Maegan M. Simpson's Blog, page 7

Life and Book Update

Hello hello!

Once again it’s been too long since my last post… and now I’ll explain the reason for that! Last Thursday my university notified us that we’re going online for the rest of the semester because of the Coronavirus, and that we all needed to be moved out of our apartments by Spring Break. So I spent that weekend furiously packing, looking for storage, and figuring out how in the world I’m going to write an exegetical and two research papers without access to my university’s library. I even had to skip my Friday morning writing.

A World Without Touch…

Hello hello!

It’s been a while since I posted one of my random musings, and I ran across one that I’ve never shared before. But before I get to that…be watching for some exciting news about Born in Darkness! Like, oh I don’t know, maybe a cover???

A Bit of Hum-Drum

Hello hello!

Snow day!!! Well, sort of. My university opened late, and since all of my classes today are in the morning, that meant I got to sit around in my pj’s drinking coffee and doing (surprise surprise) homework. Sigh.

At the moment, though, I’m procrastinating on the rest of my homework to write this post, even though I’m not completely sure what to write about. Writing news is pretty much the same…finished another round of editing for Born in Darkness, working on cover ideas, writing my next book…same ole, same ole. Next post I might have Born in Darkness’s release date narrowed down to a month…hopefully.

I’ve also hit my secret garden mood, but I don’t have anything to write about it at the moment. I did paint my mountains yesterday, so I’ll leave that for you guys to see.

New Classes, New Stories

Hello hello!

I’m back at school now, already through my first week of classes. Syllabus shock has knocked me down as I look at all the assignments on my calendar and wonder how exactly I’m going to write that many papers in so few months, and it has faded as I settle into classes, sign up for paper deadlines, and trust God to carry me through to another summer. It’s gonna be hard, but then every semester is hard.

Onto writing…remember in my past post, when I said I never truly know which story I’ll write next until I begin? I’ve started my next book, and it’s in the Agonizomai series…but it isn’t the book I expected to write next. Even since that post my trajectory has shifted. A story that had been waiting quietly, occasionally whispering to me as it slowly built, has broken forth into full-fledged song. Last Friday I began committing that song to paper, and even amidst the homework (not as much homework as there should’ve been, but I’m ignoring that) I’m already 5,000 words into the book. Like Henry’s story, this is a story I’ve had for several years. Already it’s grown far beyond what it first was. The character I thought was quiet and timid has an inner voice that is rich and bold, and I’m excited to explore this story from her point of view.

That’s pretty much my news for the week. Born in Darkness is with my awesome editor. And I’m already starting to hit that yearning for spring, but I’m not to my waxing-dramatic stage yet. Maybe next post.

Another New Year…

Hello hello!

Here we are, almost a week into the 2020, and I’m happy to report that there have been no near-death experiences of note this time. So instead I’m writing the semi-obligatory “author year reflection” that everyone seems to do. I’ve never really done one of these before (not officially, at least) so bear with me. Alright, here we go!

In 2019 I finished writing two novels, a new record for me. The rough draft of Born in Darkness, my longest book yet even in the first draft, took eight months for me to write. That’s definitely a new record, especially since I’ve been in college! Born in Darkness also surpasses my previous books in depth (and I hope quality) and I pray that it is only the beginning of a new page in my writing career.

Speaking of college, classes are ramping up (I took my first 400 level class this past fall) and I’m only three more semesters away from the end (boy does that sound ominous). But I’ve managed to maintain and even grow my writing pace. Each week I look forward to my Friday mornings with nothing but me and my books (and much needed coffee), and I am very happy with how much I’m able to accomplish in those hours. My classes challenge me in more ways than I thought possible, and that along with some ongoing struggles in my personal life have caused me to grow tremendously in Christ, as a person and as a writer.

Now onto books: this year I finished the Secrets of the National Parks trilogy. There are more stories to tell in that world, and I hope someday to revisit this series, but for now it is finished. (You can find those books here)

I began a new project of faery stories (the stories I’ve released so far are found in these posts: Lost and Found, The Forest’s Queen, & Little Magpie. The links are at the bottom of the page). This project is still ongoing with no set release date. It’s more of a side project, but it is still active and I have at least one more story nearly ready to release.

My main project right now is editing Born in Darkness, the next book in my Agonizomai series (you can find the first book of the series, Frosted Fire, here). I’m hoping to release it this spring (before May, Lord willing). This series is going to be pretty long (I currently have eleven books listed for it) and it will be my main focus for the foreseeable future. I’m already beginning the next book in the series (which currently has no title and I wouldn’t spoil it for you yet even if it did). I’m aiming to finish it this year, but I’ll need to dig deeper into the project before I can give even a rough estimate.

