What I'm Thankful For: 2016 Edition

• God.
  I'm kinda humming “Great is thy faithfulness.” Also reminding myself of that, as certain prayer requests keep get answered with "Not yet. Soon." I'm well past tired of some of this.
  
  I have realized I have some weird gifts, which have had enough independent verification at this point that Occam's Razor says they're real. Physical and tactile empathy are weird, y'all. But being able to tell a friend has an ear infection before her ear starts hurting is useful, when she bothers to do something about it before the doctor catches it… (Note that I am not talking about being psychic or trucking with demons.) Although I'm not quite sure yet what God wants me to do with these gifts, I am thankful for them, and I use them for others' benefit, when possible.
• Life.
  …also humming that "I'm alive!" bit from "All Around Me" by Flyleaf. I don't even particularly like that song, but I am alive.
• Winter.
  Winter means allergies finally have relief, yay! That means I can think without fugue, walk, move, and breathe a lot better than I've been able to.) There seems to be some atrophy, but that'll happen when you've been unable to walk for most of a year, and honestly my adrenal glands are still the worst of it, I think. They're better than they were,though.
• Family that lost me.
  So, although my immediate family is apparently still of the attitude displayed in the comments on this post, and although my step parent's family seems inclined to ignore me, my parent-who-raised me's family is quite lovely. Funny how similar I am in personality to her sibling that she was most vehement about keeping me away from. We're both logical/analytical folks who love discussion. And wouldn'tchya know, allergies to raspberries and strawberries actually run in the family? [gasp] >_>
• Family that found me.
  Speaking of which things a certain someone actively kept me from, I have another biological parent…who has apparently been looking for me all my life, didn’t even know if I was alive. Parent-who-found-me's version of events makes more sense and fits what evidence and paper trail I've found a lot better than the parent-who-raised-me's version.
  
  Also worth noting that, if parent-who-found-me could figure out how to send me a message via the Internet and he didn't even know my surname, parent-who-raised-me and anyone else claiming they can't contact me are blowing a load of hot air. (Unless they're a particular person whom I've told point-blank in writing not to contact me. Funny how he's not yet managed to conveniently forget that.) Pointing this out for the sake of folks familiar with that situation who are reading this.
• My half-siblings.
  I have some half-siblings on that parent-who-found-me's side, all at least a decade younger than me. It's kinda weird, but they're cute! (Speaking of whom, I need to send some young un's a FB sticker…)
• My FOC and other friends.
  I have a large Family Of Choice that is far kinder and more encouraging than immediate family ever was. Others have always been kinder to me than immediate family, insisting that everyone treats their family worse than their friends because they know them too well. Newsflash: That's bullshit.
  
  (No, seriously. Family does not "Know you so well that they necessarily treat you worse than others." That's a bullshit justification used to excuse reviling and other abuse, all of which is condemned in the Bible. If you think I'm full of bullshit, there is a dearth of love in your family, on your side, theirs, or both.)
• The Internet.
  With the Internet, I can be trapped inside and still do things. I can also post things like this thankfulness post in public. :)
• My fans.
  Whether you follow me here or on Wattpad or on AO3 or on Twitter or on Patreon, I am thankful for you and I thank you. You encourage me when I'm down and my friends aren't available.

Thank you so much for your support, encouragement, and prayers, folks. I pray you all are having a great holiday, and preferably not a lonely one.

Now, if I could just find my glasses… Kitty, where did you put them? I'm blind without them, dear. [Update: Found 'em! Yay!]

What are YOU thankful for?

New Release Coming 08.08.16!

They can find you if you Jump

In one of our possible futures, an illegal immigrant (from a spacefaring universe that engaged in human experimentation and suffered a zombie apocalypse) needs to outmaneuver her bounty hunter sister without endangering either of her flatmates—one a cyborg from a universe specializing in technological modifications, the other a version of herself from a universe without the zombies—without catching the notice of the legal body that regulates and polices travel across universes and time, because none of ’em have a green card.

In other words, this is what happens when an author like me grows up both intrigued by the mirror!verses in Star Trek and wondering where all the expats from other universes are.

displaced shadows series

Coming 08.08.16!

Preorder the first three novellas—self-contained stories that’ll each take the average reader about 1–1.5 hours to read—at a special low price of only $0.99 each! See Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or Apple.

As is usual for my work, these stories aren’t written for the Christian market, but as the titles’ oblique derivation from Scripture refers to, I’m certainly aware that these stories can appeal to Christians and non-Christians both.

And yet sometimes audiences can prefer different nuances in how themes and topics are handled or conveyed. Is that not why songs have “explicit” and “censored” editions?

I’ve long wondered why songs could do that, but not books.

So these books are going to be examples of how that concept of adjusting for audience can be applied to stories. The e-books coming out 08.08 will have both the “non-explicit” and “explicit” in the same file, giving you the option to read whichever you like.

