Now I'm Sick. And Tired. And Pausing.

 Hello, everyone and no one. I'm sick. I've picked up something my DH brought home. I'm resting. And I've decided to...give all of this a rest, for a little while. 

It has been two weeks and one day since I submitted my manuscript to my dream publisher. That means that I have a potential four weeks to six weeks of waiting to go. 

Once I have an answer, then... I'll have my answer, one way or another. 

If this publisher decides to pass on me, life is going to go on, and I know precisely in which direction.

No more agents. 

No more... begging. 

I'm gonna take control of my own destiny, as it were.

I'm going to self-publish.

It is never anything I thought I would ever be driven to do. Honestly. Just a handful of years ago, an agent snapped me right up. I had an audience with the Big Five. I'm talented enough. I'm original enough. I'm--enough. 

Yet... the world today is just...all twisted and tangled up in such a way...that I no longer have a place in the traditional context of publishing. It doesn't matter how talented I am. It doesn't matter how unique my story is. Sadly, the agenda (and there is an agenda; an agenda is practically all there is) is everything, and nothing that I bring to the table fits in with it. Sigh. Those in the world that welcomed me eagerly a handful of years ago and appreciated what I'd created have nothing for me now, because I'm simply not "on message." 

So, I'm just going to take a deep breath, y'all, and do a lot of acceptance and understand that... I am hoping against hope that my dream publisher will take me on. 

But if this isn't in the cards, I'll accept this, too. 

Because then... I'll be the one in control. And I can write all seven of my books and turn them out and just market myself and... it will happen. 

That's the point that I have to hang onto: It. Will. Happen. 

The next thing you hear from me, friends (who presently don't exist but I hope, someday, will materialize) is going to be an announcement one way or another: I've been taken on by my dream publisher, or my dream publisher has passed and I am now ready to launch into a new dream all of my own creation.

This is something I used to be very afraid of. 

Now? I've reclaimed it. I welcome it. 

Four to six more weeks. I'll have my answer, and my direction. One way or another. 

Until then.

Finding Hope in the Hopelessness of Planting a Manuscript

 Devoting months, sometimes years, of your life in writing a novel is like climbing a mountain. Right when you've reached the top, however, you realize that the climbing was only a daydream of climbing. You're actually standing at the base of Mt. Everest. This is where the upward ascent really begins.

And my God, this process is so lonely. I had forgotten just how lonely it was. You see, as they say in my part of the world, this ain't my first rodeo. 

Back in 2014, I conceived of the original idea for what I have now to be written as a full length novel with an excerpt for my Master's thesis for my first M.A.. I made it happen. And I asked my Thesis Advisor, "Now what?" Query agents, she advised me. So I did. 

It only took ten misses before finally, there was a hit. An agent requested a number of pages. A few weeks later, she requested more. And more. Within six months, she had offered representation. 

I felt like I had risen up into the clouds. I couldn't believe this was happening to me. 

But it was. And by 2016, I went from up in the clouds all the way up and out of the atmosphere and into the stars, because my agent managed to get my manuscript into the hands of editors at HarperCollins Children and three imprints of Penguin Random House. 

The. biggest. publishing. conglomerates. in. the. world. They were reading my book. They were reading my book!

 I researched these imprints and what I discovered was dizzying. These were the imprints that had published Danielle Steele; Jack Kerouac; CS Lewis. I was breathless. 

I couldn't believe this was happening to me. 

I was on the verge of not only making it, but making it big.

And then, I didn't. 

One by one, they dropped me. I was squirming with anxiety. I felt horrible; I felt like I'd let my agent down. I told her I would rewrite it, and do so quickly. Quickly, indeed. In six months, I had from start to finish rewritten the entire thing.

It was awful. I cringe when I think back upon just how not good of an idea it is to force an entire novel out of yourself in such a short time when you're running on anxiety and self-doubt. 

But at the time I rushed it into her inbox, I was blissfully unaware of how awful it was. All I knew was that I had high hopes that really and truly, perhaps now I had something worthy for her to sell.

I remember, in the looking back, being so much more concerned at disappointing her and letting her down, because even more than I wanted whatever it was that I wanted for myself, I wanted this to be a win for her. She was, at the time, heading a small agency that had only been around for a few years. She'd sold a number of books to smaller houses, but only one other person that I knew of had gone big five for her. Even more than I wanted a novel published by the big five, God, did I ever want to be someone who helped put her agency on the map. I wanted to win much less for myself and more so for her.

 I don't know if she ever knew that, but this was really what was in my heart. 

After reading the manuscript and discovering that it was horrible, my agent dropped me. I received an email in my inbox with "Representation" in the subject line and a form letter explaining that she was terminating my contract with her.

 It was now early 2017. And this hurt in a way I probably shouldn't have allowed it to. I'd been on such a journey with her for over three years. I was really crushed. I'd now failed her so irrevocably that she was done with me. And in a way that I took way more personally than it was intended. 

It was business. It was all just business. That's all it had ever been. For a moment, I seemed marketable. I was taken on. I then proved myself to be otherwise. And so, I was bid adieu without what seemed like so much as a care given. 

