No, I wasn't raptured

I'm just back to work full-time and not blogging. I miss you all.

Here, have a beer on me while you're waiting.

A Fond Farewell

It's been a pleasure blogging and sharing with you all the past couple of years. I'm sorry I didn't get to finally finish editing my novel. But since the Rapture is scheduled to take place tomorrow at 6 pm EDT local time, apparently sweeping the globe hour by hour, this will be my last blog post.

I'll see you in Paradise. Meanwhile, I'm enjoying a hot fudge sundae since I'm not sure my heavenly body can tolerate all that fat and sugar!

Sunday Snapshot

Wow, I can't believe it's May 1st. I have officially spent an entire month on the couch recovering from my various infections. I've lost a whole month of my life. But gotten some good rest and co-written.. get this... over 8,300 comments on the story threads at Come In Character.

The good news is that I am finally able to work on my book again, since the visual problems are getting better. (Writing comments on Blogger is a) slow and b) fixed to a static comment box. Scrolling, however, aggravates my dizziness, so I haven't been able to work.)

So for today's Sunday Snapshot here is the last bit of action I revised, towards the end of the novel. Marenya is trying to get to the castle to warn the King of the coming invasion without getting eaten by a demon first. That's my girl!

Feel free to post your own snapshot in the comments, or include a link to it on your blog. Remember, it doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't even have to be good. It just has to be yours!

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Marenya cantered Durwyn across the open ground. The doricorn’s hooves were sure and her energy boundless. Tor Aden grew bigger and brighter, as did the wide surface of the lake. She was about halfway there when she sensed shadows approaching from the hills. Glancing to her right, she could see a shape like a wisp of smoke being born on a fast breeze, followed by another, and another. Haggiths.

Durwyn sensed them too, and broke into a full gallop. Marenya leaned forward over her mount’s neck, thinking they could outrun them. But when she looked over her shoulder, she saw the first pursuer was gaining a little. She eased the feather out of her sleeve and held it tightly. They were nearing the lake; she could see the water rippling on its surface now. She wished she could ride straight across it for the hill, but made instead for the road curving along the far side. They passed through the town, galloping down empty streets.

At last they gained the highway that circled the lake. The haggiths were flying directly towards them over the water. The Hedgewood rose up before her and she bent Durwyn towards the gates, praying someone would see her coming and open them.
A cold mist chilled her neck as the first haggith swooped over her and flew ahead to block her path. She reined Durwyn in, glancing back to see the two others still approaching from a distance. The first one wheeled and dived at her, talons wide, red eyes blazing, but she was ready for it. She sent the gryphon feather like a dart between its eyes and it fell with a strangled cry to the ground. The two behind her shrieked and banked in the air over the lake, returning the way they had come. They were not accustomed to being challenged.

Radiance

"O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?" - I Cor. 15:55

I've never understood the miracle of Easter. It moves me more than Christmas, this ultimate triumph against sin and darkness. It moves me like an earthquake shifts the ground; too great to comprehend, too powerful, too indescribably important to ignore or deny.

That my God, my Savior, should have died for me in such a horrifying, undignified way in order to meet the requirement of a righteous and holy God that the penalty for sin is death... that He suffered separation from the eternal deity and presence of the Father... that He cares for me at all... is incomprehensible.

The Angel Appearing to the Women at the Tomb (window at my church)

Radiance

The light is there, warm and golden
Just beyond my reach
Shaded by the edge of consciousness
It filters through thoughts
And flesh
Tangled regrets
Fears, sorrows binding
Pulling me back into the reek
Of humanity

Oh, don’t slip behind a cloud now!
Hide not your face from me
Let me see it just once unveiled
Shine upon me like glass
Through which the sun’s rays
Show each imperfection
In gilded radiance

- Christine Hardy 2011

Sunday Snapshot

I haven't been working on my novel much, since I'm not well enough to concentrate that hard and scrolling through the file on my laptop screen gives me a headache. But I did do a little editing yesterday. I thought I should share this scene between Marenya and Faldur (who is NOT dead, despite the fact that I killed him off in the story thread), later in the book.
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Faldur sank down against a tree and fished out a small ration of pipecherry, filled his pipe and lit it. They had all been in what he called “trail trance” since the previous morning. No one talked; it was too exhausting. It had rained, which made everything first damp, then itchy. A hot bath was the principal thing on his mind at the moment. Only two days and one more night to go.

      Marenya sat a little apart from the hamen, hugging her knees to her chest, eyes closed. He had not asked her yet about all that had happened during her captivity.  He had been too busy, and she seemed unwilling to confide in anyone. He did not like to press her. But he needed to know what they were up against, and exactly how things stood with her. 

      He let her rest for a while, and when he saw her eyes open, went and sat beside her.  There were tears on her cheeks. “What is it?”

      “Nothing. I’m just tired.” She rubbed them away.

      “Please,  I want to know.”

      She studied him, as if gauging whether he was truly concerned or just collecting information from her.  She knew him too well.  “It’s Raynor.  No one knows anything about him, if he’s alive or dead. Nighfala’s gone, and I don’t know if she’s looking for him, or wandering somewhere in the darkness alone. And the erdmelesz are getting closer every moment. Every time I lie down I think I hear them marching through the ground.