The explicit one qualifies as that mostly on account of language that would get a movie an R rating. Rather than just “bleep” them out (which would cause some issues with one of the narrators), I’m outright revising the lines.

This modification is actually going to affect some of the themes and implications, and the non-explicit version has a very real risk of implying something that’s actually opposite of what I want to convey, so the explicit ones will be the “author’s preferred edition”. However, I know some of you readers would rather have the option, and this series looks like a good fit for it. :-)

---

What do you think of my splitting the story into the two editions in one e-book? Does the series premise sound interesting to you?

Guest Post on Pronouns

Really! I wrote a post about pronouns for Jami Gold.

Ever wondered about the way “a” and “the” how to change your meaning, or ever wanted a quick way to check which one you need in a situation? Check out the post! ^_^

How’re y’all doing?

—Misti

And This Is Why Allergies Suck

A friend got me a bag of "exotic" root veggie chips, featuring taro, parsnip, sweet potato, and batata. No carrots or tomato or rice, and the listed oils are all ones I'm fine with—great! ^_^

So yesterday morning, while working, I grabbed the bag and started munching as a snack.

After one of each chip, I had a funny taste in my mouth…and I started having a faint urge to gag—which, in itself, is highly unusual. I'll have food poisoning or the stomach flu and not even feel an urge to.

I figured the batata didn't agree with me, but which chip was the batata? That purple-striped one was the taro…

After another round of chips, the roof of my mouth felt weird and tingly. No big deal. I get weird sensation issues pretty often, so…

The tingling moved down my throat, affecting my ability to swallow, and also hopped in my arms and started creeping up towards my chest. It felt as if the nerves or muscles were misfiring or something.

Well, crap, I thought. This isn't good.

I sought my Benedryl, a task made more difficult by the effort it was taking to move my arms and fingers. I couldn't find it in my purse, so I had to stumble over to the medicine basket and find it there.

Took a chew tab, which relieved what I was feeling in my throat and stopped the progression of whatever was up with my arms. Ate something, which seemed to keep me from crashing as hard. Ultimately took another chew tab. Crashed and slept…and slept…and woke up hungry, my cat curled up against my stomach.

I've eaten and slept again, since, and I'm still weak and crabby. The reaction was closest to my reaction to carrot, and it's been quite a while since I had taro, so I can't be sure if I reacted to the batata, parsnip, or taro. I hope it's the batata. I like the other two.

Allergies suck.

But there's no fugue, and I don't feel as ill as I usually do after a bad allergy incident. Progress! ^_^

How're y'all?

—Misti

New theology post over on other blog

Primarily some thoughts on how I Peter 3:7 is used to call women "the weaker vessel"—does the verse actually say that?

(Short answer: No.)

Check out the full post for more.

I'm hard at work on my various projects, including a forthcoming class: "Why Don't They Get It? what your writing teacher forgot to tell you".

How is everyone?

—Misti

Finding the Point of This Blog

This blog explicitly features my 2 pence about stuff, but the blog is about me as an author. Plus it’s hosted by Blogspot, so that has the potential to cause some issues if I use it to post certain pertinent-to-me-as-author-but-not-quite-about-authorship stuff I’m working on.

Sometimes, I just want to write an essay examining something, critiquing something, or just pointing something out. Like…what is the Biblical love that Christians are commanded to display towards others? I Corinthians 13 defines it, but what that chapter literally says and what folks say it means don’t always match up, plus there’s how words don’t mean quite the same thing across languages (or even generations), so it’s easy to assign or remove nuance that actually belongs in the word.

I finished the essay and want to post it and others I have in the works—some of which will be controversial in some circles for the sole reason that an unmarried female is writing them.

(There’s admittedly another essay or three in that thought.)

I have a knack for noticing elephants in the room that are best addressed but that folks don’t think to (or don’t want to) point out. This has proved true in…pretty much every job, field of expertise, and topic of study that I’ve explored. So I have to conclude that it’s a God-given skill.

Which means I really should be using it.

Due to various factors—including repeated scoffing and derision for being young, unmarried, and female, and someone who “nobody” would want to (or even should) listen to—I’ve often held my tongue.

I can hear some of you scoffing now. Nonetheless, I have restrained myself to when I’ve been explicitly encouraged to speak out or issues are so blatant I can’t ignore them.

And I’ve long had the uncomfortable feeling that God’s already answered my prayers that someone appropriate would point out the items I’ve noticed and I’m being recalcitrant. (It’s interesting that some of the accepted-by-the-righteous prophets and bearers of wisdom in Scripture are female—but that’s a topic for another essay, I think.)

It’s been a long time coming, but various things have coalesced into me finally accepting that I see what I see for a reason—and that reason isn’t to keep my mouth shut.

Posting my opinions and observations still feels weird. Even the recent post on the Paris attacks makes me uncomfortable, for reasons that boil down to: I know certain persons are reading this, and I know precisely how they’re responding. Because they’ve always wanted me to keep my mouth shut and stick to the shadows.

