Rachel Answers Questions

1. Where are you from?
     I am originally from Penty Village, but I have spent most of my years in a little town called Runtford -- not far from the castle.
2. What is your greatest hope?
    Before the story started, I suppose my greatest hope was...well...there is a young man...I suppose there is no need to hide anything from you...there is a young man whom I love very deeply...and my greatest hope was that he would ask me to marry him. There! That was my greatest hope.
3. What do you pray for?
     I pray for the young man that I love - that he would prosper and do well, that he would always be secure in the love of the Lord, that he would walk in wisdom. I pray for my little town - that change would come for the better, that the injustice and cruelties would stop, that our food would not be taken away. I pray for the kingdom - that God would turn the hearts of our leaders toward Himself.
4. What is your greatest fear?
     I try to not be fearful. The Lord tells us to be anxious for nothing. He tells us that He has not given us a spirit of fear. I remind myself of that often - sometimes it is hard when that dungeon brute is in town. I fear for Jacob. Then I go home and spend time in prayer to remind myself that I need not be afraid when God is on my side.
5. Do you have any pets?
     No, I don't. Poor people cannot afford to feed extra mouths.
     Oh, Jacob is teasing me! He says I had a pet bull once. That is not true. I only took a shortcut through its field one time, and I never did it again. By the way, he and I have two slightly different versions of that story...

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Goodbye and God Be With You

It's rather fitting that some things come to a close on this day -- the last day of the year. I submitted my last entry into the Rooglewood contest this morning. I can hardly believe it took me until the day of the deadline to send it in because I'm usually earlier than that. And, even with the extra time I took, I still felt a little bit like maybe I could have done better if I had more time. But there was no feeling of regret when I hit "send." Mostly it was just a prayer that Rooglewood would hear the heart of the message when they read it and that maybe, if I win, they could help me bring the full potential out of my little story. And there was also a feeling, after working on these stories for more than six months, that it felt good to close that chapter and move on to the next one. I did it. I wrote them. And I'm really proud of them. Last year, the act of hitting "send" on my contest entry catapulted me into an anticipatory state....

Wherein I Still Have My Nose and Ears

I decided to take the plunge. I was going to chop a plot thread out of AAM so the story would fit in the contest word length restrictions. I saved my old version and set up a copy for me to modify. Stories are like woven cloth. Each plot thread is woven into the entire story. So if I decide to cut a character or a side-theme, I have to go through the whole book, chopping out the references to it. This leaves gaping holes and sometimes it looks like the whole story is going to unravel. Everywhere I chop, I have to readjust the whole scene to keep the flow. It's a rather ticklish procedure. Over the dinner table, I mentioned that I was chopping a sub-plot. My younger sister protested loudly (she hasn't read it, but I previously told her the general idea). Then my mom (who also hasn't read it) offered to read it and tell me what she thought could and couldn't be chopped. ...

Rooglewood Countdown: 12 days

For the next 12 1/2 days, as we do our final countdown until March 31st, I'm going to do 4 posts asking about something you would like to see in the Snow White collection. There are so many ways all of us, writers and readers alike, can win in this contest. Maybe a familiar name makes it into the final five -- hurray! Maybe a story in your favorite genre ended up in the collection this year -- woohoo! Maybe you finally get to read a winning story about an evil king and his Snow White son -- how awesome! So, in celebration of all the many things we can root for, I want to know some of the things that you think would be cool to find in this year's set of winners. Without further ado, here is my question for the day: What is a point of view you would like to see in this collection? Would you like a story written from the prince's perspective? A story from Snow White's p...

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