And that was the end.

I can't begin to describe how it felt to rush up into a place so high only to be cast down into a place lower than where I began. It was so overwhelming I became numb. And I didn't write a word for six years. I couldn't. I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to again. 

But six years later... I did write again. I took the original concept and I tore it down and rebuilt it and it is now three or four times better in every way that it wasn't before. 

God, I was so excited once I was edited and ready to query. I pumped out those query letters with gusto. After all, I had it on good authority--the best authority there could be--in the editorial feedback of those big five editors, they adored the way I wrote. They adored the concept; they said it was cinematic, it was something they'd never seen before. 

I didn't sell, I was sure, because the manuscript wasn't ready. Bygod, it's ready now. And I was bursting with hope and certainty that not only would I find representation quickly, why, I was going to have my pick of agents! My potential was proven! I'd almost gotten there once! Now I have a quality product, I can get there again, yes! Step right up, y'all! Who's gonna get me, the proverbial literary Don Draper, back into a room?

And... no one. 

No one.

No one.

No one at all. 

I submitted hundreds of queries; most never responded. At least 50-75 rejected me. 

I even reached out to my old agent, eager and thrilling with excitement that I had the old concept new and improved, crying yes! Let's try again! I'm ready now! I'm ready!

It has been several months. I never even received a form rejection from her. 

Am I crushed? Well, initially, I was. I set myself up for it, however. I made friends with a local literary agent with whom I am now interning who explained it to me plainly: abandon all expectations. There are so many moveable factors where publishing is concerned over which you have little control. 

And so little by slowly, I have been learning to let go. To understand that what once was doesn't appear likely to ever be again. 

At this point, however, my manuscript has been requested by a publisher with an Appalachian niche by an editor that I hope takes me on simply because, from her description in her bio from the books she's written, she seems like a real kindred spirit with whom I'd love to sit down and share a coffee and hear about her journey.

But even this isn't a given. A request for a full doesn't an impending offer make. So now I'm waiting. I submitted the full a week ago today. One week down, 5-7 more to go before I can expect to be given a yay or a nay. And...breathe.

I've found myself cycling through a number of the phases of grief at the death of my originally conceived of dream: that I'd be swept up instantaneously, taken back into the offices of editors with eager hands, and this time, it would be a home run. I've been full of anxiety in some moments; in others, I've been full of worry and despair. 

And sometimes, there's frustration. A very palpable frustration. The climate right now socially is one in which focuses are very narrow as far as what agents even want. And nothing about my novel, those that will follow, fit the agenda they seek. Everything is very agenda-based. 

Agents are like venture capitalists; they are in this to make money. And if what I've got isn't marketable, it doesn't matter that I already have the proven potential of being good enough to be a mainstream, renowned big five published author. If what I have isn't something that's going be what they can anticipate publishers wanting, then it's too bad, so sad, I'm not it.

I would advise anyone to avoid making the mistake I made: going into online forums to vent frustrations. 

I am not sure why, but there is a general climate I've noticed in writers' forums that is very much like that of freshman year Creative Writing workshops: smug, self-important assholes are much more prevalent than anyone who is trying to be helpful. 

What is it with a lot of writers? I say this as someone who endured four years as a Creative Writing undergrad and spent a great deal of time around those in the MFA at my university as I was earning an adjacent degree. 

More often than not, people were absolutely insufferable. 

They were arrogant and unfriendly, condescending and judgmental. They were better than you, and they would make sure you knew it.

 And if they weren't, well...they'd find a way to cut you down to size. 

So many of these personalities filled up this academic space, year after year. They were like broken shards of glass; you'd better take care not to get too close, or they would cut you just by being in their proximity. 

Now I'm remembering those workshops. 

There were those who were quite talented and boy did they ever know it. They cliqued up in a very exclusive, snobbish group. We called them the Literati. 

Then there were those who weren't very talented at all; they neither wrote well nor had original ideas.

 And my God, it was an absolute slaughter when it came time for the not-talented people to receive their critiques from the Literati. It was painful. They would go around the table and absolutely tear these pitiful girls to pieces. I remember watching people burst into tears, flee the room, change majors entirely. 

I regret the fact that I didn't stand up to them, on behalf of those who were being abused. But I didn't have the balls, honestly; I didn't want them coming after me. 

I did go to our professor and express to her how upsetting this was. I will never forget her reaction: "Bliss, this is one of the most competitive, highly-ranked Creative Writing programs in the country. What do you expect?"

And so it went on.

I was in a strange place in relation to this group, however; I certainly wasn't among their numbers. Nor was I among the numbers of the picked on. 

Whenever it came time for my work to be critiqued, the Literati were silent. I mean, dead silent. They stared down at the table or stared off into the distance with blank, unreadable expressions on their faces. 

Never, not once, in all four of those years, did they ever say shit about my work...good, bad, or indifferent.

In a way, I have always harbored this as the highest compliment from these bitches that there ever could be. 

