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....

The Countdown: Eight Days

Eight days. Do you know what that means? Barely over a week. Tomorrow will be one week from the announcement date. Are you excited? I am. So, today, I want to talk to those who wrote something for the contest, whether or not you entered it in the end. What made you start writing your story? What was the first inkling of an idea that tickled your brain? What was it that you liked about your premise? As you wrote, did you have a favorite character or a favorite scene? And are you glad you wrote it down? Do you feel like you learned and grew in your ability as a writer as you tried out things for this contest? And, if your story isn't included in this year's Rooglewood anthology (either because you didn't submit it or because it didn't fit with the other four stories selected), what will you do with it? Will you market it elsewhere? Or will you lock it away in a drawer?

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. ...

The Pen of a Ready Writer

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