Month: December 2023

Novel Timelines Are My Achilles Heel

I mentioned in My NanoWrimo 2023 that I am working on a new fiction idea, a novel to be exact. I’ve been pushing myself to write and not worry about being perfect, to let the ideas flow and take life on the page. The polish can be applied later. It’s been a good strategy so far. I have my intro into the world, a general idea of the setting and the characters. I’m meeting them and their world. I have a clear idea of what I want this story to say and where it is going to end. What I am struggling with is the timeline. I have the ending, but the beginning is getting a bit fuzzy.

Story Structure

In my previous project Udal Cuain, I decided to join the story after the damage had been done so to speak. There was an in-media res structure to the timeline with flashbacks and characters processing the aftermath of an exile. It was a definite form of the story. The plot was handcuffed to certain storytelling devices to make it work. I don’t want to do that again. I don’t want my writing to be one note. This is where I am at a crossroads, do I start at the beginning? Do I start in the beginning-ish middle? How many flashbacks do I plan for?

The other thing I am uncertain of is whether I tell the story in first person and then how many perspectives should I include? In Udal Cuain there was an ensemble of main characters, do I narrow it down to one perspective for this one? It’s a lot to consider.

My Plan

My plan at the moment, to keep writing but not get ahead of myself has been to write notes above and below what I have written in my first draft to build out the story beforehand and afterward the chapters I have. I’ve denoted things I want in separate chapters. I’ve started pausing when the ideas are getting ahead of my mind and leaving a note to add more detail where I’d like to come back and elaborate further.

I’ve started planning out character names, and settings cues. This is the first time I’ve jumped in and sketched out the characters after. I had two whole chapters written before I had to commit to placeholder names for the sake of clarity.

With this in place, I’m planning to pause my writing to sketch out a summary from beginning to end that I can use to orient myself within the story and decide where to start. This intimidates me a bit because I’ve never sketched out a timeline from start to finish before. With Udal Cuain I was uncertain where the story was going in the end and it showed. This one has a definite ending.

Writing Music

I’m excited to have a writing playlist taking shape! Music is such a big inspiration for me. The music pulls ideas out of me and without good, expressive music my writing can be a bit flat. Currently, my favorite writing albums to pull from are Tomorrow X Together’s minisode 1: Blue Hour, The Name Chapter: Temptation, minisode 2: Thursday’s Child, Aespa’s Drama, Stray Kids’ Rockstar, Five Star, and No Easy.

How much TXT is on the list surprises me because I’m not a MOA or an avid listener more of a fringe TXT fan. There is something about the melodic nature of their songwriting that has made me happy and focused. SKZ is obvious, 3RACHA just gets me. Their creativity overflows from the music. Drama by Aespa is a sleeper. I didn’t like the new album upon release but it’s good for getting my creative juices flowing.

Goals by the End of 2023

  • Create a working timeline, with a clear start and finish.
  • Determine character names
  • Write a few more chapters, don’t lose momentum.
  • Be a diligent note-taker to keep the ideas flowing.
  • Determine the setting.
  • Have fun while doing it.

#41 – Cut Out Cookies

Whenever I am feeling a bit glum, I think of baking. I learned this from my Grandma. Her mom, who lost her parents at a young age and grew up quite poor would make herself “feel” rich by baking a cake.

I think this is such a sweet sentiment to hold because baking is something you can do with a little money or a lot of money. You can make something for yourself for a little pick me up or can brighten someone else’s day. It is shareable, communal, and made with love.

Baking is a moment of connection for me. A connection through the generations. So much about our present world is different from what it has been in the past, except for food. Food bridges those time gaps.

It even bridges distance and time. As I baked last Monday evening, on the other end of the phone my sister-in-law had just finished baking her own cookies and was making dinner. It was like we were together in a shared experience.

Mixing, resting, rolling. The process of rolling the dough to a thin layer, dunking the shaped cutter in flour, and pressing a new image into the dough was timeless. I could have been four or fourteen or thirty and made these cookies with my mom. We always did every year, every Christmas time. I sent her pictures of the cookies and we reminisced about years past.

