Tag Archives: God

Inspired Juggles

This month’s topic for the ChristianWriters Blog Chain is ‘Savor’, and while today is definitely not my day to post, my fingers continue to migrate to the ‘add new post’ link. Not only that, what has been juggling around in my head seems to follow in line with this month’s topic.

The last several weeks I have been relishing renewed inspiration and focus after a short sabbatical. I’ve not only worked on my ‘sweet & spicy’ romance My Fair Princess [it releases in April], but I have also been conspiring with my husband. What have we been plotting? Two additional installments in THE SOUL CYCLE series: Para and Meek. As mentioned in a previous post, the installments follow the main characters from To Save a Soul and Silver & Iron, but as individuals before they traveled together as comrades.

Meek, the Soul Cycle #4In fact, depending on how Para & Meek turn out, there may be a third installment entailing their first adventure as a team. Honestly, I’m looking forward to that one quite a bit. :) Of course, the hubs and I also conspired together to begin plotting out the last book in the series. Much as I would love to give you a bit of a peek inside the conflicts and angst of that book… I am practicing discretion and keeping my fingers away from those particular keys.

I thank the Lord above for reinvigorating me with the fun and expectation of projects, both old and new. It comes as a breath of fresh air, to be honest, as I had begun to wonder if my time as a writer began to wane. :) Instead I am strengthening my juggling muscles and savoring every moment of the challenge.

What about you? Are you stepping up to a challenge and feeling yourself blessed as a result?

Nona King

Rough Covers for ‘Para’:

Para, the Soul Cycle #3

Writing Rage

Medieval illustration of a Christian scribe wr...

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Karen Hancock, author of the Legend of the Guardian King series, posted about ‘Aggressive Trust‘ on 9/22/11. The post spoke about God’s perfect timing, first drafts, and what I call ‘the circle of the writing life’.

It really hit home.

The last several days I have been in agony and rage about what a struggle it has been to get any writing accomplished on my rewrite project. Because of the intensity of the struggle, I have allowed myself to become disheartened. Actually, I allowed myself to give up and convince myself that maybe I needed to go to a different project.

The thought of having yet another half-completed project waiting on the shelves for my attention did not appeal, but I didn’t know what other choice I had. If I continued to try to write through rage, the characters would have a war on their hands instead of the finding of true love.

Karen Hancock wrote how she began reading through some of her old journals to get herself into the mood for writing. She couldn’t believe that she had ever felt so negative toward a current writing project. As she read, she discovered that it was a common malady. She went on to write that God would reveal things about the story in his perfect timing. She only needed to wait. To let God “gather together the waters so that the dry land appears”.

“To trust Him to guide and to trust Him to come through.”

Bam. There it was, the request to trust God and give him the time to do what He was going to do. The reminder that hating our first draft is usual and customary. Once we get to the other side, it is a little easier. I needed to sit back and relax and LET GOD DO. Something. Anything. In essence, I tried too hard to make something happen. Because of that, nothing COULD happen.

I needed to let go and LET GOD.

So, I started praying about the characters, the story, the approach, the scenes… everything. I started going to God’s office again, as I once did, and invited Him to come along on this rewrite project. Wouldn’t you know it, yesterday on the way home I began brainstorming again. Last night I wrote out the general outline for the entire novel, and this morning I finished writing chapter one and feel a little more comfortable in my writing skin.

Thank you, Karen Hancock, for the reminder to just relax and enjoy being a writer.

Romantic Revisions

Searching for Sara has been in the works in some form or fashion since 2001. At first it was the sequel to Broken Angel titled To Rachel With Love. In this version I killed the heroine from B.A. and inserted a new love interest for our grieving hero Robert. This appalled my sister, who directed me to rewrite it.

That rewrite gave birth to the hero Christopher. Sara has been the one constant, a meek servant girl from England who steps out from behind fear in obedience to God and begins to live the life she always dreamed of, as an artist. SfS ballooned up to 156,000 words, of which I hacked out more than 60,000 last year to bring it down to just above 90,000. When Nick Harrison from Harvest House Publishers invited me to submit the first 3 chapters and a summary, I believed the end finally in sight.

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