I'll tell you honestly what I think it is, why so many writers seem to be this way...it's just a theory. But how many of us had to endure an adolescence of bullying and torment that for some, clearly, extended on into university? How many of us were the outcasts, the eccentric ones, the freaks, the weirdos, the square peg that just didn't fit into the round hole of life? How many of us grew to loathe and despise ourselves in the way of, sociologically speaking, Cooley's Looking-Glass Theory which premises "I am who I think you think I am"? 

And then, from there, how many of us found that knowing we were talented writers became our only sense of self-worth we possessed?

One thing I know for sure is that hurt people hurt people. Whenever there is someone hiding behind the anonymity of a screenname and hurling out cruelty and unkindness every which way, there is someone on the other side who is deeply wounded and doesn't know any other way to cope. So it is with many of our kind, I'm afraid. 

My whole purpose, ultimately, in wanting to get my stories out there is to help people heal, for in helping others to heal, I continue to heal. One thing I love best about myself is my resilience in the face of adversity. I am forever the flower that manages to grow up out of a crack in the pavement and manage to survive and in some moments, even thrive

And so I am newly filled with bright inspiration.... I hope my book is published so I can accumulate a modest base of readers, presumably a number of them who are also writers. I want to create a supportive community where the loneliness of planting a manuscript won't have to be so lonely. I want to find writers to work with and use whatever skills and abilities I possess to help them level up and achieve their own dreams of publication. I want to offer a space of safety in which people can vent their frustrations out and know they will be held. 

This is what gives me peace today. I know that I have a purpose. So it seems I won't ever be big five published? I'm letting go. I am accepting this. Maybe even low-level publishers won't want me. I'm prepared to let go and accept this, too. 

If it comes down to it, I can still self-publish. I can still get my novels out there. I can still put my healing energy out into the world and draw to me those I am meant to help in their own healing. 

I know I am growing into wholeness because...for the past month, I struggled to make myself pick up and keep on working on the future books in my series. I've written two; yes, there are five more to come in order for me to tell this story. But the grief, the anxiety, the aloneness, the confusion, the hurt really hindered me. 

But the words are flowing again. The story is telling itself to me again. 

And so, I will press on. Yes, I will, friends. Although at present I am still filling up a blog that nobody sees, I am confident that I am planting seeds that are going to bloom, they are going to flourish...maybe not in the way that I had planned, but absolutely, emphatically, in the way that God in all Incarnations that resonate to me has planned, and God's plans have never failed to be bigger and better than anything I could have dreamed. 

Until then, friends. Until we meet. I'm still going to be right here. 

What School Looks Like for the Buglets

I love that this is their life. This is a life that was beyond my wildest dreams when I was their age. Making the world a better place for those who come after us is what existence is all about. 

 

Homeschooling is the Best Decision We've Ever Made

 I say this as someone who has been an educator from thirteen years: getting out of the traditional public school system has been a dream come true. I highly recommend it. 

There is much I could say regarding everything I feel like isn't working in the traditional education system. Kids are grouped together based on their age. They are moved up from grade to grade regardless of whether or not they have mastered the concepts. And the pressure is on teachers to execute the learning standards handed down by the state, telling you what you must teach, at what time. 

Herein lies the problem: not all children learn the same way. Not all children learn at the prescribed pace that the content is being churned out. And with the pressure on us as classroom teachers to keep up, to maintain the expected grade level rigor, there isn't energy at all left to devote to helping those who have fallen behind catch up. 

As such, in my roles as a middle and high school English teacher, I have so many children filling up desks in my classroom who have reading levels as low as first and second grade, children who can barely write. They're just pushed on, passed on, as if they were items on a factory conveyer belt. They never received the individual attention they desperately needed in their younger days. 

And as someone who is now a product of the environment in which I must survive in order to keep my job, I feel I am essentially a bigger part of the problem than I wish. I've tried in moments to fight back against the pressure and demands, to try to push to make time and space for desperately needed remediation that is personalized, individualized. I've done this to the point of going to war in moments, ending up on the wrong side of the wrong people and nearly getting fired. 

The field of education, sadly, does not cater to the non-conformists. It is based on the utmost conformity. It serves no one. 

And this is only a small part of the problem.

I spent seven years in early childhood education working with preschoolers, in settings that were basically commercial daycares. These entities existed because parents must work. Someone else must care for their children. 

I came to realize that public schools were little more than daycares for older children. Some place for them to be watched over so parents could work. The illusion that school was about education was shattered during the Covid days. I should have known better. We don't live in any kind of world in which the majority of people, even in two parent homes, can afford the luxury of one person staying home to raise children. 

People were desperate, they pushed back against school closures, and I understood--I had been there. Once upon a time, I was a single mother with two young daughters working at a daycare during the day and a grocery store at night. If the Covid closures happened during this phase of my life, I would have been desperate, too. I will never forget where I came from. 

But honestly, I think it isn't just the school system that's broken, I think it's the whole world that's broken. Everyone should have choices where their children and families are concerned. There should be a Universal Basic Income enough to provide people with enough to fall back on so that if they choose, their children won't have to be cared for by others. It should be a choice. For many, nay, most, there isn't such thing as a choice. The only choice is to scramble and scrape and work yourself into the ground with so little to show for it. 

But I digress.

