finished novel #3 today!!!

WHOO! Just finished the first draft of my third novel this year! My New Year's goal is swiftly becoming realized!

Novel #3 is tentatively entitled The Genius of Gentree, and here's the back of the book:

Richard has spent years learning to embrace his role as the second son--so when his older brother, the heir apparent, dies, he is unprepared to jump into the world of intrigue and lies that is the Aucellan High Court. He is sent to the Grand City Avisell with two missions: to win the hand of Lady Alyssa, and discover the true identity of the mastermind behind his brother's death.

Since her debut, Alyssa has cultivated a very specific reputation among the courtiers at Avisell: she is a social butterfly and a smashing fashion designer. But Alyssa has a secret, one that will impact the future of Aucella for good or ill. All she has to do to protect her country is keep Richard from finding out the truth--and keep herself from falling in love with him.

Unfortunately, one of those things is easier than the other.

The Genius of Gentree is a novel of intrigue and suspense--but it is also, crucially, a love story. I've really enjoyed writing the first draft. I anticipate the final draft to be about 85,000 words, although we'll see. I'll be spending this coming Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday working on fleshing out the novel a little bit more, and then on Thursday, NaNoWriMo begins. I'll be working on the third installment of my Body Electric series; I already know my characters and most of the plot, so I think it can work out.

Ah! So excited. All this hard work paid off today. The hardest part of actually writing the book is over. Whew.

So: one more first draft will get written this November, and then December will be for expanding and polishing the first drafts of the year.

Yay for accomplishing goals!!!

rhetorical life questions

Do you know what you want out of life?

How do you define success?

Do you want lots of money?

Lots of admirers?

Or just peace?

How do you define happiness?

What do you need to be happy?

Do you need a family?

Do you need a place of your own?

Do you need freedom?

Do you need quiet?

Do you need rest?

Do you need excitement?

Or power?

Or truth?

What do you want out of life?

How far are you willing to go to get it?

the change

We recently got a new hospice team for my brother James: a new nurse, social worker, chaplain, and presumably a new medical team (but we didn't meet them). Our new social worker stopped by earlier this week to talk about James's end of life planning.

The social worker, Barb, pointed out that sometimes people have certain ideas of how they want to die, and they'll hang on until those needs are met. She encouraged us to start thinking about, if we were James, how would we want to die? And then go about creating that kind of atmosphere so that he has an opportunity to pass on the way that he wants to.

It occurred to me that from what I know of my brother, he would most likely want to pass on not alone, but surrounded by his family. Maybe I'm off, but I really get that feeling. Which would explain why he's still around--he's never surrounded by all of us at the same time anymore, with the TV off and our attention on him. We've all been hoping/dreading that he will die in the night, in his sleep (the dread would be from finding him in the morning). But now I feel as though he would very much resist that. James is a guy who loves family.

I talked about it with my dad last night; both of us have sensed a change in James in the past week. I honestly, truly, sincerely believe that he is getting ready to go now. I've thought he would die before; we've planned his funeral so many times in the past. One of my earliest memories is of planning his funeral. I was like 7 or 9 or something. So it's not like we've never thought he would die before. But this is the first time I've felt like he himself is preparing to pass.

There has been a change.

So we're going to work as a family to start creating more of an atmosphere conducive to a gentle passing on, and I think that will be good. For him, and for us.

From Ecclesiastes 7, where I studied yesterday:

1 A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one's birth.
2 It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.
3 Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.
4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

In other news, James has been home from school every day this week so far, first with 104+ -degree fevers, and now because he hasn't urinated in 22 hours. Right now I'm just waiting for hospice to get here with a catheter. And now you know TMI about my life. Sorry.

7 Reasons Mormons Marry Young

Note: I wrote this post like a week ago and never posted it. BAM. Posted.

Mormons marry young.

Carl and I got married when I was 20 and he was 22. We had known each other for 16 months.

My mom got married when she was 20 and my dad was 22 or 23. My BFF Jacque got married at 20. Many, if not most, of my friends out in Utah got married before they turned 23, both guys and girls.

Early marriage is a normal thing among Mormons. Yet, among the rest of the world, marriage is being delayed longer and longer, if people even bother getting married at all.

