Word of the Week – Awful and Awesome

Word of the Week – Awful and Awesome

by | Jan 15, 2024 | Word of the Week

It’s kind of funny, isn’t it. When we say the word awe, we know that it means “an emotion variously combining dread, veneration, and wonder that is inspired by authority or by the sacred or sublime.“

And yet, what do we think when we saw awful? Or awesome? We can see at a glance that both words are from that root–and indeed, both once meant the same thing.

Yet in modern vernacular, both of these words have drifted from their root word…and they’ve drifted in opposite directions. It’s fascinating to look at how and when and why. And to realize that awe, in its own definition, carries the potential for both positive and negative feelings, right? Dread is bad. Wonder is good.

Awful, at the start, could be either. It was simply “full of awe.” And it wasn’t until 1809 that it laid claim to all the negative parts of awe and came to used strictly for “exceedingly bad.”

Awesome actually came on the scene nearly 300 years later, and first was mostly positive, focused on “profoundly reverential” since the 1590s. In the next hundred years that dread worked its way back in. And it wasn’t until 1960 that it veered from all things reverential and simply began to mean “impressive, very good.”

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Awakened Series Title Vote

Awakened Series Title Vote

by | Jan 12, 2024 | Fantasy

Welcome to the world of the Awakened, where magic has been gifted from heaven and combined with nanotechnology to create a world where amazing things can happen…but only where enemies meet and find love. There is magic in the meeting, and many adventures await as new forms of it are gifted to humanity. But…what in the world am I going to call these books?? 😉 They will all fall in the clean romantasy (fantasy romance) genre. Want to learn more about the first book before you vote? Check out my post here.

Keep up to date on all the goings-on in my fantasy world on my new Fantasy page. =) (And here are a few AI-generated images of how I imagine the characters and settings in book 1)

The Tidal Palace
Arden Bleu
King Seidon
Jade Callimore
Electra
Prince Finn
The Blue Ball
Librus
Wind and Waves

Want to learn more about my fantasy books as they develop? I’d love it if you’d join my Fantasy Readers email list–I’ll be sending out more polls on cover options, special edition experiments I’m doing, and more.

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A Soft Answer

A Soft Answer

by | Jan 11, 2024 | Thoughtful Thursdays

“A soft answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger.”
~ Proverbs 15:1

I’ll admit it. I sometimes have trouble reading through the book of Proverbs. Not because I don’t love the wisdom in there…but because I don’t honestly know how to read it in a way that lets me absorb it. These chapters don’t tell a story. They’re not even a single poem or song, like in Psalms. Instead, through much of the book, each verse or couplet is its own thing. It’s own wisdom. Only occasionally do you get a chapter that’s one cohesive thought.

On the one hand, I love these bite-sized bits of musing and thoughtful pondering. On the other…reading through a whole chapter of them usually leaves me without a clue as to what all I just read. And yet, some certainly stick in our hearts and minds, especially when they’ve been oft-quoted. And the opening wisdom of Proverbs 15 is certainly one of those.

As a generally soft-spoken person who rarely gets angry (frustrated, but not angry very often), this is a verse I always thought I understood. And one I also always appreciated. Because it’s true, right? If you yell at someone, it’s only going to make them angrier. Wrath begets wrath. Or as Dale Carnegie observes in How to Win Friends and Influence People, the moment you lose an argument is the moment you START an argument. Which is to say, you never win anything by arguing. Definitely a philosophy that aligns with that proverb.

A proverb that today’s outrage culture could stand to take more seriously, right? When something gets us angry, offends us, or makes us want to rant (on social media or otherwise), we could certainly stand this reminder: harsh words will only make everyone more angry. To turn it away, to seek healing instead of rifts, we need a different approach.

And last week in the Marco Polo group for Patrons & Peers, one of our members, Lee Anne Womack, pointed out something I’d never considered before about this verse: That it doesn’t necessarily speak to how others react. It speaks to what happens in our own hearts.

Cue the mind-blown emoji. Let that sink in a for a moment.

We can’t actually determine how others react to us. Sometimes if we give a soft answer instead of an angry one, it will diffuse a situation…but let’s be honest. Sometimes if we stay calm, that makes the other person even angrier. It will lead them to shout, “You don’t even care!” Or they’ll call us smug or cold or stupid.

But what does a soft answer do to our own hearts? That’s the thing that Lee Anne’s insight made me ponder. Because a true soft answer doesn’t mean saying one thing but meaning another, right? It means answering from love instead of frustration…which means seeing them through the lens of love. It means that even when we speak hard things, we do it in a gentle and loving way. And when we do that, when we view people we’re in opposition to at that moment through love’s eyes–through God’s eyes–what happens to us?

