Four Books: Four Months

Okay people, I am about to declare something crazy. Something completely crazy that I'm going to do.

I was glancing over my books this week and suddenly went, "I really wish I could share my fifth Parabaloni book with my fabulous readers this Christmas, since it’s a Christmas book, and I think they would really like it. But,” I thought, “I have Dreaded King: Reign Falls coming out in October, and a fourth Parabaloni book before Adelie Angst, and November when I’m supposed to write the third Dreaded King book for National Novel Writer’s Month…But then again, that’s just a book a month…”

So, here’s the deal. The crazy, stupid, ridiculous challenge that I’m setting myself. In between all the other wonderful random things I have going in my busy life, I am going to edit and release three books, and write one, in four months. Yep, that’s right. Four books, in four months. And yep, I’m crazy to be considering it. But it’s going to be awesome. Here’s my plan:

September – October 1^st: Reign Falls is going to finish up its overhaul and reach your hands, so you can finally find out what happened to Meagan and Corinth and Charlie as they race away from Yaspur the Hard and his gray-clad assassins. (They do succeed in getting away from him…for a little while, anyway…but not for too long. Though I suppose that’s a bit of a SPOILER so you can ignore it.)

October 2^nd – October 31^st: Solitaire, Parabaloni Novel 4, is getting its overhaul and major editing done. Ever wondered what really happened with Gigan the French sharpshooter’s family? It had to be something major (and therefore interesting) to have completely alienated him from their boisterous presence. And what’s the deal with the neon green hair, anyway?

November 1^st – November 31^st: NaNoWriMo! Another full month given over to the ridiculously crazy task of starting with a blank word document and ending up with a full book. At least in rough draft form. Dreaded King 3 is going to be finally written. I’m so excited to start hammering out all the ideas that have been floating around in my head for the past year! Obviously this one isn’t going to get to your hands for a while yet. But it will begin the process, this November! (Oh, by the way, in case you were wondering, there are going to be 4 Dreaded King books in total; it’s not a series that drags on forever.)

December 1^st – 20^th: Adelie Angst, Parabaloni 5, is going to be edited and out in time for you to shove it in a stocking or under a tree. Filled with penguins and paintings, space ships and snow, tension and teases, this is probably the most streamlined of my Parabaloni novels, as far as getting the plot down on the page with the least amount of distractions. And it is quite a different sort of a plot, let me tell you. I hope you enjoy watching the way your favorite quirky band of spies spends their holiday season.

Therefore, when Christmas day rolls round and you see me with reddened eyes and a slightly fattened stomach, you will know it’s because I have spent the last four months, every second I can snatch from real life, staring at Allen’s screen. (That’s my laptop. In case you had forgotten.)  

This is not going to be an easy task. As my dad just commented, glancing over my shoulder, “This is like NaNoWriMo squared.” So any encouragement you happen to want to send my way would be ecstatically welcomed; and quite possibly snatched up with a stressed-out, maniacal cackle, as I grasp at it like a drowning man grasps a life raft. I am going to be drowning in words. But it’s going to be such an amazing ride. I’m going to learn so much about me. And I hope about you. If I can (yeah, one more thing to write) I’ll be keeping you updated here on my blog. So stay tuned, everybody, and share this around! The more people who know that I’m doing it, the more incentive I’ll have to get it done. And to get it done well, for the glory of God. So comment on my blog posts, hit the share button on this, like my Facebook page to keep up with the process…

And let’s do this thing. 

Lily's Lesson

This is Lily, my geranium.

See the new buds sticking up out of the plant? Aren’t they beautiful? So hopeful; a kind of quiet beckoning, whispering for me to expect happy beauty in the next few days. Those buds weren’t there yesterday. At least I hadn’t noticed them. But they must have been there…I think the reason I didn’t notice them was because, as a geranium, Lily still had all the old brown ugliness of past blooms clinging to her. This morning I pulled off the old dead stuff.

Suddenly she looks fresh, and clean, and green, and filled with a hope of beauty again. Lily has been sitting on my windowsill for two years now. Sometimes she looks brown and dusty, and (to be quite honest) simply ugly, without a hint of ever blooming again, and I wonder why I let her stay. But I can tell she’s still alive, so I leave her on the window, occasionally dumping water from the dregs of my bottles or the dogs’ dish onto her soil. And then I wake up one morning to red buds. And I realize I haven’t cleared her of the old dead leaves in months. When I pull them off, there she is, all fresh and green, and budding again and offering a hope of happy beauty in coming days. I tend to forget about her, she’s so steadily there. I snap shots of my teapots or books, and forget she’s even in the picture.

For two years it’s gone on. I don’t know how Lily has survived my haphazard care that long, except by the grace of God. But then that’s how we all survive, isn’t it? Only by the grace of God, getting up every morning, looking in the mirror and seeing ourselves…again…still alive, still breathing. Some morning’s that’s kind of what I think: “Well, here I am again.” But then there are other mornings when I get up excited, ready to serve the good God and spill His love onto those that come in contact with me. “Oh boy, I get to live again today!”

I can’t help thinking I’m a little like Lily. She just keeps blooming. Keeps living, keeps putting out beautiful red flowers, stops blooming until she gathers her strength for it again, and then come the buds one unexpected morning!

If we are always at the brimming tip of our energy and delight, we burn out. And then comes the inevitable question, “what did I do wrong?” The answer might be nothing; it’s only that you are at a strength gathering season, and just give it a week or two, and the brown dead stuff will pull away and the happy blooms will be back. I’m not talking about seasons of depression. I’m not even talking about wearing thin and feeling like every day is a grind (like I spoke of in my last post). I just mean that in the Christian life, some days you wake up ecstatically excited to serve our good God and to do the little chores He’s given you, and some days you wake up just content and mildly happy with it.

Endurance is the thing. You just keep going. And as you just keep living and doing what you’re supposed to, the buds just keep showing up. They come, they bloom, then they leave, allowing a little brownness into your life. And then a passage of Scripture, a silly game with family, Spirit breathed enthusiasm pouring into your heart, a phone call from a friend, something comes along and the brownness falls away and there you are; fresh and green, joyful and expectant…promising a hope of happy beauty.

Keep living, Lily. I can’t wait to see your buds turn into flowers.