Beyond that, only God knows what the future will hold. I have dozens of stories floating around in my head, but many of them are still growing. Writing is funny like that. I’ll have a story in the back of my mind for weeks, months, even years. It’ll be there, waiting, growing. Every once in a while I’ll revisit it to see if it’s ready, and there’s no telling when it will be. Some stories are given to me full-grown and ready to be poured onto paper. Others take years to mature. And many of them change so much in the growing that they’re hardly recognizable by the end.

Right now its the books in the Agonizomai series that are growing by leaps and bounds, coming to me and pleading to be written, telling me the struggles and triumphs hidden within and holding me captive in their thrall. Will another force itself into their midst, drowning out the others, refusing to lay still until it has been told? Maybe. Or maybe they will wait patiently on the periphery, content listening to the others until their time comes.

Reflecting on my journey as an author, it is so clear to me that I’m not the one guiding this process. I’m not the one coming up with these stories. I am the merely the scribe, sitting at the feet of my Master with my pen at the ready. I write what God gives me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. So though I plan and estimate, I must add this caveat: all is as the Lord wills. I don’t know the future, and I’ve given the reins of my life to the One who does. I won’t take them back now. As we move into this new year I pray for God to guide me, and I pray that every word I write in 2020 gives Him glory.

Jolabokaflod

A much needed pronunciation guide (At least, I needed it…)

No, I didn’t sneeze… Jolabokaflod is the name of an Icelandic tradition that translates roughly to “book flood” in English. The tradition is this: on the night of Christmas Eve families exchange books, and then they curl up with blankets and cocoa to spend the rest of the night reading!

Sounds like the perfect tradition to me…books, warm drinks, blankets, probably cats if you have them (because, you know…blankets are like cat magnets). It sounds like such a wonderful way to spend the night of Christmas Eve!

But what does this have to do with my blog (other than giving you another super cool fact)? As my Christmas present to you, and in honor of Jolabokaflod , all of my kindle books are FREE December 24th!

Make sure to grab them during the special. And if you already have them, did you know you can give kindle books as gifts? Great for Jolabokaflod

A Most Excellent Update…

Hey!

So, once again I missed my normal post time, but this time I have a semi-respectable reason! The weekend I meant to post an update I was home for Thanksgiving Break (which was wonderful!). That alone means more distractions, but this time I faced the slight problem of a power outage. And then our internet was out. Ahem. Like I said, semi-respectable.

Coffee, music, and editing…all I need is a cat!

I have news to make up for it, though… over break I finished the rough draft of Born in Darkness!!! It clocked in at over 92,000 words, my longest book yet, and I’m already working on adding more scenes to flesh out some bits. Goodness, guys…I love this book so much. Maybe that’s cheesy for me to say when I’m the one who wrote it, but it’s true! I think this is my favorite so far. I can’t wait to share it with you!

Editing is already underway, though I can’t really say how long it will take because I’m also juggling end of semester schoolwork (I have three papers due next week, but it’s fine. Everything’s fine. *laugh turns to sobbing*). But if I can keep breathing until Christmas Break, hopefully I’ll make a lot of progress. I’m hoping for a release sometime in…mid spring? With that optimistic estimate, I better get back to work.

Keep a lookout on here and my Facebook page for sneak peeks! There may or may not be some sort of Christmas deal to watch for, as well…

Light at the End of the Tunnel…

Only two weeks and two more papers between me and freedom! (“freedom” I have homework I have to do over break, but I’m choosing to ignore that at the moment.) Thanksgiving is so close I can…almost…touch it… And then I can be home with my family and my kitty cats! Oh man I’m excited.

But my upcoming break from school isn’t the only light at the end of the tunnel…I’m also getting excitingly (that’s a word, right?) close to finishing the rough draft of Henry’s book! For those who follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you probably saw that I broke 80,000 words on Friday! I’m currently working my way through the climax (which means the necessity of concentrating on homework so I actually survive to break is driving me nuts, but that’s college) and I’ve reached that point where excitement about finishing is propelling me forward. Henry still has a lot to go through before the end of the book (poor guy is having an intense few months…) and I hesitate to say a certain number of chapters before the end…cuz you all know how that turns out. Putting aside my utter lack of skill estimating when I’ll finish my books, I’m cautiously hopeful that the rough draft will be done by Christmas break.

To celebrate all the awesome progress, here’s an excerpt! (disclaimer: it’s unedited. Please forgive any mistakes).

