Another Blog?

I've started another blog which is completely unrelated to this one. Upon my mom's encouragement, I've decided to start a blog about basic information regarding computers and their functions, uses, and attributes.

http://for-your-convenience.blogspot.com/

Feel free to go check it out. I'll be updating it as often as possible. I'm going to go round up pictures to go along with the first post now.

Also in my life, I'm working for my dad as his assistant, making dinner & cleaning the house, weeding every flower patch and garden around our homestead, and somewhere in there, trying to write a book. What happened to summer vacation and relaxing? Well, in today's day and age...it doesn't really exist.

You'll have to excuse me while I go attempt to work for an hour before calling it quits, waking up at 9 tomorrow, and then doing this all over again.

At the moment, I'm 3 chapters into my second book. The goal: a rough draft of the second book by the end of the summer. Doable? I think so.

Hearing

It's funny how God talks to us.

At the beginning of this school year, I felt pretty 'tight' with God. I went on nightly walks for an hour and just talked to Him. Out loud, unashamed of the fact that, physically I was talking to the air, but spiritually I was talking to my Father. Then the semester took hold and winter hit and it got cold outside. And then Spring semester came and I worried more about grades than I did my quality time with God.

Now here I sit, back at step 1 where picking up the Bible to read for even five minutes is a chore again. I'm frustrated with myself for having fallen into the trap that so easily offers an excuse. Time. It's something I hate and yet, I can do nothing for the time that has passed. Here on out, I can only change the here and now, hoping for a brighter future.

I was perusing friend's pages on Facebook and came across an old friend's page. For kicks and giggles, I decided to check out his tumblr (the more I search the web, the more I think I need a tumblr). Three entries long, I found myself captivated by the depth with which he wrote. The more I read, the more I felt like I understood exactly where he was coming from. He was merely putting it into words that I had never thought to formulate.

And then, somewhere around his third entry, I felt a soft nudge on my heart.

I was being confronted in a point-blank manner to accept that I cannot do anything to change the world, let alone the people that inhabit it. There was a necessary acceptance of the fact that my desire to change the world was actually getting in my way. I had to let God change people, not think that I could change people.

For about a year now, I've had this crazy notion floating around in my head that what I was writing were my books. And then at some point, I thought that wasn't right, and instead they were God's books. But I so easily slip back into the notion that somehow, I have come up with this vast insanity that in some way, might resemble a reasonable plot for a story.

How easily I fall.

I tend to get this absurd thought in my head that, "I'm good enough for now". Not that I don't need to grow. No, it's worse than that. It's more that I think that with my age, with my spiritual maturity, I am on a good foundation in comparison to other believers my age. I place myself above others, thinking that I'm somehow on a better foundation than they are.

I negate my own thinking just by thinking it. Pride riddles away at that foundation and before I know it, I'm back on the cold ground while the other 'lesser' individuals I thought myself so much better than are higher up, looking down at me saying, "What are you doing down there?"

All I can reply is, "I don't know."

Am I willing to be nothing? Honestly? No. I never have been. It's why it grates so harshly against me. I desire to be noticed, to be seen. Reality always shows me the opposite, but I still keep kicking my feet and hammering the ground with my arms in an attempt that someone might ask what's wrong. Worse than my impromptu temper tantrums are the times when I do something and instantly wish to be recognized for it.

How prideful am I?

All of these years I thought "I've got that whole pride thing down. I'm perfectly fine being the last one there, last one picked, least among the best, etc., etc., etc." It's merely through this new lens that I suddenly realize that pride is actually a rather large demon of mine. I just always thought that I was better than that.

I claim that I'm not here for me, I'm here on Earth for God. I avoid temptation as best I can, I say my prayers every day, etc. But somewhere inside of me, I still harbor those good things I do and stock them up. As if God is tallying me against others. Why do I care about the tally? Why do I care how much I may or may not have done?

For the past few months, I've thought that either God is being silent, or I'm not listening properly. I think that tonight (or this morning. I guess it's morning), I've realized I probably wasn't listening properly.

We all lose our way sometimes. I just need to learn to accept those stumbles as opportunities to learn how to make myself a better individual and a better Child of God.

Future World

Today I got the opportunity to speak with the writer Jeffrey Overstreet in my Writing About Film class. If you don't know anything about him, here's quick snippit: he's written a fantasy book series called Auralia's Colors and is well known within the film world as a Christian film critic. His book Through a Screen Darkly is essentially my textbook for class. It's been really intriguing to see him comment on movies from a Christian viewpoint, but not to the extreme conservative that most Christians tend to 'review' movies.

As he spoke about his film reviews or answered my questions about book writing, I felt within me the same feeling of 'home' as I did when I was at the Writer's Conference last summer. Talking with other authors, agents and editors and sharing experiences and discussing books is something I've missed. I didn't realize it until this morning, but I have missed that world. That future world I hope and pray I will one day belong to.

One of the questions I had asked Mr. Overstreet (it sounds so formal, but I don't feel right calling him "Jeff"), was how hard it was for him to construct his fantasy book series. It's something I've been struggling with personally - trying to create the world I'm writing about, yet feeling as though I'm missing something vital that most authors seem to understand. I've found that I feel inadequate at times to write the book series I'm writing. As though I'm under-qualified for such a task.

