Dear Twenty-Five

Dear Twenty-Five:

Raise your hand if you're where you thought you'd be.

Who is?

Raise your hand if you've done things that have scared you, even if you did them accidentally.

Raise your hand if you've loved.

If you've lost.

If you've conquered.

If you've feared.

If you've seen at least one dream come true.

If you've chosen a fork in a road you thought would be straight.

Raise your hand if you've bought something on impulse. Ugly-laughed till your ribs seized in pain. Cried in public (you know you've cried in public).

And now that your hand is raised, look around at all the other hands raised, half shyly, half confidently. That shy confidence, that confident shyness are all marks of having lived a quarter century.

You tell me not to say that, that it makes you feel old.

Oh, twenty-five, I'm laughing. Don't feel your antiquity, feel the power of having grown. Your heart has pattered twenty five years, sometimes racing, sometimes lulling, sometimes the only indication that you're still here, still in reality. You've crunched through twenty-five leaf-filled autumns, twenty-five winters bright as new quarters, twenty-five shy-confident springs, melted through twenty-five summers. Five years ago you were holding your sudden adultness like a fishnet, caught in it. Ten years ago you sat in algebra class. Fifteen years ago you skinned your knee. Twenty years ago you ate someone else's graham cracker and got slapped. Twenty-five years ago you squalled at the bright lights of a new world. A world which you hadn't asked to enter and didn't know to love.

When you look at it like that, it all gets better.

But it hurts.

Yes, it hurts.

But it's beautiful.

Yes, it's beautiful.

Just think – where did you intend to be at twenty-five? Not here? Well, does that surprise you after all? Since when have you ended up anyplace you intended? Life isn't calculated to go according to our schemes, thank God.

Perhaps you haven't found your true love, but you have found love to be true.

Perhaps you haven't done all you meant to have done, but I can assure you that you've done other things you never meant to do, some of them turning points in those twenty-five years.

You've seen weird things, Twenty-Five. Things like stirrup pants and an unfortunate poncho craze, dial-up internet and FaceTime. You've seen violence and history destroyed and history made. You've seen so much in so short a time but weigh that against the age of this world and what have you seen?

Oh, you are not old.

You are not old like eternity. You are not old like the Joshua trees. You are not old like Jerusalem or the spires of Oxford. You are not even old like filling stations and big-band music and the wooden floors of the soda shop downtown.

Old? You are so young, Twenty-Five, that you have no concept of what Age is.

Age is opportunity.

Age is another year and another twelve months to do the improbable.

Age is entropy, but Age is not caring.

Age gathers the days to her chest and grins, having outwitted another year. She is far from old. She is young, and forever young. It is the young who do things, and the more days to your life, the more time to do.

How many years are yours?

I don't know.

You're not who or where or what you expected to be at a quarter century, are you?

So what?

You're much more. So much more. A ruffled, hopeful, madful mess.

So, Twenty-Five, put away your comparisons. If you are to be someone other than you are, you will be her. You're still living, aren't you? You're still growing and there are still autumns and winters and summers and springs and I think you'll understand.

Light twenty-five candles on your cake today and smile at the small forest fire it makes. And before you blow them out I want you to pause and I want you to look back and I want you to look forward. And most of all I want you to know that you, Twenty-Five, are meant to be.

I love you and I think you're fantastic. But guess what? If you live to be one hundred you are only a quarter as fantastic as you'll someday grow to be. Age? Embrace it like a hug from a long-lost friend. Bury your face in its shoulder and squeeze it hard and maybe even let it tip you off-balance with the force of its awesomeness. You're twenty-five and you're pretty damn fine.

The Fifth of November: Celebrating The Fallow Year

"Read. Read constantly. Read the kind of stuff you wish you could write. Read until your brain creaks. Tolkien said that his ideas sprang up from the leaf mold of his mind: your readings are the trees where your fallen leave would come from."

"The first thing is that writers should be voracious readers. We live in a narcissistic age, which means that many want to have the praise that comes from having read, without the antecedent labor of actually reading. Wanting to write without reading is like wanting to grind flour without gathering wheat, like wanting to make boards without logging, and like wanting to have a Mississippi Delta without any tributaries somewhere in Minnesota. Output requires intake, and literary output requires literary intake."

"Read like a reader and not like someone cramming for a test. If you try to wring every book out like it was a washcloth full of information (and nothing but information), all you will do is slow yourself down to a useless pace. Go for total tonnage, and read like someone who will forget most of it...Most of what is shaping you in the course of your reading you will not be able to remember. The most formative years of my life were the first five, and if those years were to be evaluated on the basis of my ability to pass a test on them, the conclusion would be that nothing important happened then, which would be false. The fact that you can't remember things doesn't mean that you haven't been shaped by them."

