cloud of nano-particles -- microrobots -- has escaped from the laboratory. This cloud is self-sustaining and self-reproducing. It is intelligent and learns from experience. For all practical purposes, it is alive. It has been programmed as a predator. It is evolving swiftly, becoming more deadly with each passing hour. Every attempt to destroy it has failed. And we are the prey.

Drawing on up-to-the-minute scientific fact, Prey takes us into the emerging realms of nanotechnology and artificial distributed intelligence -- in a story of breathtaking suspense."

As I said yesterday, I enjoyed this book. It was a fast read, heavy on concept and plot, light on characterization and setting. Not surprisingly there was quite a bit of exposition on artificial distributed intelligence/computer programming and evolution. What intrigued me, I guess, were the concepts of evolution as applied here. I don't believe there's much empirical or rational justification for the notion of species evolving into other species, and even when they use the term for viruses, "evolve" seems a misnomer. It's not like viruses are turning into cats or even into bacteria. They remain viruses and merely have different effects on the organisms they invade. However, reading this book it occurred to me that perhaps one place where evolution might truly apply is in the area of thought.

Now I'll freely admit that I don't know much at all about computer programs, and I hardly feel that reading this book has done much to change that. But it seemed to me that he was talking about something that was originally programmed to do a certain thing, including innovate in the attempt to achieve its goals, but because it was self-organizing and self-reproducing, at some point it went beyond the original program and began to program itself. With each successive generation the swarm upgraded its appearance and mode of operation to an increasing level of sophistication and complexity.

Computer programs are systems of commands, assumptions and instructions, some of which can, as a result of outside stimuli, "evolve." Or at least that was the impression Prey gave me. As such it struck me as an excellent metaphor for the system of false thinking with which Satan has deceived the world.

Likewise, the worldly thought system contains commands, assumptions and instructions. With each new truth that God reveals, it shifts and adapts, reorganizing itself to a greater level of complexity, subtlety and sophistication. You can see this over time in the history of ideas, particularly religious/theological concepts (among which I consider evolution itself). Science, as I mentioned in an earlier post, is constantly changing its view of what is true. Ditto Psychology. Education. Medicine. Today, philosophies and various religious viewpoints abound, the result of a constant shifting of perspectives and priorities, the acquisition of "new" information, and the changing view of what truth is and how it can be perceived.

All of which is quite interesting when you consider the Bible says there is an agent at work, a grand creature of great genius who is said to be the prince of the power of the air and the ruler of the world. One who has schemes and plans to continue in his deceptions, evolving them as old concepts prove false and new truths emerge for him to combat. In some cases he brings back old ideas in more complex forms -- gnosticism, for example. Environmentalism. The old phallic cult of ancient times (and if you don't think that isn't present, even rampant in our sex-crazed society of today...better think again. You don't have to have a temple or a grove to worship something.) And the evolution is the result of what he does relative to what God does.

When you step back and think about it, the magnitude of falsehood and deception is immense. Mind-boggling. And apart from knowing God's word, we have no hope at all of escaping deception. Even knowing it, we are at risk because some of Satan's greatest lies -- some of his best work -- relate to the Bible and Christians. Satan knows the word of God, after all. He tempted Jesus with it in the desert. He presents himself as an angel of light; his ministers come to us claiming to teach us how to be righteous. He has another Jesus, another Gospel, another communion table... And just like the swarm in Prey, his lies are constantly shifting form, adapting, attacking, imitating truth and seeking a way to live symbiotically with it. Which, of course, is ultimately impossible.

Grace,
Karen

Labor Day Weekend

No fun stuff or traveling for us this holiday, just a stay at home time where we got caught up, rested, etc.

I finished Chapter 9 on Saturday, then decided late in the day that I had to read some fiction. I'd not been allowing that since I'd started the revisions on account of not having the time -- and the fact that when I start reading a book I almost always have a couple of reading sprees where I just can't stop, won't stop, not to eat, not to go to the bathroom, and sometimes not even to turn on the light until it's too dark to see the page. But I started Michael Crichton's Prey which I borrowed from my son. I read it in two evenings, and yes last night was one of those don't-stop-for-anything-until-it's-done sprees.

I enjoyed it on several levels -- the concepts, the suspense and the observations of how he was presenting the story -- first person pov (which meant only one), minimal characterization and setting description, with the story's primary focus on the idea. The theme is a familiar one for Crichton -- technology (nanotechnology and computer programming, in this case) runs amok in an out of the way scientific installation. I enjoyed the first half of the story better than the second half when he started explaining things and my suspension of disbelief collapsed in a number of places, though not so much I couldn't enjoy it. It moved fast and since BHP wants me to try to keep things shorter in the next book, I thought it would be a good study.

Sunday we had our monthly communion service and potluck which lasted nearly all day, and then another party out to the south of town. I'm a introvert and at my first Mt. Hermon conference someone told me that while extroverts are energized by social interaction, introverts are drained. Even if you really, really enjoy the socializing, which I did. I always knew that, but had never really acknowledged it, and had I done so wouldn't have believed it. But the miniute the person at Mt. Hermon told me that, I realized it was definitely my experience.

Thus today I was a total blob. Slept in (which was probably also related to the reading spree that lasted until past midnight last night) and just never could quite get anything going. I wrote about Prey (that'll be up tomorrow, maybe) organized some of my papers and looked at ch 11, which is the next one for me to tackle, and hopefully the last of the really hard ones. Alas, my brain sat inertly, quiescently -- like those cells resting before they go about the division process again -- and no ideas stirred. I wasn't terribly surprised.

Later we took a walk in the rain around the park, then took Bear out around the block, which he loved. He even ate some dinner, after having gone about two days not eating anything. Tonight he was excited about canned chicken and ate that with about half a cup of his special kidney diet dog food. We've run though just about everything now -- he'll still eat chicken, hamburger and venison, but not with the gusto he once showed. Eventually nothing will appeal and he'll stop eating altogether. Then we'll be faced with the hard decision as to when to end it. Ugh.

Grace,
Karen

Coonhound Bear -- 2

At left is a photo of the beginning of the swimming race at the Trailing Hound Trials we attended with Bear. Note the raccoon in the cage on the cable to the right. He is just above the water and to the left of the woman in the pink shirt. His name was Ralph and he was there every year we attended and for many years before then. Bear is to the left in the picture. He has a green leash and is on the bank behind the other two redbones, under the man in the blue shirt with the cowboy hat.

The objective in this race is for all the dogs on the shore to see the raccoon and get all excited. When the gun goes off they are to leap into the water and swim across the lake as someone pulls the raccoon along over their heads to a tree on the far side. First dog to the tree wins.

All was going well -- Bear was straining at the end of the leash, barking his head off with the rest of them. My son let him go, he ran into the water with the other dogs... and stopped. You could almost see the lightbulb go on: "Phooey on this swimming stuff! Aren't we supposed to get to that raccoon as fast as we can?" So he whirled, left the water and raced around the lake. He was indeed the first hound to the tree. But, once again, he had broken the rules and was... disqualified!

So... he never quite made it as a coonhound, but we love him anyway!

Karen