And there it was.

{via}

You know how people always ask you "that question" on your birthday? You know the one. "How do you feel now that you're *insert any number from 3-25*?" I've always been mildly annoyed by those questions. It doesn't feel any different. It's just another day in the life. Turning 17 isn't what makes you feel 17; all the awesome and not-so-awesome things you experience when you're 17 are what make you feel a year older. And by the time you feel that way, you're 18, and the cycle starts over again.

I got asked a similar question recently. I was sitting there, holding it in my hands, staring down at page 32 with a slightly dazed expression on my face and a pure cloud of golden joy fogging up my vision. "So," my dad asked. "How does it feel to be published?"

The answer?

Not that much different. It feels great, don't get me wrong. I don't think I'll ever forget the feeling I felt when I tore away that envelope and saw the magazine hiding inside, or the feeling I felt when I saw my story printed on a crisp white page, one of those shiny expensive magazine pages and not the flimsy computer paper pages my stories have lived on for so long. I couldn't stop smiling. But I didn't feel all that different. I have a theory. Getting published the kind of experience that totally exhausts you and makes you terribly happy and is often followed by a burst of applause from friends and family. Then when it's all over, you sit back, read your story a few times, and tap your fingers on the table.

That was fun, you think. Now let's do it again.

And I'm already planning to.

Ps. Getting published could also be just like doing a gigantic face-smash into a delicious chocolate cake. I haven't quite decided yet.

February Favorite: Scrivener

Hi guys! I just wanted to share with you a cool little writing tool I found via the interwebz this past week. It's called Scrivener.

When it comes to writing, I'm a very organized person [Unfortunately, my organizational skills don't extend into the real world, much to my mother's chagrin]. I love to have little folders on my laptop for each book, then subfolders for each character, then sub-sub-folders for every quirk my character has. In short, I love to organize my ideas, my characters, their personalities, their favorite foods, places they've been... I'm a veritable maniac when it comes to character analysis.

That said, I use Microsoft Word for my books. It's great--it has all the tools I need to get a story down on paper. The problem comes when I'm trying to file away characters, scenes, information about my worlds, etc. I can never find the folder I need, the character I'm seeking, the specific picture of a tree I've stashed away. And just as a note: NEVER put all your characters into one Word document. The results aren't pretty.

I've often wanted a better way to keep my characters filed, but I didn't know that way actually existed until I found Scrivener.

Scrivener is a computer program specifically for writers; it's geared towards better organizing your stories, your characters, even your scenes, places and creatures. The opportunities are endless... once you get the hang of the program. But that doesn't take long. After you've explored, it's time to stash. Scrivener has a unique corkboard background, on which you can place an infinite number of virtual 3 x 5 cards. Each card serves as a snippet of the massive document it represents--you can make long character pages without taking up pages and pages of space in a Word Document, and when you're done, all you see on the main page is a little card with your character's name. Same for cards representing scenes, places, interesting facts, etc. It's COOL. I'm having so much fun.

Now, you might be wondering why I'm telling you this. You guessed right if you thought Scrivener is expensive--it costs $40. I'm still debating on whether or not to buy it.

I'll let you wonder how I can have it without buying it for a moment :3

Okay, ready? This program is availible for a free, non-consecutive 30 day trial. It's super easy to download, and if you decide you don't want to make the investment when the 30 days are up, you can export all your information so you don't lose anything. I'm having a blast with those little 3 x 5 cards. I think you will, too.

So go check it out! You can find more information about the program and the opportunity to start your own 30 day trial at:
 http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

I highly recommend this program. Now does anyone have an extra forty bucks I can borrow to have it forever? 8D

NEWS.

Like, really big news!

Well, first off, I didn't get that big scholarship I'd wanted. I came home from skiing yesterday, exhausted yet excited because I knew that I'd soon find out whether or not I'd be invited to go down to Georgia for scholarship weekend. The phone call wouldn't have let me know that I GOT the scholarship, but it would bring me one step closer to being able to attend the college I'm being pulled towards right now. Anyway, I got a call from my Admissions Rep. She was so sweet, apologizing that I hand't gotten invited even though it wasn't her fault. That made the news easier, somehow.

But today, I was really feeling the weight of not being awarded all that money. College is EXPENSIVE, people. If you don't have a job, get one and start saving, because all that hard-earned money is going to go a long way if you save wisely. I'm looking into other scholarships outside of the school, but they require more work and time that I don't have. So I was stressing out.

Tonight, I came home a little depressed. I sit down at my computer and what do I see (besides my amazing War Horse Background)?

An email.

No, not from Fozzy (although I always loooove to hear from her). Not from the college, telling me there's been a horrible mistake and would I please come and accept a wad of cash (though that would be nice, too).

It was an email from a Christian writers' magazine that I'd mentioned a while back, right after the writer's conference 2011.

They want my short story.

As in, to publish.

On paper.

Maybe with an illustration.

In only a couple months.