I don't like that we live in a world in which people don't have choices, where children are outside before the sun has even risen in the cold standing and waiting for the bus to take them to a prison-like building where they will  be controlled and herded around for the next eight hours. The conditions are overcrowded. Everyone is in everyone else's space. 

And then comes the bullying, the negativity, all the bad experiences that can come from being trapped in a space with hateful, cruel people you can't get away from. It is hell on earth. Damage is done to vulnerable children that may never be undone. We've heard the stories, we've beheld the statistics, and some of us, including myself, have lived it.

When I had a breakdown/burnout in October and I had the opportunity to get out, I took my daughters who are 9 and 11 with me. 

Our district has a Virtual Academy into which they were welcomed eagerly. My girls are very strong students--my 9 year old is above-above average in math and science, legitimately gifted all around; my 11 year old is gifted in ELA. They are both functioning on 10th grade levels across the board in all their subjects. They are now receiving individualized attention that wasn't available to them in public school.

They will never have to know what it is like to be bullied. They will never be trapped in a hell of social torment. Everything that tortured and damaged me during my formative years I have effectively prevented them from experiencing. 

They wake up and can go to school in their pajamas. They have a homemade breakfast while they attend homeroom. Their classes are done by lunchtime. The rest of the afternoon is focused on asynchronous work that they can complete at their own pace. 

And we get to enjoy moments like these: 

Taking pet bunnies outdoors for a walk

Clearing out a sunny spot to plant some wildflower seeds.

I finally had to come to a sad conclusion as a teacher that I am never, ever going to be able to save the world. I can love the children who come into my classroom with all my heart, but I am only in control of what happens with them for a certain amount of hours a day. After a year with me, they will move on and I may never see them again. It still matters, but ultimately, what matters most to me today is focusing my energy and care on my own daughters, to make their life the best I can for them. I am confident that this is working out. I am creating for them a life that is better than the one I lived.

 And this gives me an indescribable joy. 

 

Confession: I Love Being a Housewife

 I really do. I love everything about it. 

Most of the time, a post with a title such as this would be followed up by someone aggressively pointing out that because I love this, everyone should love this; because I find fulfillment in being this, everyone should. 

I'm not about to do that. I am never about to do anything of this nature, ever, under any circumstances.

Again: I advocate for everyone's individual free and responsible search for truth. My truth may not be yours, and that's perfectly fine. That is the manifestation of diversity. This world needs everyone of all kinds of perspectives to be the best it can be. 

I am only speaking for myself where this is concerned.

And I love being a housewife. I feel called to this particular occupation as someone might be called to the practice of medicine or counseling psychology. 

As I've said, my own particular conception of what my gender identity means to me is a state of being in which I am female, feminine, like something in Nature. I have the same strong, instinctive drive to nurture and care for those connected to me as my pregnant pet rabbit will have when her babies come in a few more weeks. When I am nurturing, I am thriving.

I don't relate to depictions of housewives in popular culture, particularly those in historical contexts, who are bored, miserable, and unfulfilled, prisoners in their homes. This doesn't fit me.  

The greatest joy I have in life right next to the joy of creating literature is investing my energy in making sure that my home is clean, bright, and cozy; I feel like I'm making a nest. I love seeing my husband and children relaxed and comfortable in this environment. I feel like I've won. I love researching and preparing meals for them and knowing they are nourished. 

My husband and I are a partnership. We have separate but equal roles in our marriage. Although I do some virtual work from home, he is the primary breadwinner. I respect the fact that he gets up before the sun and goes out to work hard for us all day. I show that respect by getting up early myself, and attending to the needs of our home, and the raising of our children.

 I look forward to when he arrives home. I strive to have a warm meal waiting, a clean, comfortable environment prepared for him. I always try to make sure he knows how happy I am that he is home. Whenever possible, I enlist the help of the girls to make a dessert for him to enjoy with coffee when he gets home. I love asking about his day and listening to everything he has to share. 

I love that our girls are doing virtual education and learning from home. I love helping them cultivate academic, time management, and domestic skills throughout our day. I love being the primary entity in charge of making sure they learn what they need in school as well as in life. 

My path isn't for everyone. But ultimately, I'm glad I have found the path that gives me fulfillment. I don't need validation from a career to feel like I'm living a life that matters. For me, making this book happen is something that serves as my way of passing on wisdom, something that I can do that I am certainly good at doing...but it isn't what defines me. 

My worth is in God, my value is in my service to my family. I'm good with this. I'm also good with the fact that the majority of people couldn't imagine this being their life. And that's okay! We all must find and pursue that which gives us peace, joy, and contentment.

And for me, that's being old school af :)

I Think I'm Done Querying Agents.

 I really do. I really think I am done, y'all.

The publisher of my dreams has my full right now. But a request for a full doesn't mean a guaranteed acceptance; it isn't time yet for me to rest on my laurels, as the Big Book says. 

I despise uncertainty and feeling out of control; I've written about this. I am neurologically predisposed to despise these things. 

The process of what one must endure after one has written a book is very antithetical to inner peace for anyone, especially for someone of my wiring. 