The anger melts away. Sometimes it allows us to see that we shouldn’t be angry at the offense but sorrowful at the sin. Sometimes it lets us see that their point of view is perfectly legitimate. Sometimes it enables us to see that they’re acting from pain, not from hatred.

Our soft answer turns away our own wrath and makes room for compassion. For empathy. For love.

But what if we give a harsh word instead? Certainly–without question–it will make the others angrier. That goes without saying. But reflect on what it does to our own hearts too.

The more we grumble, complain, and speak of offense, the more negative, outraged, and angry we become–not just with a particular person, but with the world. With generations. With whole groups of people. Harsh words breed disdain, condescension, bias, prejudice, bitterness, and hatred.

And those harsh words don’t even have to be spoken to that person. They can just be mumbled and grumbled under our breath, or spoken to friends and family about those people. In those cases, the person in question can’t respond to us, because they don’t know what we’re saying. They aren’t being “stirred up.” But WE are. We are stirring up ourselves, our own anger, all the dark things that pull us down, away from God, away from loving our neighbors as He calls us to love them.

There’s a strange, seductive allure to holding onto anger. To finding reasons to be frustrated and outraged and offended by people. But ultimately, it’s only our own hearts that suffer. So how can we instead practice giving that “soft answer”…not just to and for them, but in order to keep our own hearts soft?

Word of the Week – Cloud

Word of the Week – Cloud

by | Jan 8, 2024 | Word of the Week

Cloud.

You think you know what it means. I did too. But what if I told you that it originally meant, “mass of rock, a hill.”

Um…huh?

Yep. Cloud is from Old English clud, which was used for rocks and heaps of soil. You know, like clod. No one looks at the sky and says there are clods up there, right? We know that means dirt. But clod and cloud are in fact different spellings of the same word. Why?

Well, round about 1300, people in the south of England began to use cloud metaphorically, upon noting that cumulous clouds often look like mountains, hills, and rock formations up in the sky. Until then, the usual Old English word for clouds was weolcan, but apparently the new metaphor stuck and spread. By the year 1475, cloud had completely usurped weolcan, and in fact was no longer used at all for clods of dirt or rock.

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2024 Word of the Year – (Re)Discover

2024 Word of the Year – (Re)Discover

by | Jan 1, 2024 | Holidays, Thoughtful Thursdays, Word of the Year

2023 was a hard year. Due to circumstances beyond our control, I not only had 6 manuscripts to turn in and 9 rounds of edits on those manuscripts, but my husband spent quite a big chunk of the second half of the year traveling to Baltimore to help his stepfather after he had a massive stroke, so I did my best to pick up the slack in his usual work too. I did this willingly and freely…but by the time December rolled around, I was exhausted. Mentally, physically, emotionally. Exhausted.

This happened last year too as I struggled through the symptoms of my pituitary tumor, so I guess it shouldn’t have come as a big surprise…but it kinda did. I’d been feeling great this year, even given the circumstances. More creative than I have felt in a decade. Capable of anything. Then came that end of the year crash, which was intense enough that I literally wanted to do nothing, think about nothing, and plan nothing.

One thing about me, though–my disposition just won’t stay “down” for long. 😉 When Stephanie (best friend/critique partner) mentioned talking about our 2024 goals whenever I felt up to it, my spirit perked up. As if that mere mention was enough to remind me that the future was still stretching before me, and that dreaming up ways to fill it was one of my favorite things. The exhaustion began edging back. Joy crept back in. And my thoughts turned to something else I’d been putting off in my tired wreck: choosing my Word of the Year for 2024.

As in the past few years, I decided to do a prayerful consideration and even look at my list of words in my “How to Choose an Intentional Word of the Year” post from 2022. I wasn’t just waiting for something to strike me, I was exploring my own mind and heart and soul…and needs.

This year, I was considering the year to come while still under the shadow of exhaustion from the year closing out, and I knew that I wanted to go a different direction with my Word choice than I have recently. My previous three Words were Intentional, Devotion, and Linger. Each of those choices were meant to guide me in how I approached different aspects of my life and determined to what I gave my time and attention. They were all meant to cut out filler and frill and distractions and center my focus on what mattered most: God, relationships, and my writing.

They did that.

But in 2023, do you know what brought me the most joy in the moments of greatest trial? Exploring new facets of those old loves. Reading new books I wouldn’t usually have picked up; writing stories outside my genre. Trying new things. And even sending Xoe off on her new adventure of college life.

So as I considered a Word to lead me into 2024, I wanted something that captured that. Maybe EXPLORE? Or DISCOVER? Those were my main two contenders, and nothing else felt even remotely right.

