Happy February to all!
Normally, I’m not a fan of this month, but I have to say this year I’ve been really enjoying the winter. Ever since the big storm here in Toronto, Ontario, it’s looked so pretty outside I can’t help but to love it. Or maybe I’m just becoming more spiritually mature and thankful for each day the Lord has made.
Probably not, but maybe. It’s a start, right?
In any case, I began drafting the fantasy novel I’ve spent the entire month of January planning/outlining. I’ve never spent this much time on a story before writing it, and I feel very optimistic about my ability to get this draft done (and edit it afterwards… that’s my real fear zone..)
It has dragons, loveable heroes, vast lands to explore, kingdom politics, faith themes, and a bunch of other good stuff. I’ve had so much fun today actually getting to actually write it.
In other news, I have actually been traditionally published. Sort of, anyway, and I’m so blessed to have had the experience. I wrote a chapter for the new book Ever Ancient, Ever New: Why Younger Generations Are Embracing Traditional Catholicism from TAN Books, an excellent Catholic publishing house.
I am hopeful that my story will inspire others in their walk with Christ, and I have to say, it’s just so weird and cool to see my name in print! I’ve been published in a Catholic magazines as well a newspaper quite a few times, which is again so humbling and awesome, but there’s something so permanent about holding a hardcover in my hands that I contributed to.
The other thing is that this experience kind of cemented my desire to indie publish my fiction when I get to that point.
I mean this with all love and respect to the editor, to TAN, and to the young man who brought me into the project, but PUBLISHING TAKES A MILLION YEARS.
At the time I wrote my chapter, I was still engaged to my husband (we’ve now been married coming up on two years and have a nine month old) and I was still actively writing in Catholic media world. So much has changed in the time it took for this project to actually be finished and produced. I’m not sure I could handle that with my novels, haha!
Then again, it was so cool to read it again after all this time, and overall, nitpicking aside, I’m fairly happy with what I wrote. Thanks be to God. I hope to show this to my grandkids one day 🙂
In other news, my daughter is getting two teeth and she can sit up by herself from crawling.
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“Behold the inheritance of the Lord are children: the reward, the fruit of the womb.” ~ Psalm 126:3
I feel that blessing so deeply in this season.
I hope you’re all having a wonderful winter, and getting lots of reading and writing done. =)
**This post contains an Amazon affiliate link. 🙂