The world can change so much in such a short amount of time. I put out an earlier version of the concept I'm writing now in 2014 and it was an absolute mess compared to the quality of what I have produced now. But within ten queries, I got an agent. And within two years, that agent successfully pitched me to Razorbill, HarperCollins Children, Delacourte, Viking. Yeah. These imprints wanted to read my book. And they did. 

They all rejected me but, damn. Damn! To have had a moment of their time...with the pittance that the original draft was...I'm still in shock, frankly.

Especially now that it's six years later and I've torn town and rebuilt the thing, maintaining the original concept, and it's so much better written and better in every way, but....

No one will touch it. I mean damn no one. I am over 50 rejections now. It is all so backwards. Why was what wasn't much of anything before so readily snapped up and given such an audience whereas now, no one will give me the time of day? 

I am a damn good writer. I know this because the editors that rejected me did so with commentary in which they praised my writing ability. I know I can tell a story. I know I am telling a story that is unique because one of them literally said it was nothing they had ever seen before. 

But yet... no one will touch it. 

I'm afraid that my content is simply at odds with the popular social and political rhetoric, although I certainly don't mean for it to be. But in a world in which woke politics are dominating everything...what I bring to the table isn't that. Never mind the fact that I am a person of marginalized identity or whatever which is something they blatantly seek...not merely books written about characters that are this, but no, they want writers specifically with this identity. This has been a point of contention as well, because... I don't want to sell myself. I just want to sell my stories.

So after today, I've decided... I'm not querying anymore agents. No. The agent-to-publisher thing isn't happening for me, which is devastating because, oh my gosh, six years ago... I was literally on the verge of something so big. Something which isn't in the cards for me now because...the world is different and once again, I don't fit in. That's my specialty, as it were....not fitting in.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that my dream publisher wants me. If not, then I just don't know. But in the words of Scarlett O'Hara: I won't think about that now. I'll think about that tomorrow. 

A Balanced Day, An Inward Uncertainty

 I am naturally quite imbalanced, chemically and otherwise. Achieving balance takes a lot of work and dedicated effort. 

If I allow myself to go on autopilot, the following things will occur: I will take my meds; I will drink copious amounts of coffee; I will chain-smoke on the porch; I will produce literature. 

Sounds divine? Well...

Meanwhile, I have children to raise, a husband to care for, a house to make a home, duties for my literary agency internship and asynchronous online teaching job to attend to, a spiritual condition in need of maintenance...in short, there are a lot of parts of my life that need my focus, energy, and attention. But if i am left to my own devices, all I will do is write. Hypergraphia. It's a problem.

So I have to coach myself through each morning: get up. take medicine. and get dressed. make breakfast for the children. make coffee. sit down for my prayer time..let me pause here for a moment.

Ah, prayer time. .this is very important, because it is how I ground and center each day. I have a google doc set up that I make a copy of each day. I watch a devotional, I read scripture, I write down prayers and affirmations, and then I consider the areas that I just described that are parsed out into columns specific to each where I set a goal. Then I finish by saying specific sets of prayers assigned for different days. 

I have to put myself into manual, lest I drift into automatic. 

So today was a balanced day. I focused my energy on the home, on the children, on all the areas. When I do this work, I feel very stable, indeed. 

I am a high-maintenance girl, that's for sure. It takes a lot of effort and a whole lot more pharmaceuticals for me to do life in some semblance of normal. 

But the work is worth it, when I look around and see a clean home, a husband who comes home after a long day of work and is able to relax, when I served a meal for dinner that everyone enjoyed, when I know I've lived up to Proverbs 31 to the best of my ability. 

Inwardly, however... I struggle. My damn manuscript. How my husband had to remind me that I only submitted the full Thursday; I could have sworn it has been two weeks already.

This warrants a separate post. I need to angst. I'll be doing that a lot, I daresay. 

Hi, y'all.

It's me. I exist. I'm just in disguise. This is what I suppose I will do when the day comes (God willing) that I have to actually show up in person to deal with book things. And otherwise, make videos perhaps moving forward. This is the first semblance of being not-me. And so it is.

 

Why I'm a Biblical Feminist.

There are two beautiful elements of AA that have come to define not only how I live my life but also, how I relate to others: one, an individual's concept of a Higher Power is entirely dependent on whatever that individual decides. What I believe is what I believe, only. Two, in AA, we never give advice; even the 12 Steps are but suggestions. All we do is share our experience, what works for us. If what we have is something someone else wants, then they are free to do what we've done to get where we are. If it isn't? We move on. 

In the spirit of both of these tenets, I'll open up a little more about my own personal relationship to my own Higher Power that I call God most of the time. Another name that I use to define this Higher Power is Jesus. And the Bible is a source of a tremendous amount of wisdom for me as far as constructing a sober life that yields as much peace as someone with my particular set of neurological challenges can expect. 

At no point does my sharing of my own personal beliefs and lifestyle choices amount to my saying that because I choose thus, everyone should also. Nope. Above all else, I advocate for a free and responsible search for truth which is the business of each individual alone, and sure as hell isn't anything I would ever get in the middle of. There's enough of those fools out there already. If you've looked at past posts, you'll see I even expended a considerable amount of energy going off about people who do this. 

