Maegan M. Simpson's Blog, page 9

Midnight’s Wings

Hey everybody!

Sorry for the radio silence recently…school and papers kicked my rear end, and then Spring Break was a blessed relief that also included tons of amazing days out doing stuff with my family (and my awesome roommate, who came with me). There’s not a lot of Wi-Fi up in the mountains, so I’m gonna use that as my excuse.

The Forest’s Queen

Hello hello!

Welp. This winter is officially the most snow-packed that I can remember. Every weekend it snows again! Every. Single. Weekend. It’s so beautiful, but can’t a winter-weary girl get some kind of relief? I want flowers! And temperatures above zero!

“You have the look of the lost ones…”

Anyway, enough about my weather woes. I have another story for you! Another faery story (set in glorious summer!). This story I actually wrote for my Creative Writing class last summer, but I rewrote it so it’s more developed and connects with the other stories in the series. (If you haven’t read Lost and Found yet, the link to that post is here.) And here’s the link to the new story!

The Forest’s Queen

I hope you guys like it! And if you’re wondering about the artwork, each story in this series will have it’s own picture! (there’s also a color version, but I’m saving that to show you later

Faery stories

Hello hello!

“You must be lost before you can be found…”

So, I have a project I’ve been working on for a while, kinda just for fun, and now I’m ready to share it with you! I’ve been writing a series of stories about the interactions of faeries with humans (not winged faeries, more like the crazy powerful and strange fae of lore that have their own realm parallel to our own). These kind of fae are a special fascination of mine, and occasionally I’ll think of a story about them that I can’t help but write down, even when I’m neck deep in another project.

I’m going to release at least a couple of the stories on my website, to give you a taste of what they’re like, before publishing the collection at a later date. The story for this post is one I’ve already shared in one of my earlier posts, but I’m re-posting it in case anybody missed it…

Lost and Found

Next week I’ll release a new story and give you an update on Midnight’s Wings. For now, I’m gonna go finish homework. Hope you all have a great week!

Book Dates and Discounts

Hello! I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine’s Day! I spent the evening curled up on the couch with a wonderful new book (and I may or may not have stayed up way too late to finish it…)

I have some fun news for you all! On February 20th, all of my kindle books will be discounted to $.99! This is in honor of my amazing Mom! It’s her birthday, and since this year writing another book for her doesn’t quite work into my schedule (and writing Stone Heart without her help and knowledge was so hard that I vowed never to do it again) I’m doing the next best thing. Discounted books for all!

The promotion only last through 11pm on the 20th, so be sure to get your books before time runs out. And tell your friends!

In other news…writing took a bit of a backseat this weekend to a paper on Caesar Augustus’ wife, Livia (fascinating woman. Liked chickens…especially white ones), but I am still chugging along. Other stories are developing a lot too, especially in the Agonizomai series. It’s one benefit to not being able to write as much as I’d like: I spend a lot of time thinking through characters and stories as a defense mechanism to keep myself sane (or at least some semblance of sane…). Don’t want to scare small children, you know. Or college professors…I don’t think it would help my grades.

That’s all I have for now… Pretty soon I have some more fun news for you guys, but that’ll be my next post

Short Update

Hello hello!

Just a quick update so you know what’s going on in my super extravagant life (haha, as if). I’m making a lot of progress on Midnight’s Wings (praise the Lord) especially on the weekends. In fact, last Friday alone I began and finished a new chapter (a very fun chapter that I can’t wait to share with you guys!). And the week before that I hit a new record for words written in a day…now it’s 8,000 words!

For those of you unfamiliar with this delightful term…

Not all of that was on Midnight’s Wings…about two thirds was on a short story idea that refused to let me think about anything else until it was written. It’s so interesting how I can get a book hangover from my own stories…

Anyway, writing is going well, classes are great, and the wind has a hint of spring in it today. Still no green, which I’m really sad about, but pictures and my go-to spring stories will help me persevere! And spring is almost here, I can feel it! (For those of you about to point out that it’s still January: shhh…just let me live in my delusion). Last night I watched The Secret Garden with some roommates, which has simultaneously helped with my spring mood and made me want to move to an estate in England with huge walled gardens.

This is a short post for me, but hey, maybe you guys will like short for a change

The Place I Search For

Do you ever see something – a vista, a sunrise, a meadow – and feel like it’s hinting at something more? Do you ever feel the sunlight, or hear the water in the stream, and pause to listen with your whole being because there’s something else in that sound and you don’t want to miss it? Do you ever read a book, or listen to a song, and imagine a place that feels like home even though you have no idea how to find it?

