Thoughts and Musings

Gearing Up

Blogging, obviously, is not something that is second nature to me. As much as I like talking about my writing (and my interests!), taking the time to post on a regular basis requires a discipline I'm not accustomed to, especially when I'm going through a dark spell, as I have recently. Over the past couple of months my creative mind has been relatively frozen, as I've gone through Rachel's illness and some other family issues, as well as a job change, and an editor change.

Steeple Hill has hired a new editor, who will be taking on my projects. Bless her, she called me today and broke a dam...I chattered on for almost 30 minutes (time I knew she probably couldn't spend!) about the upcoming book, the WIP, and the proposals at hand. I did get to pick her brain about what she was looking for most (suspense), so that the historical proposal I was fooling around with may return to the back burner in favor of Daisy Doe.

In the meantime, the opening forays of promotion have started with A Murder Among Friends, which releases mid-February 2007. They contacted me about getting my profile up on eHarlequin.com, and I'm participating in a group website for the Love Inspired authors. Also, since February is the month that they increase the number of Love Inspired books from 2 to 4, I should talk to a few bookstores and encourage them to increase their stock, especially since I'm a local author. I also need to update my website.

In the meantime, I've started a new day job, which is taking a lot of focus and energy. So all my efforts in writing and promotion shift to the evening hours, and I have the horrible habit of wanting to spend that time with Rachel, Phyllis, Kim, and my friends. I keep reminding myself that I really have two jobs and I need to get on the stick. Still...temptation looms large.

Yet I think my most recent block has opened up again. We'll see, if only from how often I continue to blog.

Please check back

Sorry about the delay with blogging. Lots happening, and I've been working some seriously long hours. I'm trying to meet a writing deadline, and in the middle...well...I'm changing jobs. So I'm trying to wind up one while prepping for the other. I hope you'll check back next week, when I hope things will settle JUST a bit.

I will try to blog a bit over the weekend.

Retreat and Regroup

As I blog this, I'm sitting about 20 feet from a sign that tells me that the limit on bass is 15 inches, catfish 14. Beneath it, a cluster of small lavender flowers flutter back and forth in the slight breeze that's stirring wildflower, feathery undergrowth, and the faint mist that still dances on wind and current about a foot above the lake. It swirls, shifts, then vanishes almost as quickly as it drafted in over the water.

I'm in retreat.

After the last few weeks of trial and emotional quakes with Rachel, combined with a growing tension about some things at work, I decided I need a mini-vacation.

Well...not exactly a vacation. I'm here to write. I needed woods and wind, sun and quiet. My writing has stalled, as I've mentioned before, not because of a mental block...my stories are bursting to get out, but because of focus and time. I've let too much get in the way of what I know God wants me to do. Not the essentials, like caring for Rachel. But the non-essentials, those tasks and "wants" that will eat up time faster than anything. I needed a release, a time to restart. A time to focus.

So here I am, at the inn at Montgomery Bell State Park, a last-minute decision to remove myself from the pulls of everyday life for about 30 hours. I'm going to pray, do some Bible study, explore the park a bit, and write.

And if you wondered why I chose this spot...well, this is the view from my room:

I will probably blog my progress through the day, just to see how much I can get accomplished. I'll enter those in the extended entry, if you're interested...first, the shrine.

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Yep, a shrine, in the middle of a state park. A church, which is there to celebrate the birth of a denomination, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which was founded in 1810 on land now a part of the park. A result of the Great Awakening revival of 1800, the CP church was founded by Rev. Samuel McAdow and his brethren. They wanted to break away from the Presbyterian church's doctrine of predestination and the stringent requirements of that church on the education of clergy, especially given the limitations of the frontier. They went on to ordain many remarkable young men who felt the call to preach.

The church is a beautiful sandstone and stained glass chapel, and there's a re-creation of McAdow's frontier cabin, which was two rooms separated by a breezeway. Furnished, these rooms echo of the lives that were once lived on this spot, amazing lives of purpose, faith, and hardship.

Interesting that I had decided to visit the church in the afternoon, but the chill of the morning convinced me to swap my activities for the day, and visit the chapel early and hike after lunch. When I got to the church, the morning sun had not yet dried the dew, which clung to the grass like a thick glycerin that actually splashed when you stepped off the path. When I got to the door of the church, there were two notes on it...reserved this afternoon for two different weddings, one at three and one at six. If I'd waited, I wouldn't have been able to go in, feel the sweet quiet, see the same hymnals I remembered so well from my teen years.

There are two trailheads here, tempting paths, but I had another reason to be there...to remember my own time as a CP member and the nourishment that church had given me. Like the shrine, my memories are there to remind me of the value of all that has come before, of all that has made me who I am, and who we are as the body of Christ. And how that can help us go forward.

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2pm, returning from hiking the Wildcat Trail, obviously NOT named for the abundance of such creatures. The wildest things I saw were some enthusiastic chipmunks and the children at the playground at the other end of the trail. The WT is a barely discernable path from the Monty Bell inn to a picnic area about a mile and a half away. This time made even less discernable by the profusion of falling leaves from the trees over head.