The dough, the cookie dough reminds me of meals at Eat’n Park and their free smiley cookies. It’s childhood, cozy in a bite. It makes me feel rich in memories and moments spent with people I love.

Baking is my cozy corner of retreat, cut-out cookies my warm fuzzy blanket. I think that is what makes The Great British Bake Off irresistible. What a wonderful place of solace in a gloomy world.

Thank you, dear reader, for spending time with me today. I wish you love and comfort wherever you are.

Psalm 55:22

Cast your burden on the LORD, and He will sustain you; He will never permit the righteous to be moved.

Psalm 55:22 ESV

A month ago this verse popped across the screen of my phone, the verse of the day. Although those change daily, this one popped up again, and again. I wasn’t sure why but I knew I should take note. I’ve been a procrastinator in my devotions this fall, without a clear direction in my Bible study, I began reading this chapter, Psalm 55, daily. I’d read it and then reread it. I’d recite the words slowly in my head, sometimes out loud.

Again I wasn’t sure why. I thought maybe God was teaching me something, it felt like He was asking me to trust Him more in those moments of loss. Life was going pretty well so I wasn’t sure why it was happening now as I tend to do. I like to figure everything out, especially when I am supposed to wait and see. My impatient mind does not like waiting and seeing. I’ve learned over time to trust that if He is doing something to take note, and trust that even if it isn’t the way I would want things to happen there is a well-woven tapestry to His plan that will bring me out to the other side, perfectly loved as the song says.

You’re perfectly human
Made from the dust
You’ve got a heart, broken and scarred, yet perfectly loved
Oh, even when you were running
Even when you were hiding
Never been a moment that you were not perfectly loved
When you barely believed it (when you barely believed it)
When your eyes couldn’t see it
Every single moment you’ve always been perfectly loved
Perfectly loved
You’ve always been perfectly loved

– Rachel Lampa

This morning, that tapestry is becoming more clear. Psalm 55 is sandwiched between Psalm 54 and Psalm 56, the headings read – The Lord Upholds My Life, Cast Your Burden on the Lord, In God I Trust. When I was reading Psalm 55 in November, I read these too. I realized He was preparing me for a purpose, to trust Him this weekend when I learned I had unknowingly been eating an item containing milk and got sick. I was ready and rooted when a relational rug with a friend was pulled out from underneath me and I was prepared to be brave and ask her to stay instead of running first.

In the past I’ve been too afraid to be vulnerable with people who are leaving me, I’m always too scared to stop them. I’m terrified to say I care about them, to say that I’m hurting, and to ask them to stay because I’m afraid that they will laugh at me. I’ve been afraid of being too much. I’ve learned from my relationship with my husband that sometimes you have to be willing to look like an idiot because you care about someone. Reaching out first doesn’t mean you are weak or pathetic. It shows that the person means something to you. Being sad that a friendship is ending is healthy and normal, getting angry and burning a bridge so that you look tough is just plain dumb.

But the verse doesn’t say anything about this right? Right but the entire chapter is about David running from a treacherous enemy, it’s about betrayal. Through studying this chapter I’ve learned how to trust God against a treacherous enemy – myself.

I am my worst enemy. I will burn it all down when I’m scared faster than anyone can hurt me. I’ve been a runner, an island, terrified of letting anyone into the deepest parts of my insecurity. I may not be able to trust humans without fail with my heart but I can trust God and that is where my worth must come from. In denying feelings of sadness, and loss, and wanting those relationships to be, I was denying myself the opportunity to grow.

Making peace with my worst enemy, myself has brought me inner peace. I can trust God against my treacherous enemy, myself.

I couldn’t have done that without God’s care to prepare me for it. Through this whole experience, I have learned how great His love is. His love reaches out without certainty of us reaching back and if that is was the ultimate expression of love for us, then who am I to stop myself from growing and maturing to be more Christ-like? Especially if He is going to all this effort to be there for us.