I've been thinking about why this is, and came up with a bunch of reasons why we get married so young, and so consistently. See what you think.


1. LDS doctrine teaches that marriage can be not until death do you part, but for time and all eternity.

Many mainstream Christians take verse 25 of the riddle in Mark 12 to mean that marriage cannot exist in heaven. And I quote (v. 23-25, key scripture bolded):

23 In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife.

24 And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?

25 For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven.

This is the scripture that many use to defend the doctrinal argument that marriage cannot exist in the resurrection. However, the language of verse 25 is not referring to marriages so much as to weddings. Men marry; women are given in marriage. Carl married me and I was given in marriage to him at our wedding in 2008. Today, we will not marry. This month, we did not marry. I was not given in marriage to Carl this week. All of that happened on our wedding day.

What Jesus is literally, textually saying here is that weddings cannot happen in the resurrection. Whether or not marriages can exist in the resurrection is a whole other detail entirely. Carl and I were not married yesterday, and we will not get married today, but we are still married. Because he married me and I was given in marriage to him at an earlier date.

Thus, Latter-day Saints believe that this Biblical proclamation is true, but that it does not preclude the concept of eternal marriage. You can believe that that scripture DOES preclude marriage in the resurrection, and that is fine, but that is a belief based on inference and not textual accuracy.

These four short verses from the Doctrine and Covenants are a further explanation of this idea.

In Jesus the Christ James C. Talmage explains that what Jesus's response implies is that the woman's later 6 marriages were for mortal life only, and in the resurrection she is thus still married to the first.

Going along with this, there is the Biblical idea in Genesis 2:18 that it is not good for man to be alone. I personally don't understand why that would be true now, but not in the afterlife.


2. Latter-day Saints believe that eternal marriage is a sacrament that brings the participants closer to God, and additionally is necessary for ultimate happiness. I could wax eloquent about this one but instead I'll just recommend you read this verse in the Doctrine and Covenants. Suffice it to say that we believe that marriage is crucial to our eternal progression.

3. We believe that the commandments against fornication and adultery are still in force. In other words, if you want to enjoy any kind of sexual activity, and I mean any kind, you have to get married first. That is definitely what you might call a "motivator."

4. We believe that the Biblical commandment to "multiply and replenish the earth" is still in force. God never stated in the Bible or otherwise that this commandment has outlived itself. We believe that we are commanded to bring children into this world.

4. We believe that the commandment to multiply and replenish the earth has eternal significance. Going along with the point above, we have a clear understanding of why it's important to multiply and replenish the earth. Our Biblical understanding of the premortal existence of man leads to the conclusion that for God's purposes to be fulfilled, all of His children need bodies (see here for a list of Bible scriptures discussing the premortal existence of our spirits). Because of this understanding, we believe that having children is crucial to God's plan of happiness for us. Having a family is a blessing that allows us to serve God by serving each other.

5. There is a strong Mormon culture of dating. In LDS culture, dating is very different from what you're probably thinking. There is no sex, or anything like it--no petting, no necking. Those are not even on the table. By dating, we literally mean, going on dates. Like to the movies or out to dinner or on a picnic or on a walk. Dating is so important to us that we literally have our prophets making announcements about it. Read this prophetic counsel on dating: why we don't date, why we do date, how to date, and why it matters. Starting when I was 17 years old, I started dating regularly, by which I mean, an average of about once a week. I went on tons of dates with dozens of people--lots of first dates, some second dates, and a handful of third dates--and I ended up having 4 boyfriends, 3 of whom I dated seriously (as in, with marriage as the end-goal. The not-serious boyfriend I had when I was like 16 so marriage was not really my end-goal there, ha!). Anyway, dating is culturally expected: you're expected to go out and meet people and hang out with them one on one in safe situations so you can get to know them better and see if you might want to turn a casual relationship into something more than that.

Or, as Dallin H. Oaks says in that talk linked above in big bold letters, "It's marriage time!" ^.~

6. Latter-day Saints are taught that our first callings are as mothers and fathers. That kind of goes along with the rest of the stuff I already wrote about.