Someone had a hand on his shoulder and was saying his gardener name. Ivy? Her voice slowly came into focus, as did his hands planted on the rough stone beneath him. He was on his knees, Ivy beside him. His breath was coming in gasps, and for a moment he was filled with panic at the darkness invading his senses. He wanted to rip off the blindfold and burn it to ash. But that wouldn’t do anything for the other darkness, the magic tingling in his chest down to his wrists as it fed on his fear.
“I’m fine,” he choked out.
Henry jerked away when another hand grabbed his arm, but the person was just helping him stand. He locked his knees so they wouldn’t shake and tried to stand tall. Why did he feel so weak? Growing the trees hadn’t taken that much power, had it?
“He needs to rest before we can finish,” Ivy said. She wasn’t talking to him, but Henry shook his head anyway. As far as he could tell both ignored him.
“He has done his part,” the shacar answered. “He can rest while you complete the work.”
“I can’t without Oak.”
“Why?”
“I can do it,” Henry interjected.
“Oak…” Ivy trailed off, but even that one word sounded hesitant.
“I can do it now,” Henry repeated. “I’ll rest when we’re finished.”
Henry didn’t wait for an answer. Bracing himself, he reached out again to the plants around him. They were all connected by his influence, like the plants in Plarim. If he could hold open a door in one, Ivy should be able to work in all of them. But opening the tunnel was more difficult than his success the night before. He had to fight with the casing of power around the plants, like it almost wasn’t his anymore. Sweat was beading on his skin and dripping onto the blindfold before he managed it.
This time he could feel it, the drain on his strength as something within the trees fought with the magic gathered in his chest. Ivy had entered his opening and was manipulating something within the core, but Henry didn’t have the attention to spare to understand what she was doing. He was fighting two battles, as his own power tried to force Ivy out and a power Henry didn’t recognized clashed with the magic within him. He went to his knees, planting his fists on the ground to keep from falling completely. Ivy was still working. He couldn’t let go yet. Every line marking his skin burned. He tightened his jaw to keep from making a sound, but a growl escaped anyway. Just when he was losing his grip, Ivy withdrew. Henry released his hold, and his influence was thrown back with enough force to make his ears ring.
The hand returned to his shoulder, but Henry didn’t have the energy to react. He focused on breathing and fighting the pain trying to force him into unconsciousness. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when the ringing in his ears faded enough for him to hear Ivy and the shacar speaking. Several measured breaths later, he registered what they were saying.
“You shouldn’t have brought someone infused with evil to our lands.”
“Oak is not evil.”
“The power within him is.”

Did it get your interest piqued? Eh? Eh?

Well, I better get back to homework… (college is such a slave driver. Honestly, I’m so persecuted I can hardly believe it

His Hour…

Today I’ve
woken up. After days, weeks, even months of a strange sleep, once again I’m
struck with an understanding powerful beyond description. Coming through a
class on the last supper in the Gospel of John, I’m struck by the bittersweetness
of it all. Here Jesus is, nearing His death, knowing what He will face, knowing
He will be betrayed and abandoned and denied by those who’ve followed him the
most closely, knowing He’s being hated and condemned and killed by the very
people He came to save, knowing He’s about to face unimaginable pain and
suffering, and knowing it has to happen. He can’t back out of it, He
can’t avoid it. He has to take it head on. The power of what He must’ve been
feeling…I can’t imagine it. Even tasting what it’s like to wait for death, especially
tasting that, I can’t imagine the depths of what Jesus was going through.

This past
winter, when I almost froze to death…I caught a glimpse of what it’s like to
wait to die. I was there, in the suburban, knowing I was too cold, knowing I
had no chance of warming up on my own. I was there with my brother, core to
core, piled under jackets, doing all we could to keep warm as the temperature
kept dropping and ice crawled across the inside of the vehicle… It was such an
impossible situation, such a helpless place to be. There we were: waiting for
death…knowing it was near…knowing that within hours we could be gone, that as
our eyes closed and our minds drifted toward sleep our hearts would eventually
give in to the cold, eventually we would cease to breath and all the life we’d
had in our bodies mere hours before would be gone. All we ever had looked
forward to in this world, gone. All the people we know, out of our reach.
Everything we’ve ever known ripped away. It was terrifying, to wait for
inevitable death, to know it was coming and not be able to do a thing about it.

