There's a great reason why I haven't posted anything recently... I was working non-stop on my novel: Dreamer's Heir and finished it around 3 am three days ago!!!!! I am so excited! The whole story is sooo much better than what I had imagined when I first began this story well over five years ago. I had known that this would be the first book to start it all for me as a published writer. And until now I was frustrated with why I couldn't find a publisher for it a few years back and how I totally disliked it. I guess that should have been my sign that the book was not ready for publication--a writer should NEVER publish what they hate. Now I completely love it. My characters make me so excited. I just can't wait to get through one revision so I can have my test readers read it. (Mainly because while they read book 1 I will be using my time wisely and starting book 2).
So a little bit about what has been happening while I was writing....
Two weeks ago I had an amazing experience at church, actually two experiences, but on the same day.
ONE, I had a moment where I came to peace with all the stuff that has been happening with my wrist. (I am still not able to work.) But while I do not believe that God causes bad things (like this) to happen in my life, I do believe that he can use the bad to make good things happen. I had been struggling for many many years with trying to find time to write around work. So in my moment with God, I learned that he is using this situation to give me the gift of time to write. I never really understood until then just how precious the gift of time is. I have spent my whole life trying to do things and get somewhere that I totally forgot what it having time means. Where you can have a period of time to absolutely do anything with it that you want to do, that you have not been able to do. (Thus my excitement that I mentioned above. In a month's period of time I completely rewrote my book where 3/4 of the material is new and I've added nearly 300 pages in length.) This is such an amazing gift that I wish that everyone could enjoy!!!!
TWO, I had one of those amazing moments teaching my kindergartners in Sunday School. At the end of class I had one little boy who came up to me and told me, "Miss Leah, did you know that there are two Gods?" My first thought was how children often think that God and Jesus are two separate entities (not able to grasp the concept of the Trinity). So I smiled and asked him why he thought there were two Gods. He told me, "There's God and you." It was one of those "Ohhhh" moments for me. My reaction was explaining to him that I just work for God. He didn't quite get the concept of that until I explained to him that I teach him what God wants him to learn. When he finally understood what I told him he told me about how his dad beat his mom the other night. It broke my heart because there's not much that I can personally do. All I could do was pray with him and just show him love. And off he ran to join the rest of the class. It was not until after class when I told my director about how he said I was God that I finally learned what he had meant. My director took it from a different perspective. She did the whole "Ohhh" and then said that is the greatest compliment to receive from the children because it's vocalized proof that I have become Christ like to the children. It's not too often that I can even come close to admit that I am anything like Christ because I know my flaws and weaknesses. So for one more brief moment I got to learn that I am doing what I am meant to do, that I am accomplishing that, and I'm making the most with what I have been given.
So the Tuesday after that I had an appointment with a second doctor to get a second opinion on my wrist. It was interesting because my attending physician was at a complete loss as to what is wrong with my wrist. This second doctor took one look at my x-rays and saw that my bones are too far apart and is most likely causing my pain. That and even though my MRIs have been negative does not mean that there is not the possibility that there is a tear in my cartilage (since that is where my pain is coming from), it just means that at the time of the MRIs that any possible tear, the flap could have been down, not showing a thing. So for a total of about 5 weeks I'm supposed to keep my wrist secured in a brace/splint to try to lessen the gap between my bones. (As of right now at times my pain has greatly increased, but I have found my first painless times for the first time in a long time while I am in the brace.) The doctor's guess is that if the gap is taken away, my pain should go away. At my next appointment, if the gap is smaller the doctor sees that as a step in the right direction. It could mean more time in the brace or even the possibility of being put into a full arm cast. Now that idea is not what I'm looking for. Quite frankly, I hate casts on the arm. Showering is pretty horrible. So if I can avoid that, I'd much prefer it.
I've also joined with a dinner drama group. That's a riot already because so far I've been able to cause a lot of reactions from my acting; bringing men to tears and causing the greatest amounts of laughter. That last one is the most memorable to me because I've never thought of myself as a comedic actor. But with this role that I was given, the team start impersonating me in anticipation when I'm taking the stage for rehearsal. I'm beginning to see my gifts in a new light, as an actress. But what I find exciting is that there are new people who are now supporting me as a writer. I have a few test readers from this group. But also the husband/wife team who head up this troupe are anxious for me to start writing for the group. It's been a while since I've done script writing, but I'm kinda excited to get back into it. Mainly just to keep my writing skills flexible and adaptable for many areas. While novel writing is what I want to one day soon be my bread and butter maker, I don't want to limit myself just to that. My main reason being because I have a few book ideas that I would love to see on the silver screen. It would be great to be the writer for the screen adaptation. I can use the film to enhance the book(s) and bring out more of the story that just doesn't quite work for the pacing of the novel. So now is a good time to begin some strength training for script writing (start small and train myself up to the larger project).
I'm sure that I could go on with an update but that would be too long. And quite frankly I really should just start writing more frequently again to prevent these long posts. Sorry. :)
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