7. There is a huge emphasis on self-reliance in the Church. This relates to marriage because it is a fact that the greatest weapon against child poverty is marriage (see link for studies and graphs and charts and stuff). Marriage enables us to provide physically and temporally for our own families and for each other. If I were not married but still had my child, I would not be able to serve others very much at all. Instead, I would have to rely on others.


~~~

So, those are 7 reasons I thought of as to why Mormons marry so young.

Some people argue that it's dumb to marry young. They have a lot of reasons for that conviction, one of which is likelihood of divorce. I recommend this article on why it's good to wait to get married. The article does point out that only about 5% of Latter-day Saints who are married in the temple and remain active in the Church go through divorce. (The number is closer to 17% for Latter-day Saints who marry in the temple and do not remain active in the Church).

I, for one, am glad every day that I got married when I did, where I did, how I did, to the guy I did. Just about every day Carl and I remark how glad we are that we found each other and chose to be married. Marriage has blessed our lives so much.

One of my closest friends, a convert to the Church, told me that marriage was one of the reasons she first started investigating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: she saw members of the Church with strong marriages and realized that that was what she wanted. She also realized that if she remained in her current, more mainstream Christian faith, the chances of her having a marriage like her Mormon friends' parents had were slim. She was motivated by her desire for marriage and a family to look into the teachings of the Church; obviously, she ended up believing them and eventually converting. She got married young, too, and now has a kid.

Speaking of kids, mine is waking up. Bye!

the pure in heart

I already blogged about my revelation on loving one another, which is fortunate, because I had forgotten about that, and this morning my scripture study was on Zion. My roommate/IRLBFF Jacque studies Zion a lot, and as I have also already blogged about, in my daily life service has become an issue, so I decided I needed to study Zion more.

Zion is the pure in heart.

My scripture study today led me to this talk from the Presiding Bishop of the Church, entitled "Come to Zion! Come to Zion!" In it, he discusses six principles of a Zion society: love, service, work, self-reliance, consecration, and stewardship. He also states that as we practice these principles, we become pure in heart.

I've been pondering these things since I got up an hour ago. The other thing I've been studying lately is the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31. I recently decided to memorize the passage, and I'm about halfway done with that project, which is exciting. But anyway, this morning I was just realizing how the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31 exemplifies the six principles of Zion/being pure in heart. She loves, and serves, and works hard, is self-reliant. Not only does she give to the poor and needy, she "stretches" and "reaches" out her hands toward them. What a perspective on consecration! She's not just sharing her substance because she has to; she's actively looking for opportunities to help others. She's stretching and reaching for these opportunities. And obviously, she's a great steward.

One thing I have felt impressed to begin lately is nightly planning for the day ahead. I haven't actually done it yet, although I did just plan my day today. Today will be busy, but good: there's a lot of service and consecration planned. I'll admit I have not been super excited about that, but I'm working on it. This is what it will take to be the person I want to be, so I guess that's that.

experiences with NAET/Bioset/NMT for allergies

When I first discovered that Nathaniel had allergies, and started telling people about that, about three people came out of the blue and told me to look into NAET, an alternative therapy for things like allergies. I said I would look into it, and I kind of halfheartedly did, but not really.

Then, my parents' exchange student of sorts told me about how the modality cured her of gluten intolerance, and I thought--perhaps now is the time. I will find a practitioner and see what's up.

I found a lady about half an hour away who practices NMT with elements of NAET and Bioset. She said that helping Nathaniel would probably take 4 sessions, with a cost of about $160 for the first session and then $80 for subsequent sessions. I decided that if Nathaniel's allergies could be cured for that, it would be worth it--and if not, well, at least we tried.

The lady said she could do it over the phone, or in person. Uh. I told her I was more comfortable in person, so we made the trek last week.

It was pretty fascinating. At first she used me as a proxy for Nathaniel, doing muscle testing on me to discern the issue. When Nathaniel went crazy (he got very agitated during the therapy), she used herself as a proxy. After the session was over, the baby went from being agitated to being super, super tired, even though he'd only gotten up from a nap like an hour before. He just cuddled into me and was so tired. The practitioner warned that he could be very very weird for the next day while his body reset, and that he may have allergic reactions to nothing as his body figures out what he is and isn't allergic to.

