Two-Hour Tuesdays is here. The blog that became a book, and the practice that's teaching me how to write the next one — a chapter at a time, at the water.
Faith & Mental Health
Perception Changes
I spent this week fixing a photograph. The cover came back too dark, and the fix wasn't more light, it was raising the shadows until the buried detail came back up. I've been thinking about that ever since, because it's the truest thing I know right now.
The Sun Rises and Sets on an Author
There is a white wicker loveseat on the sand. It does not belong there… and neither do I, quite, living in three pasts at once through three books. A sunrise spot visited at sunset, and the quiet realization that I've been so busy surviving — and so busy writing about God — that I forgot I was made to delight in Him.
Firsts After the Lasts
This was a week of firsts — the kind I've come to know by heart this season. Working through every first after what I hadn't known would be lasts. The knife I reached for was packed. So I reached for my own, the one I had before him. What you put in the ground is never what comes back up.
Memories, Anchors, and Prisons
The sunrise is supposed to be the opposite of the prison. Then Sunday morning, he was there. Tonight, I begin the part of trauma therapy that's supposed to help me leave the room I'm still trapped in.
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Frost wrote eight lines about gold and grief, and I've been teaching them every year. This week, I learned what he didn't say: the gold was real. It just doesn't stay.
Where the Rising Action Leads
Conflict drives the plot. Without it, there is no story. I am learning that the real work doesn't happen at the climax — it happens in the rising action, the slow build before anything looks like dawn. A blog about the writers' group, the classroom, and trusting the Author who hasn't finished writing yet.
The Voice Restored
Twelve weeks since the worst day of my life, my voice came back. The night I sang again, the floodgates opened. The week my book hit #1. The truth about reclaiming a voice in three places at once — and the cost of refusing to stay silent.
Fearfully, Wonderfully, and Bipolar-ly Made
Mary Beth came to the pier last night with my camera and told me where to stand. Fearfully, Wonderfully, and Bipolar-ly Made: From Shame to Sanctuary is available today on Amazon.