All of these very, very excellent quotes come from a slim little volume by Douglas Wilson titled Wordsmithy. I was given this book in the coffee shop I'm sitting in now. It was a gift from a friend who, I hope, didn't feel like giving it to me because she could sense my drought. I must confess the year 2014 was a year of output. Massive output. I published two novels and a novella, started a new job, and worked my precious little butt off. The understandable assumption was that the year 2015 would be the same. It was not, however. 2015 has been a year of immense personal schedules. The girls I mainly nannied in 2014 I am now schooling, which adds a dimension and a half. I now plan their lessons, teach them, and have had the huge privilege of seeing them go from their alphabet to real books, explaining our ridiculous English language, and showing them the world, such as it is. This year I have also rediscovered my love of reading.I'm sorry to say that I forgot about it for a little while. Not about my love of stories - that never faded. But of how easy and delicious it is to lose oneself in a book. To nose so deeply into the pages and words and characters that one forgets present constraints. Is it summer? Is it autumn? Does it rain outside or are we having dry weather?
I forgot about this love because I consciously kept myself in. I am a book drunkard. I give myself up entirely to the story and if I lose myself early in the day, I am lost until whatsoever time the book has coughed me up ashore like a word-soaked Jonah. Knowing this about myself, I was careful not to get too entangled in a book. I only read if I deemed I had time to read. And, predictably, my word output shriveled. If I had no time to read, I certainly had no time to write and here was the vicious cycle. Friends, however, gave me books for my birthday. I visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. and bought a couple more. Pretty soon I had a stack of unread books waiting on my shelf. Waiting for that day when I had "time to read." The temptation was, quite simply, too much. Since summer began, I have given into my passion and picked up Wodehouse's Summer Lightning. I don't have hours upon hours to read - I am a busy working woman. Still, I elbowed other things to make time. From Summer Lightning, it was a short step to swallowing Schindler's List piecemeal between bouts of more Wodehouse. Harper Lee's Go Set A Watchman grabbed me and shook me by the throat as I soared through it in two or three days, and Wordsmithy dribbled through my fingers as well. Cocktail Time rounded to a close and Blandings Castle was waiting, all uncracked-spine and crisp pages. And do you know what? I found a piece of myself that had gone into hibernation. Ever so slowly, I'm coaxing her back out. I do have time to read. I can choose to put aside my phone, to postpone that drawing commission, or to go to bed a little early and pick up a book before sleep. I can choose to spend my evening reading rather than watching White Collar or The West Wing, as painful as that choice is.

Reading opens massive, massive worlds. How could I ever have let it go? Since picking my books back up, I have found that my mind is brighter. I am not at a loss for things on which to think. Words spring readily to mind. I've almost finished the first draft of my story for the Five Magic Spindles contest with the overflow. But you know what? The paradigm shift was as subtle as it was important: I did not read to turn the words like so much straw into WIP gold. I read for reading's sake; for the sake of losing myself in another world for what might be half an hour, or a full afternoon. I found the joy again of diving so deep that when I emerged, I had to shake myself a bit and look about and remember where and whom I was.

Farmers rotate crops so that a given piece of ground is not stripped of a particular nutrient; different crops suck different things from the soil. And though the farmers, by rotating the variety of crops grown on that piece of ground, can keep the soil fairly healthy and thriving, fallow years are necessary. A year of rest for the soil. A year of building up again the depleted stocks, of fertilizing the ground and waiting. A year where nothing will grow that is lucrative, but wild-flowers and grasses will knit its wounded, harrowed soul back together, leaving that field fresh-faced and ready for the following spring. 2014 was my insanely productive year. 2015 has been my fallow year. But a fallow year is necessary, and I will not apologize for (unofficially) taking it. I will only turn back to my books with a fond smile, write as I can, and thank God for the great, great joy it is to be literate and to know the thrill of traveling lands afar through the wilds of an unread book. I feel myself healing. Oh, rest is a beautiful, needful thing.

It has been a year today since my last release of 2014.  A warm happy birthday to my dear first mystery: Anon, Sir, Anon! If any of you feel like burying yourself deep for a cozy, British afternoon, head thataway to say hello. Supporting independent authors is a wonderful way to explore deeper waters in the joy of reading. Buy a copy for yourself, for a friend, or to show a lonely little mystery that though the promise of a sister-mystery has been delayed, it has not been forgotten.

All My Love,
         Rachel

Someone's Birthday is Coming Up...

I have some lovely news to share with you, ducks! Over the weekend I was alerted by the editors at Rooglewood Press that Five Glass Slippers hit #1 bestseller in numerous categories in Canada, the US, and the United Kingdom! We even hit #1 in the "fairytale" category, which is a huge one. So we were told to proudly begin to let people know that we are internationally best-selling authors. I feel odd even typing that, but it is the truth. My "slipper sisters" and I have hit #1 in several countries. Surreal. If you have not got your copy of this internationally best-selling collection, by all means off to Amazon with you! 