How do you find inner peace? Have you ever self-sabotaged? Do you find it easy to be vulnerable?

Green Stripe Sweater Finale

This was my most ambitious project yet and I’m happy to say it’s done! And on schedule too because the deadline in my head was by the end of 2023. I didn’t think I would get there, especially with other projects, but it happened!

It’s funkier than I first designed, and it’s also a dress now which is fun and unique to my wardrobe. I don’t have any sweater tunics or dresses like this. I’m excited to play around with styling this piece as winter is yet to come. It’s still autumn technically which makes me want to jump for joy because I’ll be able to enjoy this piece all season long instead of partially or not at all like some of my former projects.

I Struggle in December

December is a weird month. I like Christmas and in the same breath, all the holiday joy reminds me of loved ones who aren’t with me anymore. The darkness of winter, the time change, and dreary gray days have felt like my mind washing over my environment when I get sad.

My grandma passed away on December 18, a few years ago now. Before she passed, our family holidays moved from being at home to being celebrated at a nursing home because my papa had broken his neck and wasn’t able to recover fully from the injury at 80 years old. The season has felt a little empty now for seven years. It hasn’t been all bad, my husband and I have created new traditions and I’ve found a lot of joy in rejecting the tradition and finding new ways to enjoy the season. Making things and being generous to others, whether in my community or social circle, has been the best way to make this month joyful for me personally.

Potato Technology’s A/W 2022 was about this exact point, I wanted to make things for the people who showered me with love and encouragement as I found my way back from grief to a new normal. The last Christmas season before the pandemic, we made cards for a local nursing home and that is still one of my favorite Christmas memories of the last seven years.

That was the same year my brother came to visit me on Christmas. We never spent a holiday together in our 26 years of being brother and sister. It was cool and also hard to process. I think there will never be enough time or enough normalcy to make my relationship with my brothers feel whole because we didn’t get the chance to have that and had to make our own traditions with our separate moms. My sister’s existence with another mom makes the entire thing more complicated, as I have been both shoehorned into that nuclear family even though I don’t belong and have been passed over for the normalcy of my sister’s two-parent home.

My dad and my stepmom don’t understand boundaries. If I put up a boundary, they tear it down. They even weaponize this time of year to make me feel guilty. Before I cut off contact it was guilt to be at their house in south Georgia for every Thanksgiving and Christmas on my dime. This irks me because they are incredibly rich compared to me and most people in my life and it’s unfair to place these financial and emotional expectations on me. Since I have cut contact because I got tired of the toxic environment, I get a reminder of my failure with a Christmas card and sometimes a present. The card used to come from my dad but as I have not done as he wished, it now comes from his wife and has become more cutting.

I’m not sure if it will come this year but it hangs over my mind as I feel grief that my dad can’t be in my life without hurting me, and if I take a step back from the dysfunction for my own sanity, I receive nasty cards reminding me how it is all my fault. Merry Christmas, you’re failing us as a daughter. In reality, the situation is complicated and I am sure at fault for things but the sheer inability to acknowledge that it takes two people in a relationship to make it or break it baffles me.

I think all this baggage could be why, I am utterly distraught that my friendship with a friend I met in college which was honestly always dysfunctional, and probably better for both of us to go separate ways, has ended abruptly. Even though I saw it coming and was honestly on borrowed time, the fact that it fell apart at this time of the year is bringing me quite low. I don’t understand how it all happened as quickly as it did. Because I’ve lived so many years now with those nasty Christmas cards, I can’t help thinking this is all my fault and that I didn’t mean much to her anyway. Which is crazy because I know that our friendship did mean a lot.

Man, this time of the year is not as holly or jolly as those songs claim. It is complicated because it can’t be perfect like the movies tell us it will be. If you are having a hard time, know that I’m here for you and I’m sending you love through my keyboard because I am not doing well either. Thank you for spending a bit of your day with me.

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