However Mr. Overstreet's response helped to put me at ease. He stated that the first draft of his novel was written in 1996, but it wasn't published until 2006. 10 years. Is that normal? 10 years seems to the be the magic time limit. He continued to say that he had started out with a 70 page short story, and it progressed into a 4 book long series. That change had occurred through he and his friends asking questions about the characters, the plot, the setting, etc.

So I'm not on the wrong path?

It always seems as though I am. From my limited perspective, it looks as though I'm wandering around, waiting for something to occur. Some magic bolt of lightning to strike my brain to change everything. But what if there is no bolt of lightning required? What if I merely need to keep plodding along until something within the story changes?

I see a major difference between my experience and Mr. Overstreet's. He had friends asking questions. Inversely, I stand alone. My brother occasionally will approach me with a question or a comment, but those times are few and far between. And now that he's down in Tennessee for the summer, well...that means that the island I stand on is drifting farther away from other people.

Perhaps it's my own doing. Perhaps it's not. Maybe I just need to be patient. For some reason, I always think that I've got patience down to an art. Silly me. Patience is something that I can do well in some instances. But when it comes to my books, I find that I am so impatient I may as well be throwing a tempter tantrum at God. Yet He stills waits for me to calm down and then tells me that everything's going to be okay.

I'm going to be okay.

Oh, and if anyone out there happens to know of a job I can have over the summer, I would greatly appreciate it. Apparently I'm inept at having one. I know God provides and all, but with my dad breathing down my neck about a job, it seems as though I might get killed if I don't find something.

Patience and trust. Oh how often I stumble.

For now, here's a pretty picture I found here: http://allthekngshorses.deviantart.com/favourites/43269878#/d27sjjj

EDIT*

Jeffrey Overstreet is one of my favorite people now. Why? Because he finds problems in Harry Potter that really SHOULD NOT be ignored. Children should not do things counter to what they're told (aka, break rules), and then be praised for it. I was so happy when he said that this morning.

The Wardrobe

My nephew is turning one year old in two weeks - holy wow. I don't know where the past year has gone! It feels like it was such a long time ago that my mom called me at six am to explain that I had to remember the name of the hospital my brother and sister-in-law were going to be having their baby because she couldn't remember.

So for the past month or so I've been wracking my brain trying to come up with an idea for my nephew's birthday present. I went through the usual: movies, music, books, toys, clothes, etc. And then I went shopping on Amazon.com (the only place I like to shop. Today I went out with my sisters to run some errands and nearly killed myself from the insanity that was found in parking lots and stores. It's times like those where I miss the middle of nowhere), anyway, upon shopping online, I decided to look for various versions of The Chronicles of Narnia for collecting. As I was looking through the available versions, I saw a pop-up book.

I'm uber excited.

I feel like I need another Narnia fan in the household. When I mentioned that, my sister freaked out and said, "I'm a Narnia fan! I just...haven't finished reading the books." I wanted to go reread the series solely because of her confession. She'll probably watch all of the movies long before she reads the books.

So I will attempt to steer my nephew toward them. He'll probably lose interest in them as he grows up - as that seems to be the normal turn of events for most people. I'm an anomaly.

It makes me happy that I've got another person to share the month of June with in the family! For the longest time it was just me out there all by my lonesome. Mallory is really close to my birthday too, but she's a July birthday. We tended to do things together anyway - like when we went to Red Robin and got free sandwiches for our birthdays :)

So two weeks or so after my nephew's birthday I'll be turning 23. Oh gosh. That feels weird. Before I know it I'll be in my thirties. And in two years my brain matures. That's a scary thought.

I've found myself frustrated lately at my lack of work ethic when it comes to working on my books. The crazy thing is, I'll get in a car and drive for a few hours (I've been driving to Williamsport to help my brother and sister-in-law with move in stuff), and get all of these great images flying around in my head that I want to expand on. Then I get out of the car and start working on something entirely different. By the time I get to a computer, the images are gone and the drive to write has left me.

I've been going through my room since I have to move back into it next weekend and came across all of the notes, scraps, and previous copies of my first book. It all fits into a copy box, and as I set it aside against the wall, I thought, "If I don't do this soon, I'll never finish it."

That thought scared me. Mostly because that's probably true.

So am I supposed to dive into it and let it consume me? Or does God want me elsewhere? Should my attention be on my books, or somewhere else? I feel no pull in any direction, which is probably my own fault.

I get so easily distracted. Maybe I should learn to turn off the internet. Seeing as that's where most of my distractions originate from.

In other news, this summer is packed. If it's up to me, this is how it will look: my nephew's birthday, going up to Crogan, NY for my friend Dana & my birthday (we share the same day), a week down at Ocean City, my best friend Shelly's wedding, work for a month straight, head back to Houghton for my final year.

Things will finally slow down in August. And that's if I'm given the opportunity to do everything I want to do. Right now I'm struggling to find a job for the summer. My usual job seems impossible to reach regarding when I'll be available to work. And on top of that, they probably won't be too keen on giving me a lot of time off.

*Sigh* It'll be okay. I just need to trust that God's going to lead me where I need to go. And hope that where he leads me is where money is - because otherwise, my father will have my hide.

"Not all who wander are lost." - J.R.R. Tolkien