The trail signs on the WT are bright blue, and I soon discovered a reassuring dependence on them when the path was uncertain. I did take one side trail that led only to a soggy shore of the lake, and in doing so, I reawakened my rather nasty fear about being lost.

I've been lost in the woods. Tremendously lost (a story for another blog). So when I hike, I really want to make sure I am confident of the trail.

Obviously, there's a metaphor in there for our own path of faith and dependence on God and scripture...but that's not where I'm going. I want to take it one step farther.

Y'see, I became so dependent on those random blue spots that I lost awareness of my surroundings. I wanted to see the spot, so I knew I was safe. But in doing so, I stopped paying attention to where I was, a fact that become immediately apparent, once when I tripped over a large root, then once when I stumbled and grabbed NOT the nearest tree but a substantial briar...

...giving a whole new meaning "unhappy camper."

I get like that in life, too. In my experience, a lot of us do. We get so caught up in where we want to be that we forget where we are. We want to be .... "something" - a servant of God, a great mom, a stellar writer, a outstanding speaker, a great Christian - so much that we set our sights SOLELY on the goal instead of the journey.

Goals are great...but it is along the journey that we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and reach out to a hurting friend. It's on the path that we share faith in a way to those around us that they can see and understand. Just as Jesus taught in parables so people could absorb his meaning, it is when faith works on a daily basis that it reaches folks best.

Unwanted Excitement . . . and the Nature of Friendship

I'm normally quite a calm person. Not much rattles me. I talk a lot, but I'm pretty private about various aspects of my life, including how I feel about issues such as politics, religion, moral issues. I'm not usually a soapbox kind of girl. A few things do get my ire up to the point that I'll rant; I suppose the quickest way to get a rise out of me is to show disrespect to or try to hurt one of my friends. Personal loyalty is vital to me, almost as much as love.

My friends who are into astrology tell me this is part of my "Taurus nature"; I feel deeply and strongly, but it takes a great deal to bring it to the surface.

Thus it was startling to my colleagues to see me hopping up and down on the sidewalk in front of a restaurant, screaming obscenities at the sky.

I had good reason.

Rachel's school called me Thursday around noon, as I was about to join my colleagues for lunch. She'd stopped breathing. They'd called 911. And her nurse Phyllis, who was on her way from Franklin, KY, at a rate of speed I don't even want to think about. And her doctor. They'd also suctioned her and set an albuterol treatment in play.

She stopped for only about 45 seconds, but they did the right thing, and it made a difference to how quickly she has bounced back.

I have several friends who have left the same offer on the table many times: "If you ever need me, call me." I seldom do, so some think I may not take them seriously.

Little do they know.

I was at the restaurant without my car; I'd ridden with someone else. So I immediately thought: "Who's closest?" Probably Michele, since she's been working on a freelance job near the restaurant. So I called. She was there immediately, dropping everything but the Starbucks to come. I called Phyllis and caught her before she was too far south, asking her to stop at the house and get the Rachel necessities: diapers, milk, medicine, suction machine, music. Especially music. Sunny called, and said she was coming, as did her niece and Rachel's other caregiver, Kim. Rachel's principal, Robbie, was there. The Vanderbilt Children's ER took Rachel in, even though she's 19, because she's special needs, still under the care of her long-time pediatrician, Dr. Keown, and they have all her records.

It was a lively hospital room, all of us hovering, to the point that anyone coming into the room had to verify which one was Mom.

But it made a difference. Rachel went home later that day, pretty much back to baseline. She's still congested, and we kept her home Friday. I may have to keep her home tomorrow as well...haven't decided yet. Depends on how today goes....

....and today started off with more hopping up and down. Her PulmoAid machine quit; just won't turn on this morning. Of equal importance to her suction machine to her ability to continue breathing freely, we are substantially dependent on it. So here I am, bright and early on a Sunday, edging close to panic. Where in the world do I get one of these on a SUNDAY morning? Medical supply houses are closed. Doctors aren't in their offices. Hospitals?...

...Then I remembered that I'd seen one once, a long time ago, at a Walgreens. So that started the round of 6:30 am calls to the 24-hour stores in town, until I found one. I called Sunny, who was the closest to the store where I found one. In the meantime, I gave Rachel some coffee (which will help with asthma), and settled in to pray. Sunny showed up about an hour later, machine and breakfast in tow.

And people wonder why I stay in Nashville.

I'm blessed with a remarkable group of friends who love and support me in ways impossible to name all in one blog entry, sometimes despite inconveniences to themselves. Jamie once brought me medicine at 2am. Marilee stood by me after both my surgery and Rachel's. Marcheta, Sunny, Jeff, and Michele carted me all over creation when I didn't have a car. And my church! I wouldn't have ever made it through five years of nothing but freelance work without my church.

I occasionally read articles that praise the idea that man should be "self-sufficient" and independent of the need and support of other people. I usually just laugh and feel sorry for the author, thinking he's either a fool, an idiot, or really sad. I, for one, am blessed and grateful that I don't have to do all this alone. I am certainly saner, and more alive, because of it.