     "Is this what it’s like for you all the time?  Because I don’t think I could stand it.  I’m ashamed of myself, but all I want is a warm bed and hot food and strong walls to protect me.”

      He tilted his head. “It’s like this sometimes. But it’s also very often boring. The best times are boring, when nothing is happening and you only have to patrol familiar paths and check on old friends. And drill.”  He smiled reminiscently.  “We’ve had some rowdy contests in the middle of nowhere. You see sunrises no one else sees, and fawns being dropped, and the whole length of the Silverbark River trailing down into the valley. And a certain hawin riding across a meadow, or hanging clothes in the yard with the sun on her bare arms.”

      She looked at him suspiciously. “Are you just saying these things to calm me down?”

      He reached out and drew her to him, and she rested her head against his chest. “I am saying them to calm you down, but they are all true. I have watched you for so long, I can’t imagine not watching you for the rest of my life.”  He smiled ruefully at himself. “I don’t know where all these words are coming from; you have opened up some sort of dam. But the truth is, it hurts so much I’m not sure I can bear it.”

      “Why does it hurt?”

      “I don’t know.”

      She was quiet for a minute, then said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me either. I feel like crying almost all the time.”

      He smoothed her hair. “You’ve been through an ordeal. Heaven gave hawen tears to overcome their demons; we must fight ours.”

      “In other words, we drown our demons, and you conquer them.”

      “Something like that.”

      “Is there no other way?”

      “I can think of one.”

      She tilted her face up, eyeing him quizzically, and he bent his head down and kissed her. He tasted salt, and brushed her tears away with his thumbs, comforting her at the same time he sought to conquer his own demons.

I swear, I didn't know it was "The Cave"!

When I posted last about the song that one of Betsy's characters sang to Marenya - the one that made me dissolve into weeping over my laptop - I didn't know it was "The Cave" by Mumford & Sons. I'd never heard of them until yesterday. Now, of course, I'm playing it over and over.

I think it so cool. Betsy's characters - twins Aidan and Kaelin - have such a raw, gut-ripping dynamic, that just knowing their situation and how it affects Aidan, then throwing in a few well-crafted song lyrics with no music whatsoever in my head, tore my heart out. And the way Betsy did it on the thread was just awesome. (Kaelin is undercover as a rogue demon in order to get close enough to the dominus Lorcan to kill him for torturing Aidan, but Kaelin is losing his soul in the process.)

Marenya is trying very hard to figure out what to do to help Aidan cope with the loss of his twin, and Marc, one of Aidans cousins and sworn guards, sings her a song about them. The really sweet thing is that Marenya doesn't get it that she's in danger. She's only thinking about Aidan because he's so obviously in over his head. She thinks Marc is just being sweet, not that he's her bodyguard. But I guess she'll have to figure it out pretty soon.

As Betsy says, "This is seriously nuts. My stomach's in knots." "These people aren't REAL." (to read the scene, go here and start with Aidan's commment @ 5:45 pm. He is about to speak to Faldur about taking Marenya away from him, and is given a vision of an alternate eternity than being in Hell, which is the destiny of all the demons in Sentinel unless they can defeat the demon Asmodai who made them. The contrast between the two eternities - Aidan and Marenya's - brings home even more poignantly Kaelin's tragic self-destruction for the sake of revenge.

Remember folks, this stuff is not planned! It just kinda happens as we write it. We might say, "Marenya needs to figure out she's in danger" but exactly how it plays out is all spontaneous. With some really funny bumps in the road, too.

(Yes, I know I have to get back to real life soon. As soon as these meds wear off, I'll be my usual business-like self, I promise.)

Nature of Magic Blogfest

Thanks to Tessa Conte, who prompted me on Facebook to participate!  I would not have wanted to miss this one.  But it has been an absolute hell of a week.  I can't even describe the overlapping, intertwining layers of stress that have converged in the past three days, except to say

"Big Presentation to Entire Company + Severe Cold +  Loss of Voice + Child with stomach virus + No Sleep + First Writer's Conf Ever + Unprepared Pitch = ACK!"

But thankfully, we have magical worlds to escape to.  Here are the instructions:

Write or share something you've already written that, to you, shows the nature of magic. It can be an excerpt from your WIP, something you've written especially, poetry, whatever strikes your fancy. It just needs to show the nature of magic as it exists for you or for those you write about. Unless you're writing poetry, try to keep the entries somewhere between 250-1000 words.

So, here is Marenya's first experience with creating an orb of light.  She can light a fire, which any Hanorja can do, but only the elevja, or magically-gifted royals, can do more sophisticated magic.  Or so she thinks.

* * *

The cavern was dark. Raynor had completely disappeared, taking the light with him. She called out, but her voice was swallowed by the sound of the water. What do I do now? she thought.

Cast a light.

The words came unbidden to her mind. She raised her eyebrows in surprise. Could she do that?

If you can make a fire, you can make a light.

She tried what Raynor had done – opening her hand as if throwing something into the air. Nothing happened. She tried again, but as she did so she thought of fire. Again, nothing happened. Frowning, she thought for a moment, and tried again, this time thinking not of fire but of the yellow sun. To her amazement, a small, bright orb left her hand and floated above her.

Perhaps all of the magic didn’t belong to the kings.