I do. I see it in the world around me, in the sunlight on the leaves and the mountain flowers waving in the breeze. I hear it in the water and the bird’s song. I feel it in that first breeze that hints at spring and soft earth and growing things after too many months of cold and sleep. I know it…and yet I don’t.

Never have I found this place that I imagine. Never have I stood in awe of it’s beauty, feeling like I’ve come home to a place I’ve never been. Never have I experienced the seasons as I imagine they truly should be, the seasons as I dream and write them.

Still, I search. Still, I listen and watch. I wait for the time when I find this place, or it finds me. I dream and paint and write of its beauty and peace. I reread the stories, I re-watch the movies, I listen to the songs for the one-thousandth time. And always I search…

…I’m ready for Spring, guys. I’m ready to be out in the mountains with the soft grass and warm sun, with the fresh air that’s just a hint away from being too cold for short sleeves and feels like pure adventure kissing my skin. And as always, that longing brings to mind the places I want to find, and the dramatic artist in me that will always express herself in words like the ones above…my full-hearted attempts to give names to these wild feelings that flood by being.

I hope your year is wonderful so far. If your Spring is coming, don’t forget to enjoy it…and would you mind sharing a piece with me?

New Year & Life Events

Hello Everybody! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

I can’t believe it’s already 2019…day before yesterday marked the one year anniversary of this blog, and man did it go by fast. I was planning to do some sort of special post in celebration of Christmas, or New Years, but my life’s been a little crazy lately and it slipped past without me doing anything. I was also planning to write some post of flowing prose celebrating the beauty of winter (to complete my posts on the seasons) but that’s going to have to wait until next year because I am already done with winter. Unlike last year, it isn’t simply because I want to see growing things again…no, this time I have a much better excuse. Turns out getting severe hypothermia and nearly dying make a person ready for warm weather.

Ah, I have your attention now. No, sadly that’s not an exaggeration. I nearly died. As did my Mom and my little brother. That’s part of why you haven’t heard from me in a while. We didn’t die, though (or else this post would give new meaning to ghost writer

Updates

Hello hello!

Welp. I just realized I missed my usual every-other-week schedule for posting. Sorry about that… all I can say is that end-of-semester brain is a thing. Seriously, I can hardly carry on an intelligent conversation. I’ll be talking with someone, and then my brain decides “we don’t need to understand this” and I’m left standing there with no idea what the person just said. But I can explain to you all of the events following the assassination of Julius Caesar! And recite Greek paradigms! And a bunch of other wonderful things that I’ve been memorizing for finals that are super fascinating but but why can’t my brain remember it all AND manage to interpret plain English? *sigh*

Yeah…end of semester. Pretty crazy: lots of projects due, lots of tests…a LOT of coffee and studying. But! All of this doesn’t mean my days have been bleak and joyless! (If I sound a bit crazed, please just go with it. Most of campus is jussst a little off right now, and I promise I’ll get better when I’ve been home for a few days.) First off, yesterday was my birthday! (yay) I am officially not a teenager anymore, and boy does it feel weird. I don’t think it’s fully set in yet because of the aforementioned studying and finals, but yeah…it is really strange to think that I am now a twenty-something (twenty-nothing, technically, but whatever).

Me with Jerry Jenkins! So much fun…

And secondly, last Friday I got to meet a famous author!!! Jerry Jenkins, author of the Left Behind series, was talking on campus and I got to go! And I got to meet him! It was amazing! In addition to being a prolific author (he’s published over 190 books! Just…wow), Mr. Jenkins coaches young authors in basically everything having to do with writing, and that’s kinda what his talk was on: teaching college students to write well. It was a really amazing talk, and I got a lot out of it. A lot of encouragement, new things to try, just fascinating facts in general… So I got to meet a well-known author AND I gained a whole new set of resources! So exciting!

So that’s been my last couple of weeks… I’m excited to go home and spend Christmas with my family (and have time to actually WRITE), but other than the events above and school not much exciting has happened.

What about you guys? Are you excited for Christmas?