God is so amazing in His timing! I was feeling so let down, and yet here's something to pick me back up--something I've been working towards and praying for and dreaming about for... well, years.

[potential, but it looks like it really is happening] PUBLICATION.

I just had to share that with you. I'm so grateful, scared, and beside myself with excitement. Please pray that I don't send the publishers a really hyper email, singing something about rainbows and unicorns bursting from the clouds, and scare them out of wanting to publish me. That would be bad.


Thanking God [and putting my editing cap on!]~

Elisabeth

'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

Christmas is pretty amazing. Today, it's electrified with an emphasis on presents, on food, on outward expressions of love as family members gather together for one day, exchange gifts, and then hardly see each other for a whole year. It's very interesting to see how people can take something originally understated and hardly acknowledged that first Christmas Night and decorate it and buy it and sell it and sing it until we hardly know what we're celebrating anymore.

Yesterday evening, I watched It's a Wonderful Life and cried my eyes out at the end. Today, we had dear friends over and opened our stockings and put our star on top of the Christmas tree. Tomorrow, we're going to put off opening gifts until Monday so that we can focus on preparing ourselves for worship. Then, after church, we're going to visit my grandmothers and have a delicious dinner with family. I love Christmas for all these things and more (even as I sit here watching It's a Wonderful Life for a second time). But I'm surprised at how warped the message of Christmas has become to the world.

We hear it again and again--"For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son...." But just stop right there. He gave His only Son. How did He do that? Jesus Christ became a man--a human being, like you, like me, a human being who faced temptation, pain, sorrow, fear and death. He should never have had to stoop to that measure--to become what He had created. But He did--He did it willingly. Why?

Well. There's me. And you. And others, too. Even though we had fallen from His favor and deserved only His displeasure, God had a plan for our salvation. We couldn't save ourselves, however hard we might try. He had to save us. And so that's exactly what happened on the first Christmas night about two thousand years ago. God became man. He was born of a virgin, born under the law. He became sin for us. In the end, He faced God's wrath so that we would not have to. And this is where it all began. It didn't begin with a fanfare of trumpets up and down the crowded streets of Bethlehem; it began with a choir of angels who were sent to shepherds, alone with their flocks on the outskirts of the town. It didn't begin in a palace or even a house; it began in a cave, in the presence of animals. And when the baby Jesus had finally entered His world, the only bed availible was a hastily prepared manger, much the the displeasure of several cows and sheep, I should think. He wasn't noticed that night; and when He was noticed later in life, it was only to be despised and rejected by men.

And yet He still came. Even to face ridicule, death, and the wrath of God the Father for the sins of the world.

That, my friends, is why we have Christmas today, 2,000 years later. Even after two thousand years, we are still trying to understand it.

And, frankly, I don't know if we ever will.

Merry Christmas, everyone. God Bless you tonight, tomorrow and in the coming year.

Halfway There

[Via]

 So, that's where I am. Thirty-thousand words. I honestly can't remember being at this point last year. I must have been in a sugar-induced coma. And okay, so the picture I used to illustrate the saying "Halfway there" is actually a picture of just "There". But "There" is where we want to be on the 30th, right? So it's all good.

I'm in part Two of the three parts I've envisioned for my book. This is where the story that I know really well, the story I've been wanting to write from the beginning, starts. I'm so excited, and a little scared, too. I'm still five thousand words behind, and I have a lot of things to do tomorrow. And of course, Thanksgiving Day is pretty much a dud as far as writing goes. Oh, well. God, you know what You're doing, and if I don't find enough time to catch up, I'll just do the all-nighter like I did last year. Yeah. That was fun :]

Here's my current favorite picture of Mae and her two children: Mary (the girl with the ridiculously huge bow and the ridiculously adorable smile) and Joseph, the dashingly handsome young man in the sailor suit who happens to be my great-grandfather. This was probably taken around the time that I'm writing about them right this very minute. Looking at this picture is so cool, and scary at the same time. This is where I came from, people. I'm so thankful to have such an amazing history!

Keep on writing, Wrimos! We're almost there.

It's Coming....

Fall. I can smell it in the air in the mornings and feel it under my toes in the afternoon. The leaves aren't changing quite yet, but there's a sense of anticipation, as if all of nature is holding its breath before the plunge. I don't know what the calanders tell you, but for me, autumn is September.

I love September. It contains a lot of happy things. My sister's birthday, the beginning of a new school year at co-op, the last beach vacation of the season, the first walk under the crisp red leaves. Fall means leaf parties, where my entire family converges on my grandmother's house and chases down every leaf in her spacious yard. It means breaking out the boots and scarves and insisting on wearing said accessories every single day. It means school, which can be fun and can sometimes be...well, not so fun. New classes excite me--what will we learn? Who will I meet? How will the classes change me? Fall means finding leaves the color of my dreams and trying to photograph every single one before they start to fade right in my hands. It means shorter days but long, cool, starry nights. It means that soon, we'll all be able to puff out huge clouds of steam into the colder air.