That being said, I'm going to continue to uphold what I've always promised to up hold for the future y'all reading this: I'm going to keep it real.

My whole life I've struggled with never feeling like I measured up; I didn't. I was a neurodivergent individual measuring myself by neurotypical standards. I was a bird feeling like garbage because I couldn't manage to swim. 

I know that now. But the pain of a life lived like this has a way of sticking with you, burying down deep and coming unearthed when you're feeling vulnerable. Such as, for me, right now: having written a book that I'm now putting out there and facing more rejection that I would have imagined. I'm vulnerable as hell. There's something about it that makes me feel very alone, that takes me back to the aloneness I felt when I was a teenager. 

The same question is coming up now that came up then: am I enough?

The answer is now as it was then, though I didn't know it: Yes. Where it counts. 

Where does it count? Some place you might not expect. 

This is where my own concept of Biblical Feminism comes in. Feminism, of course, is the definition of equality between the sexes. I have found a biblical context where this idea fits. As I've shared earlier, I define my own gender identity as being akin to being female like creatures in nature are female, like the Mother of Creation, that I am filled with the energy that gives and nurtures life. That is who I am. 

And so, in the context of the Bible, I find that this is a very good fit for just who and what it is that I am. 

Proverbs 31 lays out a plan that fits who I am, that gives me a direction to strive for. This verse is interesting. I won't go into a whole exegesis of it right now, but this verse inspires me to get up, work hard, be industrious for the good of my family, to speak life and wisdom, to care for those in need. And this industriousness is invested in my husband, my children, and my home, all as unto the Lord. 

I am good with this. As someone who never measured up in life, it is comforting to me to know that I will always measure up to God on my worst day as well as my  best. And as long as I know I've gotten up each day and I have given my all in efforts to care for my family and my home and I've tried to do the right things not even for their favor as much as out of the desire to love and give back to the God who has given me so much, then I am doing okay. 

I am equal to my husband as a fellow heir to the grace of life. Equal, and different; we both have different roles and responsibilities to fulfill. But I am empowered when I am focused on what really matters. 

Yes, I suppose, it would seem like a very old idea. Wouldn't I seem like a relic straight out of the 1950s? Perhaps I am. My spirit is ancient, I'm sure of it. But this is where I find my greatest fulfillment. I can't say this is for anyone else. I can only say this is a way of life that gives me peace. 

Even where my novel is concerned, the reason that I'm keeping these blogs and putting things out there...I feel compelled to offer my wisdom and experience for anyone who might benefit from it. Even now, while I'm still in-between having this finished book and finding a forever home for it, while there is no one even looking at this blog and I am just speaking into the ether...I feel like it is what He wants me to do. I feel like He has a purpose for all of this that I might not yet understand. 

And so I continue to move forward. Who I am in the eyes of the world or anyone else doesn't matter; it matters who I am in the sight of the One I call my God. The investment of any of my energy goes into the nurturance and care of my family, or the teaching of wisdom and kindness to others. 

This is a way of life that brings me peace today. 

The In-Between Times are Just Hard.

 The one vow I will always strive to uphold to my future readership is to keep it real. 

And in the spirit of keeping it real, I'll be honest: I am really struggling right now. 

I'm in the midst of one of those in-between times in life. I've experienced a number of them, as you will know if you've checked out my prior posts. Ever since I began my journey in sobriety on January 10th, 2016, God started change everything I ever knew about my life.

And He hasn't stopped yet. 

It has all been for my good, as promised. But just like the process of moving is inherent stressful, even if you were moving from an apartment into a mansion, so is His kind of moving. 

There's nothing that messes me up more than being in-transit. 

A huge part of my symptom manifestation where my damaged brain is concerned puts me on the spectrum of Autism. As such, I have a very desperate need to be in control of my environment, my routines, to know what's coming next. 

When things get shifted around, or when others are the ones who determine these things, boy does it ever make me uncomfortable. 

I had a nervous breakdown in October of this past year which in context would be best referred to as autistic burnout. The school system was in such chaos that the routine continually changed and I never knew what to expect to the point that I became overwhelmed, I couldn't handle it, and I pushed myself to try to handle it to the point that I nearly had to be institutionalized. Again. 

I had to leave this job. It was harrowing because...I'd been there for three years, the longest I'd ever lasted at any job. I really thought that this time, I was going to overcome the thing that finally caught up with me...the thing that isn't built to withstand an external working world where I'm not in control of much of anything around me. 

God was yet again doing a thing. He saw fit to remove me from this situation. And he did what He always does: He gave me something better. 

It had always been my dream to teach from home, be a housewife, to get my girls out of public school and homeschool them. Within a few months, all of these things were happening. I was also able to get on ADHD meds that have changed my way of getting things done. 

Boom! God did a thing. 

Additionally, I tore down and rebuilt my whole novel concept from 2016 that had been repped and in the hands of HarperCollins Children and three imprints of PRH. 

I wrote two books, y'all. 

#blessed, much? 

But yet... my anxiety pitches and spins. It was change, it was being in transit. 

So here I am yet again, now with two whole ass novels and about three more on the way. 