Well, lo and behold, I got home from the appointment, and when I pulled him out of the carseat, he had hives, even though he obviously had not been exposed to anything abnormal. He had hives on his face. A few hours later, he developed a bunch of hives on his arm. Meanwhile, he swung from being super insane crazy, to being tired and cranky and lethargic until I put him to bed. His bowel movements were a weird color that night.

So even though all this lady did was muscle testing on her own self, basically, and talking, it made an actual difference.

Yesterday we had a follow-up appointment, which we did over the phone. I figured, if she wasn't touching him anyway, I didn't want to drive half an hour for it.

It was super weird--Nathaniel woke up from his nap at her call, and started to fuss as she started to access his energy (or whatever). So I nursed him. Well, no sooner had he latched on (in silence) than on the phone the practitioner said, "Uhoh! You're in the way! I can't access his energy because your field is in the way."

As she said that, Nathaniel unlatched, and as soon as he did that, she was like, "Oh, never mind."

That happened twice more during the appointment: first, when he started to get agitated again and I nursed him (she said she couldn't access him because I was in the way, and then when I unlatched him she noted that something had changed), and when he was still very upset about whatever and wanted me to hold him. When I picked him up, she lost connection with him, or got overwhelmed by a connection with me or something, that cleared up when I put him down. All three times, well, it was obviously over the phone so it's not like she could see what was happening, and I didn't tell her. So that was weird.

She noted during the phone call that Nathaniel's energy felt "loopy." Sure enough, he was atypically strange during the call: walking around aimlessly, falling down on his bum, wandering around kind of strangely. Loopy is a good word for that.

Anyway, after the appointment, she said that he would be weird for the next 24 hours while he sorted things out--his poop was weird again last night, and he was SO CLINGY UGH. So so clingy. He wept at dinnertime because I tried to put him in his booster seat--we sit next to each other. I kept my arm around him. In the end his conniption was such that I just pulled him out of the seat and held him on my lap while I ate. I haven't had to do that for... months and months.

Also at dinner, my mother gave him a bite of carrots that she didn't know were cooked with butter. In the past, just for reference, the amount of milk in an M&M--Nathaniel could lick an eighth of an M&M and get hives all over his face.

He ate those buttered carrots and didn't even get a single hive.

So, so far so good, I guess. Bizarre, right? But if it works, it works...

Love one another as Jesus loves you.

Before the Relief Society Broadcast last night, I decided I wanted to get two things out of it. First, I wanted to know what I should be doing with my life right now. Second, I wanted to know what to write. I've been working on this superfantastic story but I've been struggling with part of the plot, so I thought maybe I could get help at the broadcast.

And I did. During one of the talks where the speaker told a story about being a caretaker to her dying husband and daughter, I had the idea of including a similar thing in my book. And I think I will do that.

And for my first concern--what should I do with my life? I was hoping for some specific instruction, perhaps something like, "Apply for medical school!" or "Move to Vermont!" or something like that (not that I actually want to do either of those things, except possibly move to Vermont).

I was listening very carefully for some kind of direction in what the speakers said, but the answer came during the song. The choir was singing a medley of He Sent His Son and I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus. One part (in bold) stuck out to me:

How could the Father tell the world of love and tenderness?
He sent his Son, a newborn babe, with peace and holiness.

How could the Father show the world the pathway we should go?
He sent his Son to walk with men on earth that we may know.

How could the Father tell the world of sacrifice, of death?
He sent his Son to die for us and rise with living breath.

What does the Father ask of us?
What do the scriptures say?
Have faith, have hope, live like his Son,
Help others on their way.

What does he ask?
Live like his Son:

Love one another as Jesus loves you
Try to show kindness in all that you do
Be gentle and loving in deed and in thought
For these are the things Jesus taught.

I don't feel that that revelation is too private to share. It was the first time it's occurred to me that maybe the important thing I should be doing in my life isn't an Action like going to school, obtaining a degree, going to some specific place and accomplishing a specific task. It was the first time it occurred to me that maybe the most important thing to be doing in my life, is basically just loving those around me. Which is actually the whole message of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but it never hit me like that before.

I sang that song all the way home from the broadcast and I loved every second of it. So excited for General Conference next week. I can't wait to hear what the prophets and apostles have to say.