I debated for about two weeks which of those two words I wanted to go with, and I decided on Discover largely because of the prefix I could affix to it…because I know well I don’t just want to discover new things. I want to REdiscover old loves too. I want to revitalize relationships I’ve let flag. I want to  rediscover the Roseanna who was slowly worn down this last decade by pituitary issues.

Because you know what phrase I said countless times in 2023, as I wrote more than I’ve ever written and did more than I’ve ever done? “I feel more like myself than I have in years.” And I didn’t realize, before, that I wasn’t feeling like me. Not until “I” returned in a flood. So one of the things I hope for in 2024 is to lean into that. To rediscover the things that once brought me joy but which I’ve set aside in the face of responsibilities and distractions and exhaustion.

First on the list: READING.

I know this sounds strange coming from a person whose whole world is books, but I haven’t been reading for fun as much as I’d like in recent years–so much else to get done first in the day, and then I’m usually so tired in the evenings that the thought of opening a book just made my eyes hurt. Audiobooks have helped quite a lot, and in fact, 29 of the 52 books I’ve read in 2023 were on audio. (!! I hadn’t realized it was such a high percentage until just now!) I don’t intend to give up the audio, but I DO intend to take more time with physical books in my hand this year.

One thing I noticed in this last holiday week, though, was that I’ve gotten out of the habit of just sitting with a book. I had to seriously squelch the instinct to get up and check on this or that or see if someone needed something and just give myself permission to BE THERE, with that bound paper in hand. To enjoy it. To relax into it. I never would have guessed that I’d get so out of practice with something I’ve done for so long! But there you have it. “Getting lost in a book for hours on end” is something I need to rediscover.

Next on the list: EXTENDED FAMILY

I’m a homebody and an introvert, so I’ll be honest: family gatherings cost me. One-on-one is better, but it’s still not without a price to me. I need a day at home to recharge from days that I go out, and if I don’t get them, the strain shows. In recent years with my energy and brain struggles, that cost was higher than I think I even realized. But as 2023 drew to a close, I spent a lot of time thinking about family.

About the grandmothers who won’t be with me forever.

About the sister I’ve drifted away from.

About the cousins I never see.

About the parents who don’t always fit in my schedule.

In the year to come, I don’t just want to say “I’ll spend more time with them.” I’ve said that before. What I instead want to do is reDISCOVER the real joy of those relationships. I’m in some ways the oddball of my family (or as Xoe asked last week, upon returning to our very-rural hometown after months in the urbane Annapolis, “Where did you guys even come from?” LOL), but I want to rediscover how our differences complement each other.

Next up: CREATIVITY

I want to try new things. I want to master the sprayed edges of books. I want to write more fantasy. I want to write novellas and shorts. I want to try my hand at suspense. I want to find new artistic outlets. I want to learn how to do TikTok videos. I want to find ways to redesign my space (preferably for free, ha ha). I want to play the piano more. I want to learn new things.

In this difficult year of 2023, creativity proved a lifeline; in my driest season financially, I found wellsprings of life-giving creative water. I want to cling to that, and to find new wells of it, to rediscover old ones, and to explore new ways to engage with that creative side.

And: RESPONSIBILITY

Maybe that seems like a strange one to put on the list, but seriously. Sometimes it’s SO easy to resent our responsibilities, and that’s where I was a couple of weeks ago, exhausted and burned out and fed up with everything, even the things I love best. But it helped to realize that we CHOSE those responsibilities, in most cases. That God gave us others, yes, but the ones that come from my dreams–the ones tied to our publishing company and my contracts and my design clients–those are all choices I made. And I made them for a reason. I decided to pursue those things because they seemed good and desirable and in keeping with the calling of Christ.

They’re hard sometimes, especially when worldly success doesn’t follow them. And honestly, I don’t always know when God’s calling us away from one and to something new. But I do know that embracing what we don’t feel called to leave behind instead of resenting the time and effort and blood and tears is crucial. I don’t want the things on my checklist to FEEL like things on a checklist, just to be gotten through. I want to remember why I love each and every thing I do. I want to know I’m doing it for God’s glory. I want to cut only what He wants me to cut, and to embrace what He wants me to embrace. I don’t want to be the son in the parable who sighs and complains but does it anyway. I want to be the one He didn’t even include in that story, who agrees right away and does it with joy. (I always found it amusing that Jesus doesn’t even address such a possibility in that parable, LOL.)

What will 2024 bring? I have no idea. But as I walk through the months to come, I intend to do it with a heart of discovery. With eyes open to things old and new. With a creative mind and eager hands and a fearless heart ready to explore and discover whatever God shows me this year.

Have you chosen a word for 2024? I’d love to hear it!

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