And doors haven't been quite opening in the way I imagined that they would. 

Then, a publisher that appears to be everything I'd ever want has requested my full. Fingers crossed.

This isn't a guarantee, but it is something...if nothing else, a reminder:   He's got something in store for me better than anything that I could have hoped for. 

With as many times as He has come through for me, I'm rather ashamed at how I struggle in these in-between times to trust His providence. He always provides. Everything He takes away, He gives me something better. Every prayer answered with "no" has always led me to a bigger and better "yes" than I could have ever conceived of.

All I can do is accept that these seasons are hard, but also remember His legacy of taking me always and ever higher. 

He hasn't brought me this far to drop me on my butt and walk away. 

 

 

 

 

Special Announcement: After 50+ Rejections, I Finally Got A Request for My Full

 I don't feel at liberty to share anything beyond this but...my GOD. I had just about given up!!!!

A full request doesn't mean that I'm going to be picked up. However, reading the biography of this editor is like reading my own. They are someone who writes just about EXACTLY what I do! And they appear in a lot of other ways to be a kindred spirit. 

Wow. 

I can't even. I never thought there even WAS such a person! 

YAYx1000110903929438

                                 

My name is Bliss Capron...

 ...but you should know, Bliss isn't really my name. You should also know that I believe that my name doesn't matter. I've been on a social media blackout for almost two years now, and my perspective on things has really changed.

 I believe that society is drowning in its own false sense of self-importance. Everyone is in everyone's face all the time, desperate for attention, ready to go to any lengths necessary to get it. Any kind of online existence, even that which originated with one's best intentions, will inevitably have every last ounce of authenticity drained out in the quest for views, likes, comments, notoriety. 

And everyone is so, so very angry. There's no such thing as a middle ground anymore. If you aren't with a particular faction, you are against them. Either way you turn, you're going to be on somebody's bad side. And as a writer presently on a journey that I am confident will culminate in publication, this gives me a rather poignant pause.

 I'd like to believe that once I am published and I find myself "out there" as someone who is known, that I could be like Dolly Parton with an adamantly neutral stance and yet be universally beloved. I am not, however, this self-deluded. I can expected to be despised by some to the same degree that I can expect to be loved by others. I am prepared to face this; however, as I said, people's collective anger right now is frightening. 

Behind the protection of intentional anonymity, I can be reasonably certain that someone isn't going to end up hating my books and thereby, me, so much that they track me down and try to harm me or my family. Is this hyperbole? I hope so. But it isn't something I want to risk. 

I have no desire to be any kind of public figure, someone in everyone's face on Twitter spouting off hurtful opinions about things that are literally none of my business. I have written these books to serve as a metaphor for my own survival which I hope will serve to strengthen young people who are, at present, still in the midst of surviving a world which is cruel to those who don't fit into prescriptive boxes. 

That's why my name is Bliss Capron. And I hope you come to think of me as that empathetic, understanding English teacher you had in high school with whom you felt you could share anything.

I will disclose, this is true about me in real life. When my books find a publisher, and are dispersed far and wide, this is who I will continue to be. The world will be my classroom, the young people who fall in love with my stories will be my students, and I'll be that teacher, ready to listen, support, and believe in you. 

Instagram Pharisees: Jesus Himself Had No Patience for Fundies, Either.

 The most at-home I've ever felt was within the tenets of Unitarian Universalism: A free and responsible search for truth and meaning. 

This principle was echoed, once I found Alcoholics Anonymous, in Steps Two and Three:

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

There is a common theme here: to each seeker their own pursuit of truth and meaning. 

I needed this. For I was someone against whom religion was used as a weapon, during my formative years. As I've shared, it was a living hell growing up in Appalachia being someone who was divergent in so many ways. Because of this, those who belonged to the predominant faith saw me as public enemy number one. 

Going through this as an adolescent was hurtful, horrible, and confusing in ways greater than I can articulate. Coming out on the other side, in the looking back, this fills me with such sadness because the kind of pain that was inflicted upon me by those who did so in one particular name of God, they're still at large. Only now, they have big, loud platforms on social media to blast this energy at those who are but young versions of who I used to be. 

This is bad for a variety of reasons, but the chiefest reason of all: people who act in hate while doing so in this particular name that God is called alienate people who potentially, like me, perhaps need Them more than they even know. 

Paganism always came very naturally to me, and it still does. In ways that I'm still working on fully being able to explain, my own personal conception of gender identity is feminine in a way that's much more like Creation and much less like the cis definition of female. I've always had a fluency with the natural world; I came into this world with an old Wiccan soul because that's how I was made. I identify with the Mother of Creation. 

The "Christeo" addendum to my pagan self wouldn't come until much, much later. 

I grew up as neurodivergent, a person of a divergent faith, and queer in several different translations in rural Appalachia at a time before the internet, with no support, and yes, to those of this culture, this resonated to a number of them that this must mean I had a demon. 

Yes, I'm not exaggerating when I say I experienced people try to cast demons out of me. I was even accused on one occasion when I was sitting in church with my parents of trying to put a curse on the preacher. That's just the way they saw things. I'm not even going to sit in judgment about it at this point. This was their worldview, and I've let it go. I just happened to have the misfortune of being stuck in the middle of it until I finally escaped to college. But I digress.