Fall excites me. Even though it's still hot and humid here, I can begin looking forward to sweaters and boots, hot chocolate and long nights studying and occasionally writing like a madwoman when the tingly air completely overpowers my sanity. It's not my favorite season for nothing.

As I head off to my very first class of the year at co-op, I just wanted to invite you to join me in the anticipation =)

Happy Fall~

Elisabeth

The Happiness

Folks, meet my dog (if you miss her, you need to check your pure-and-simple happiness detector). Her name is Denza, and she's a Golden Retriever, which is arguably the most happy dog in the entire world. When she's happy--well, that's all the time. But when she's REALLY happy, she just sort of sits in front of you, grinning as if her life has been defined the moment your hand sunk into her fuzzy fluff.

This past weekend, I was a Golden Retriever.

I cannot begin to explain to you the joy I feel when I write. Sometimes it's hard, sometimes I hate doing it, sometimes I want to be a brain surgeon and forget all about showing-not-telling. But I always have this joy--the joy that I'm creating something, be it another Les Miserables (I highly doubt it) or another building block for my "never-read-again" pile. I love to write, and I could truthfully say that if I could simply write for the rest of my life, I would be quite content.
So, the writing's enough for me. But then comes this week (and all the weeks in prior years). Not only do I get to meet scores of people who love to write and who love God, but I also am told that what I've written is quite GOOD by more than one or two sympathetic grown-ups. On the contrary, all of the people I met with this year were not only pleasantly surprised with my ramblings, but some of them even expressed an interest in publishing them. It's like being told that you're good at eating ice cream.

....

I think I could die happy 8D

I can't tell you how much the GPCWC means to me. Ever since I found it, I've been looking forward to a blissful weekend of escape every August. Sometimes there are hard things that are said, and I can honestly say that stings. But I've learned--I've been made to learn--that even when you feel like you've been hit really hard, you have to get up and keep doing what you love.

The first thing that simply amazes me about the conference is that it is FULL of God. He is in the sessions. He is in the worship. He is in the teaching. People pray with you after interviews. People pray with you after classes. People pray for you in the hallways. I can't imagine going to a more secular conference and losing that richness that simply permeates the GPCWC. Not only is it comforting and calming when you're stressed and frazzled, it's also a firm and solid foundation for a sensational conference.

The next great thing about the conference are the people. The people who come from all over the US--and sometimes outside the US, too--are simply incredible. They are from all kinds of churches, and they have all kinds of different views on faith and theology, but (thank God!) it doesn't stop from loving each other and sticking together like brothers and sisters in Christ. You meet the most unique and kind people, people who exhort you to keep pushing and moving forward even when you're so tired you're falling asleep at lunch. They interact in the classes, ask questions you wouldn't dream of in a thousand years, keep you smiling and keep you going all week. They offer the best advice and give you new leads on how to better your writing and yourself. I was humbled to interact with them this week.

Then there are the teachers, the writers, the editors, the agents, the people who make this thing happen. They. Are. Amazing. And that's truly all I can say. The teachers are funny, witty, sometimes brutal, but always honest and never cruel. They challenge you, they embarrass you, they praise you, they tear you writing apart and leave you bleeding but resolved to do even better next time. They hunt down every error and make it hurt--they train you to see your mistakes and not to make them again.
The writers, editors and agents who I've met with are gracious and excited that I've requested to see them, even if it's for the third year in a row or I forgot if they're an editor, agent or author and have to ask them what exactly they do for a living before the interview even starts so I know what I'm supposed to pitch. (true story, see XD). It's so rewarding for me to start out with a publisher skeptical of my idea at the start of the interview and shouting (yes, shouting) "SHOW ME THE UNICORN!" at the end. They let me make mistakes, honestly tell me what I do wrong, recommend other people to meet with and give me business cards and a piece of chocolate <3

The people who run the conference are true heroes. They man the cash register for hours. They put up with my stupid questions and tell me the answers again and again without even missing a beat. Without them, I'd be totally and hopelessly lost. They provide delicious meals and work for hundreds of hours on registrations and emails and making lovely informational packets for each and every conferee. I have one complaint and one alone: they always manage to spell either my first or my last name wrong. And I can understand why XD


Lastly, the material at the conference is in a class by itself. The teachers prepare it and present it; it's found in countless books in the bookshop; you talk about it, think about it, read about it and try to apply it the entire weekend. It's made very concise, not so that it's watered down, but that I can sit through a class with 30 mature adults and understand the intricacies of dialogue as well as they do. I appreciate that the teachers and authors make the material so understandable--I can use the handouts they give me all year long and come back with a better, more polished novel each year.

Guys, I'm just so blessed by this conference. It never fails. It's exhausting, it's stressful, it's confusing at times, but it's SO worth it. The only thing that could make me happier next year is if I see you there. (Except for you, Danielle. You are there every year, and it adds to the joy :3).

May we all be as happy as a Golden Retriever every day--or at least close to it.

~God Bless

Elisabeth