Even though I have always experienced more blessing when I stepped out and opened my “big fat” mouth.

What does all this mean?

It means I’m going to endeavor to keep piping up—and to say more—but this blog isn’t a good place for the sorts of things I’ll be addressing. This blog should be kept for stuff related to writing, and publishing, and being an author. That’s the purpose, and that makes sense.

And the essays are gonna appear over on http://blog.mistiwolanski.com, starting with “What Is the Biblical Love We Are to Display towards Others?”.

If you look up the word “love” in the dictionary, you’ll find definitions ranging from “A friendly form of address” to “A strong feeling of affection and sexual attraction for someone”—and that’s not including what it means in tennis (ref. Oxford Dictionaries).

Yet love is central to the Christian life, an integral part of the two commandments Christ gave to sum up the Ten Commandments:

²⁸And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? ²⁹And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments [is], Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: ³⁰And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this [is] the first commandment. ³¹And the second [is] like, [namely] this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

Mark 12:28–31, KJV

According to this excerpt from Mark 12, Christians are to do everything out of these two precepts: 1. loving God above everything and 2. loving others in the way that we love ourselves. This is entirely consistent with what Jesus told the rich young ruler in Matthew 19, as well as with the other Scriptural commands about Christian love, such as is found in Leviticus 19:18, John 13:34, Romans 12:10, and James 2:8.

Studies into these verses so often focus on what is meant by “neighbor”—on whom we are to love—rather than what we are to do: love. Love is also the first fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22, suggesting it’s the first one that manifests in a believer, even before the rest of the list.

Keep reading over at blog.mistiwolanski.com.

I have plans for more essays along those lines, where yeah, it’s pertinent to life and therefore could go here, but…better not. Theological essays of 8k words might be enjoyed by some (or most) of you, but that doesn’t mean it belongs in the same web space as, say, thoughts on the viability and feasibility self-publishing. Which I should probably comment on.

But that’s all for another day.

How are you?

—Misti

Through the Lens of Hindsight: Some Thoughts on the November Attacks in France

Two months ago today, some horrible attacks were made in Paris. That week, I drafted this post, but I didn’t post it. Now at the two-month mark, with the new year and people looking forward and no longer thinking about the attacks, I’d like to share some thoughts and open a discussion.

First, the basics as I understand it:

November 13, 2015: ISIS lost their most visible member to an assassination. A few hours later, bombs and shootings killed dozens of people in France.

That night, the media and others were saying that the attacks weren’t ISIS, because it was too organized to be consistent with ISIS.

Um…

Even if you set aside the fact that ISIS later claimed credit for the attacks in Paris, that “inconsistent” claim doesn't hold water. ISIS erupted on the scene too stable and entrenched in order to be easily destroyed or sabotaged. That in itself indicates one or more leaders who are cognizant of both planning and politics.

Previous attacks citing ISIS have come from youth, who might have been overeager to get what they’ve been promised will be theirs if they sacrifice themselves for the cause…or they might have been encouraged or outright ordered to make spontaneous attacks to encourage the world to associate ISIS with that poor planning, to distract people and make ISIS seem less competent.

Letting or encouraging an enemy to underestimate you is a classic maneuver. And it’s far more consistent with how ISIS appeared “out of nowhere” than the belief that they’re disorganized is.

I find it notable that ISIS had one particular torturer be its most visible face, especially with how there’s precedent of assassination of such people. So ISIS had to be aware that the man would be targeted. The man himself probably knew he was targeted—and, considering his faith, would’ve seen death as a blessing and quite likely martyrdom.

Now that torturer has been assassinated. I hope someone else in the hierarchy was identified first, for further research/watching/investigation, but considering the man killed was a torturer, he was enough of a threat that the loss of potential information might’ve been deemed an acceptable loss.

But that man was someone that ISIS had to knew was a target.

Why is that significant?

The France attack seems to me to have been organized and pre-planned…to be carried out whenever that target was killed.

Okay, the plan might’ve been set specifically for two particular days, but the timing suggests otherwise. Right when the world was celebrating a victory over ISIS, that victory was soured by the news about France.

Whoever runs ISIS is organized and cunning. Whoever is handling the military intelligence and determining how various governments respond to ISIS needs wisdom and intelligence to evaluate it properly rather than jumping to assumptions. Lord willing, the media reports minimizing the intelligence behind ISIS are reflecting the public story and not assumptions being made by the pertinent intelligence agencies and investigators.

I expect ISIS will get worse, but something is always getting worse.

My prayers still go out to France, for the lives lost and injured. My prayers still go out to those trapped and victimized in ISIS territory or households.

But I also know that things like this are always happening, have always been happening, and it took it happening in the right country by the right enemy before it made the news like this particular event did.

So I don’t only pray for what I know. I also pray for what I don’t.

What about you? Now that you’ve had some time to think about it awhile, what are your thoughts on the Paris attack?

—Misti

Happy New Year! (2016)