Because of the attitudes and bigotry with which I was assaulted in the name of the God of the Bible, I didn't end up feeling angry and hurt by the people engaging in these actions. At the time, I certainly did, but in the long-run, I directed that anger and hurt at this particular religion, at this particular name of God. 

Honestly? How could I have done anything less? All I knew about this religion, according to these self-appointed ambassadors, was that God hated me because I was queer and I was going to hell; God hated me because I was a witch and I was going to hell; God really, really hated me because I'd had sex and lost my virginity and boy oh boy there was no undoing that so, yep, I was super duper double damned to hell...and so it went.

 Everything that had ever been helpfully pointed out and clarified for me by these people was that I not only had no place in their faith, but in fact, it was all fire and brimstone for me from there on out. 

Fast forward almost two entire decades. This would be how long it would take before I ever learned the first thing about how the vitriol they were spouting had literally NOTHING to do with what this faith was actually all about. 

I need to pause here to take a moment and reiterate something: this type of person isn't at all consigned to rural places. They are everywhere. They're still alive and well, still doing the same damage. 

I think the common name for this type nowadays is "Fundie." I really do try to avoid resentment, find forgiveness for all things past and present because, if you know anything about sobriety at all, you know that this is an integral part of staying sober. But I have to say, I struggle with feeling a lot of disdain toward this type not only because of how much they hurt me, but because of how much hurt and hate they are continuing to put out into the world... and how it is worse today in a lot of ways because at least then these fools didn't have a global platform. 

If you're someone who is at all attracted to my books (which I hope potentially at some point by the time someone is reading this are actually published), then you'll already know without my having to get into great detail the type that I am talking about. 

Fun fact: Jesus Himself didn't even have the patience for them.

 I'm not joking. I'm not even conjecturing. 

 And yes, brace yourself... I am about to quote some scripture. If you are in a place where you cannot abide this, I understand. If you are able to endure this with an open mind, please read on. 

This is what He had to say:

"Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so practice and observe whatever they tell you—but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others." -Matthew 23:1-39

“Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” -Luke 20:46-47

________________________________________________________________

Alright, let's consider this for a moment. This describes every single person who ever heaped hatred on me in the name of God. 

And furthermore... it also describes the present-day Fundies who have appointed themselves as ambassadors of Christianity and sop up likes, subscriptions, shill merchandise, push for self-promotion all day long on social media platforms.

 Jesus even got specific about that, too:

"Be careful not to do your `acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." -Matthew 6:1-7

_______________________________________________________________________________

All in all, the Fundies are everything that Jesus clarified that He doesn't approve of...while paradoxically, according to this set, they're righteous and the rest of us are, you know, damned in varying degrees. 

I've been on a social media blackout for two years. And, as I've expressed, I am writing my books and this blog under a pen name. A huge part of these choices is one which is very intentionally spiritual. It is in alignment with the reason that Alcoholics Anonymous is "anonymous": 

"Back in 1948, Bill W., our co-founder, wrote: 'One may say that anonymity is the spiritual base, the sure key to all the rest of our Traditions. It has come to stand for prudence and, most importantly, for self-effacement... and to each of us a constant reminder that principles come before personal interest — such is the wide scope of this all-embracing principle. In it we see the cornerstone of our security as a movement; at a deeper spiritual level it points us to still greater self-renunciation.”

I came to first accept and then appreciate the fact that I could never publicly identify myself as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous if I were putting my face and my real name out there. It would violate the most sacrosanct of all traditions that have held the organization together for almost a hundred years. 

Then I went further, because... Honestly? Who I am doesn't matter.

 Who I am, how I survived to even be where I am, I do not believe that this is something that I even did. I believe that all of it is the result of God as I understand Him working through me. And over the past six years that I've been sober, this caused my priorities to shift. 

These Fundies are the modern day Pharisees. And if my mission, the whole point of my novels, the whole point of my life today is to help others...if I am going to be effective at all in doing so, then I have to get me and my ego the hell out of the way...or else I will be no better than any of them. 

Over time, I learned that true Christianity has NOTHING to do with what the loudest, most hateful of these Fundies as I was growing up, and the reigning proverbial Instagram Pharisees of today.  Once I had done healing in recovery, and I followed the Big Book's suggestion to approach all religions with an open mind, I discovered that Jesus wasn't at all what these fools tried to act like He was. And there are plenty of parts of the Bible from which I can draw inspiration and use to weave into my own spiritual conception. 

As time goes on, I'll likely talk about Big-G God. I may share verses from the Bible that resonate to me. But I want you all to know: this is but me still working out what my faith means to me, my still engaging in an active free and responsible search for truth. You must by all means pursue your own. 

I would just ask that you consider what I've just shared in the event that I do get into something that has inspired me from the Bible. Please understand that it doesn't mean that I'm one of those haters. I'm not. They hurt me as they may have hurt you. I'm just simply finding myself and this is only a small piece of what is helping me pursue peace and meaning. 

(Image discovered on Pinterest @angelone68)