And yet it
wasn’t hopeless. We weren’t sure we would die. We didn’t give in, we
kept trying. We cried out to God to help us, to save us. We begged for Him to
give us warmth, to keep our eyes open, to save us from this frozen situation
that we were powerless to do anything about. We weren’t alone, and we knew that
there was at least a chance we would survive. We knew that God could save us,
and that blissful relief when He did…when we came through that night, and in
the light of morning we were altogether, all alive, all safe…the end to our
sorrows and fears. And even in those darkest moments, when the thoughts I
refused to voice filled my mind saying we were probably going to die…there was
hope. Like my brother said, the worst that could happen that night is we go to
be with Jesus. And that “worst” is far from being a tragedy. Even the
end we feared was a glorious one, one to look forward to, even if getting to it
is terrifying to face. Eternity in the presence of our Lord…that’s the goal.
Even in the terror, we knew that if God decided to take us away from earth into
His presence, the fear of facing unknown death would end in rejoicing and
praise.

But Jesus…
with Him it’s so different. Because He knew what His end was. He knew there was
no escape, that He had to face that horrid death completely alone. He knew He
was going to face the punishment of crimes He never committed. The pain of that
knowing, that waiting, as the hour drew closer and closer and having to continue
on as the minutes tick by, unable to slow them down or speed them up…stuck in
that place of anticipating the pain… how hard that must have been to bear. It’s
so painful to read, knowing what Jesus had to go through and knowing that it
was all for us. To know that for my brother and I to have that unfailing hope
of a good end, Jesus had to go through the agony of an end without escape…

“Now My
soul is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour? But for
this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.” (John 12:27-28a).
That verse…there’s so much pain in those words. He knows. He knows what
He will face, and He does not relish the pain. And yet He still does it. Even
in that place of the, dare I say, anguish of looking at a horrendous death with
no escape, He doesn’t back out. For that purpose He came, and to that purpose
He holds. And then, on top of that to read later that “when Jesus knew that His
hour had some that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved
His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” (John 13:1b). That
verse just makes me cry. Knowing all He was about to go through, knowing the torture
and abandonment, the separation from His Father and the weight of eras of sin
laid on Him at once…He still loved us. Even knowing the agony He would face in
carrying our sin, He loved us. That’s why He did it.

And all I
can think is that I do not deserve that kind of love. I don’t deserve that kind
of saving. To know that even as I sin, even as I go against God and add that
much more pain to His death…He loves me. To come to that moment of
understanding of all that it means that Jesus died for me…it’s almost too much.
And my heart overflows with such sorrow that He had to go through that pain for
my sake, and such confused and awed joy that He would go through that
for my sake.

There are
times when we say Jesus died for our sins and it doesn’t touch us. We know it,
and yet we forget. We forget all the meaning those words hold. It becomes
something we know in our heads, that we acknowledge with our mouths…but the
deep part of our soul is almost detached from the meaning of it. And to read
the Gospels, to truly see it again and fall to my knees in pain and awed
gratitude…it’s waking up. It’s coming alive again, it’s feeling the warmth
return to all that was dead with cold. It hurts, it hurts so much…but part of
that hurting comes from the deep and overwhelming joy spilling out of me. A joy
that isn’t all happiness and is so much deeper because of that. A joy that
reaches to the depths of who I am and spills out through the tears on my cheeks
and the words that I write. A bittersweet joy that demands to be expressed, to
be shared, even as I know language lacks the ability to express all of what it
is and means. A joy that makes my unworthy saved self fall at Jesus’ feet in
humble gratitude and awestruck praise, that He would come to that hour
willingly, and that even in that darkest moment His love didn’t falter. I am
the most unworthy person to receive such merciful love…but I am so utterly
thankful that He gives it anyway.

Writing Update

Hello hello!

It’s fall!!! Today it’s one of those gray days, with the blank blanket of clouds blocking out the sun and shrouding the mountains from sight, with a misty sort of rain and wind that reminds us winter is coming. One of those days with a wonderful chill that sparks life even as if makes me shiver. Beautiful. All the same, I’m happy for my hoodie.

And the leaves! The leaves are so beautiful… This past weekend I was out in the mountains, once again rendered breathless by the golden rivers of aspen groves across the mountains. But I think the scene that captures me most with the autumn aspens is those hidden canyons with the deep shadows, where the leaves of liquid sunlight are impossibly lit in the midst of dark conifers and dim crevices. There’s something so mysterious about it…something compelling. Maybe there’s a faery story there…

Anyway, writing update. This past weekend I didn’t really write (My Mom came up to visit, so I was too busy hanging out with her and exploring the mountains), but other than that I’ve been making good progress! Henry is going through quite the adventures, and they’re good for him, even the ones that aren’t…fun. Maybe I’ll post some excerpts to give you a taste of what’s in store.