It's nearly Valentine's Day and I am reminded that on February 14th, it will be a year ago that my debut novel, Fly Away Home, hit the market. In twelve months following, you have generously supported me by purchasing this novel (and my others), by reading it, and by reviewing it on Amazon, Goodreads, and your blogs. And now, on its first birthday, I want to give back to all of you who have been so helpful in kick-starting my career! Starting this Saturday, February 7th, and going through Valentine's Day, both editions of Fly Away Home (print and e-book) will be 50% off! 

If you loved the book and want to share it with someone who hasn't read it, now's a great time to nab a copy. If you haven't read the book but have been wanting too, ditto. If you just dropped by The Inkpen Authoress for the first time and have no idea what this book is, I repeat my inquiry: will you find a better time to try it out? I think not. So by all means, please share the news and treat yourself  to a light-handed, vintage romance this Valentine's Day.

Half-Dozen is a Cozy Term

I almost want a limp so I can own this cane. <3

"A half-dozen" is a very nice term. It's an even number, meaning six, and a cozy word, sounding a little bit like doves and a little bit like "blowzy" and a little like cookies or doughnuts or something edible. A half dozen is half of a dozen, which is twelve, and twelve is also a nice number.

But you know me. I hate numbers. I'm only going on about half-dozens because very soon I will celebrate six months of publishment! 

August 14th marks six months; six months since I became a published author! In that six months I have published one novel independently, had a novella published in a collection with four other dear authors, and done much of the preparation for my second indie novel, Anon, Sir, Anon. In some ways it is hard to believe it has only been six months, seeing as I've been halfway around the world, got a job as a nanny, and worked at two summer camps in that period of time. Life has been full and beautiful and as I will be publishing Anon, Sir, Anon at the nine-month mark, I think it's time to celebrate Hobbit-wise by giving one of you a gift at this plummy half-dozen milestone.

(also, none of you got all five of the references of last post so I find myself disposed to be be generous. Lucky ducks, you!)

Beginning on August 14th and extending the week of its six month birthday, I will be hosting a giveaway! The winner of said giveaway will receive a copy of all my works in print as well as Eats Shoots And Leaves by Lynne Truss, a book most useful for those of us who find ourselves too liberal with grammatical errors. It'll be a lovely chance to win books you A) already love or B) would like to familiarize yourself with before you try to read anything else of my writing. 

Whatever your case, I hope you will take this photo, share it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, or your preferred method of social media, and spread the word about the giveaway! I cannot wait to choose a winner (already! I am easily excited) and I trust you'll have fun with the creative entries I have planned. I look forward to the week of the 14th! Cheers!

Art thou the Bard? Happy Birthday, Knave.

Today is William Shakespeare's 450th birthday!

Or ... you know ... would have been if he hadn't died way back then. I feel a deeper connection than ever to Shakespeare, having just finished first-round edits for Anon, Sir, Anon. This story, as most of you know, centers around a murder mystery (or a "murdery" for short) and the detective, Orville Farnham, is a well-known Shakespearean actor. I spent much time in my Shakespeare Quotes section of my Bartlett Book during the writing of Anon, Sir, and I have found his quotes springing to mind in day-to-day conversation which, quite frankly, delights me. So far, my favorite Shakespeare plays are Much Ado About Nothing and Henry V , both for quite different reasons. I just thought I'd throw that rather random and useless bit of information to my public and let you do what you will with it.  I did not think Shakespeare's birthday (especially a 450th!) ought to go by without a bit of notice on The Inkpen Authoress, so I am going to take this time to list the things I love about The Bard:

How ever-loving quotable was the man:

The things we say today to which we owe William Shakespeare thanks (or scorn):

The reach and comprehensiveness of his characters, like King Henry V:

(i.e. a blooming good excuse to post an obnoxious amount of Hiddleston pictures)

The Double-Meanings and/or humor of which he was capable, using Elizabethan language:

It was Shakespeare who gave us some of the sweetest marriage proposals ever. 

Basically, he deserves quite a lot of cake.

Many Happy Returns

"So Owl wrote . . . and this is what he wrote:
HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY. Pooh looked on admiringly.
"I'm just saying 'A Happy Birthday'," said Owl carelessly.
"It's a nice long one," said Pooh, very much impressed by it.
"Well, actually, of course, I'm saying 'A Very Happy Birthday with love from Pooh.' Naturally it takes a good deal of pencil to say a long thing like that."
"Oh, I see," said Pooh."

She can fabricate wonderful stories out of a blank piece of paper.

She has style that's both vintage and pop.

She loves Jesus and is a light to all around her.

She's a connoisseur of all things Broadway.

She can whip up all sorts of foods as quick as you can say "bob's your uncle."

She can be found laughing at all hours of the day.