Thanksgiving

Alright, full confession: yesterday I was focused on spending time with family and didn’t get around to writing a blog post. But I’m going to use my forgetfulness to my advantage…

I love Thanksgiving. I love that we have a day dedicated to giving thanks for our lives and what we have. I love that I get a break from school so I can come home. And, I’ll freely admit it, I like the food. There are a lot of my favorite foods that I only get a chance to eat at Thanksgiving (mainly cranberry sauce and mincemeat pie). Most of all, I love what Thanksgiving means and that it provides us with an opportunity to reorient our hearts to praise God for all that He has given us.

What I do not like is this day: Black Friday. The day when all around the nation stores are trying to make us forget all that yesterday means and teaches. The day when human greed and all ugliness come to the surface and are accepted, celebrated even. And we all so quickly forget what we say around the table. It saddens me that in mere hours we go from marveling that to count our blessings is to number the stars, to this mindset that our lives are incomplete unless we buy more stuff. And yes, said stuff is on sale. Yes, Christmas is coming and it’s time to buy presents. Yes, buying things on sale can make it possible to give more generously to those we love. And I’m not condemning everyone who participates.

But I am crying out against the spirit behind “Black Friday.” Why, I ask, do we have to have so much stuff right now, on this day? Why do we have to make it this Hunger Games-esch competition where so many people treat each other as nothing more than obstacles between them and their goal? Why do we all forget so quickly the purpose of the day so close behind us? What does it say about our society that we spend more time in this week seeking to increase our earthly treasures rather than giving thanks for what we already have? And, for the vast majority of people who participate in Black Friday, what we have is a lot.

[image error]I’m home!

And so, on this day. Black Friday. While thousands of people are racing around buying everything in sight even as I type this post…on this day I give thanks. On this day I thank God for all that He has given me, and I recognize that it is so much more than I need. I praise Him for being so generous that He would grant us this beautiful world and all the blessings that come with it. I thank Him that I am home, that I am with my family in this little valley so far from the chaos of Denver. I thank God that He continues to work in and through me even when I so often fall short. And I do fall short…I fall short in the very area I am currently ranting against. I do have too much stuff, and all too often I forget my overabundance in my desire for more.

But the day we just finished is the example of what I should be like, what we should all be like, and I want to hold on to that for as long as I can. I want to use this time to remind myself of how we should be, and in the midst of praising God I want to ask Him to help us become that. Because we should be people who live with grateful hearts, living in joy for all that we have and even what we don’t have. We should be people for whom Thanksgiving is merely an opportunity to gather and feast because we live in such a constant state of thanksgiving it’s impossible to express it any further. Every moment of every day we should be crying out with the Psalmist “Praise the Lord! Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever” (Ps 106:1).

And yes, we’re all far from succeeding, but why should that stop us from trying and asking God for the strength to keep trying? And maybe the first step toward being thankful in all ways is to hold on to the focus of Thanksgiving even when everything is on sale. Maybe the first step is letting that one person push ahead of you, recognizing that they are a human being with their own life and story and you don’t truly need that one thing anyway. Maybe the first step is going without those few new things in order to understand the value of what’s already in your home…the value of family and laughter and time spent talking and playing and even just sitting next to each other. Maybe instead of Black Friday we should have Thanksgiving #2.

Couldn’t resist

Almost to Break…

Hello hello!

I hope everybody is enjoying their fall! Are you excited for Thanksgiving? I know I am. Not only does it mean a (much needed) break from school, it also means I get to see my family, friends, and kitties, and my dog and my birds…mustn’t forget the birds! The Romans thought chickens were sacred, you know…there was one general in Rome who went into a battle, lost pretty much the entire Roman navy, killed a whole bunch of soldiers, and what is he tried for when he gets back? Throwing the sacred chickens overboard. No joke. He was exiled because he threw the chickens off the boat. I mean, that’s a jerky move and poor chickens, but exile? That seems a little harsh…

Moral of the story? Don’t mess with the Romans’ chickens. It won’t end well.

Alright, so coming back from that rabbit trail (or would it be chicken trail?) I’m only two days away from being home! I’m super grateful for the opportunity to take a step back from school and classes, rest and reorient , then jump back in for the last few weeks of class. I’m also hoping I’ll be able to write during break. I doubt I’ll make miraculous progress with anything, but even a little forward momentum would be nice. I’m also hoping to make a game-plan during break for how to write or do something amidst schoolwork so I can get you all a story! So yeah…we’ll see how it goes.

This is a short post (for me at least), but I still have homework to finish before I can enjoy my days of freedom