She happens to be my sister.

She happens to be turning 21 today.....

And she has just been hacked.

happy 21st birthday, rach!
love,
Sarah

Happy 114th!

Today we are having a birthday party on this blog. Why? Why? Good grief, my dear friends! Because it is C.S. Lewis' 114th birthday, and if I forget to celebrate his birthday, I might as well forget to celebrate my own!
Ever since Mama would read us the Chronicles of Narnia...ever since watching the old BBC film versions...ever since I was first introduced to the marvelous idea of a forest in the back of a wardrobe, I have loved Lewis. Narnia was the only make-believe land I cared for. So many many times can I recall playing at Narnia on the hill behind our house, sometimes creeping into the solemn, stern cluster of woods called "Doxey Park" with the solitary lamppost standing sentinel at one side. We made daggers. We shot bows and arrows.
Then I grew older and I realized--with a delighted wriggle--the second level to Lewis' writings: the beautiful, poignant truths woven so inextricably through his words that it hurts in a good way to read them. I expanded from my narrow circle of the Chronicles of Narnia and read The Screwtape Letters....Surprised by Joy....biographies of this man...and what a man he was. To celebrate, below I've compiled some of my favorite  quotes along with pictures of this wonderful Christian brother, or things that remind me of him! Huzzah!

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." -C.S. Lewis

"A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest."

 -C.S. Lewis

"I'm on Aslan's side, even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia." -C.S. Lewis The Silver Chair

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

-C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity

“I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”

-C.S. Lewis

“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”

-C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity

Sarah and I as the White Witch and the Lady of the Green Kirtle 

“It isn't Narnia, you know," sobbed Lucy. "It's you. We shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?"

"But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan.

"Are -are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.

"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.” 

-C.S. Lewis The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

“You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve," said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.”

-C.S. Lewis Prince Caspian

Happy 114th Birthday, dear old Jack! We are forever grateful for your sense of humor, your wisdom, your love for Christ, and your brilliant books! Three Cheers or Lewis! Who's with me?

A star danced...

"There was a star danced, and under that was I born."

-William Shakespeare

(and quite possibly my favorite quote from him. :)

Because it is my birthday, and because I am now 20 years old, and because I can now quote one of my favorite Elizabeth Bennet quotes correctly: ("I am not yet one-and-twenty") and perhaps because I am feeling birthday-ish even if I am in Georgia, here is a birthday post for me and you and the rest of us.


First off, it's my golden-birthday. That means (in Rachelisms) that I turned 20 on the 20th of July. Some one recently tried to tell me that "golden birthday" means "50th," but that is so terribly unromantic that I ignored them and told them that they were probably incorrect, and I was probably right. ;) My family sent me the most amazing package ever. It sat in my hotel room for two days while I tried to forget about it, but I have to say that I bounced awake quite earlyish this morning and tore into it with a right good will.
They'd wrapped everything in gold-hued paper. Different patterns, different shades, all golden. :) And some peacock feathers thrown in for good measure. Nearly everything in the box was gold-themed too. I felt just like Rose in Eight Cousins--there was no end to that amazing package. Gift after little gift I opened till I was quite in danger of being late for breakfast!


"Every little girl cam easily imagine what an extra good time she had diving into a sea of treasures and fishing up one pretty thing after another, till the air was full of the mingled odours of musk and sandalwood, the room gay with bright colours, and Rose in a rapture of delight."

Mama and the girls had sprinkled gold stars in every envelope and box, and by the end of the time my dark little hotel table was quite awash in a sea of glittering splendour. :) Thanks, family-dearest! Among the many delightful things I received were:


- a silver pocket-watch necklace from Felicity--I feel just like Beatrix Potter. :)
- truffles, orange-dark-chocolate, Rollos, and Toblerone
- gold, sparkly eye-shadow from my sister, the Fashionista. :) (And yes, I can carry it off)
- fuschia lipstick, so that I might follow in the summer's fashion trends. ;)
- a little china box with a supercilious cat on it, filled with "golden" buttons
- twenty dollars
- a beautiful, golden, filigree dogwood-flower hairclip
- Bath & Bodyworks white citrus lotion
- eyeshadow especially formulated for hazel eyes (a girl on a campaign needs to feel beautiful, right? :)
- postage stamps
- and more. :)


Truly, it was the most wonderful parcel I've ever received. Most packages come to an end far too quickly, and with many of them you already knew what was coming. No such thing in this deal. And in addition, I had about 6  cards from various family and friends! Thank you everyone who contributed to making my birthday-away-from-home possibly one of the best ones I've ever had! I love you all, and I'll remember it for ever and always. :) <3

Happy Birthday, Rachel!

Just wanted to wish my sister, Rachel a very happy birthday! I hope you have a great day and enjoy turning *19* !! :)

Love,

Sarah