THE BOOKS HAVE ARRIVED!!!

(The title's pretty explanatory. . . . :) )

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂. (God guide your words.)

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

I'M PUBLISHED!!!!!!! :D

(Click on image to view a larger version)

When an evil act is done, leaving the kingdom in the hands of a betrayer. . .

When the rightful heir to the throne has gone missing. . .

All those who are still faithful have gathered together to form a rebel group known as the King's Men or the Konungr Ly∂r.

All of their hopes rest on a prophecy: on a sword and its wielder, and a girl and her dragon. All of their hopes rest on finding the rightful heir to the throne. But when they find him, will he accept the challenge of fighting to get back the throne? Or will he himself fall prey to the darkness?

After almost two and a half years it's actually happened. . . . My book is published. My name is in print! I don't think that I can quite grasp the reality of it yet. . . . But that's beside the point. The matter of the fact is that it has really, truly happened! I'm not going to wake up in a moment to find out that this has all been some kind of wacky dream. . . it's real. My book–The Sword of Teneraz–is published and available for purchase at lulu.com. I hope to later have it available on Amazon.com and BarnesandNobles.com, but I have to first figure out all of the details of getting that going. :)

Here's the TSOT book trailer as I promised several posts back. . . .

And of course the confetti that goes with it {throws a handful of bright-colored stringy stuff in the air}. . . and don't forget the popcorn!!! :D {licks lips and reaches for a bag of heavenlyness}

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂.

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

(an author)

The Heart of the Matter

Hearts. . . . What is it about those small, rather ugly looking organs that are so special to us Humans? It seems rather odd that we would chose that particular organ as a symbol of love. Around this time of year we pass out little candies that have been formed into heart like shapes, and send the special people in our lives cards with red, pink, and white hearts haphazardly printed all over them. But why a heart? Why not any other organ like, say, the stomach?? Why say "I 'heart' you" instead of "I 'lung' you"? This morning I got to pondering this and I think that I have come up with a bit of an explanation. . . .

You see, the heart is the center of our being. It may not be actually the center in literal terms, but its continuous and even pumping is what keeps our blood flowing and our bodies alive. If it beats too fast it becomes laborious for us to breathe, our sight might become slightly blurred and unfocused. . . we become weak. And if it beats too slowly. . . we die. In battle, if you want to kill someone, you aim for the heart. And even in other situations, if you wish to cause someone pain you hurt those who that person loves, damage what holds their heart, and they will surely be wounded as well.

And so, we Humans are always trying to protect this central piece of our existence. Physically and spiritually. In armor there's usually always some kind of breastplate, or something to protect your chest. . . and your heart. When caught in the middle of falling debris or shattering glass, our instincts tell us to curl up so that our backs will take most of the damage, instead of our front where our heart and many of our other organs would be easily harmed. And spiritually we protect our hearts by not opening up to people, not allowing ourselves to get close for fear that our heart might get hurt. We try to drive through life on the most comfortable, least bumpy roads we can afford by easing out of situations or relationships that we fear are collapsing inward. Or by not letting ourselves dream too big, because as the saying goes, "what goes up, must come down". We're afraid to let our hopes and passions soar too high because that would mean a greater plummet in the end. But this has been something that God has been talking to me about recently.

You see, I am a daydreamer. Not a day goes by that I don't have something or another to dream about and hope for. But as a result I have had many a hard fall. And so I've gotten into a habit of, instead of allowing my imagination and passions to run free, stuffing them down by telling myself that the hope that I have isn't going to happen, and then I'll list off to myself all of the reasons why. But God doesn't want that. He wants me to trust in His perfect plan, and trust that HE is going to protect my heart from that sudden fall. You see, often times, when we are trying so very hard to keep our heart safe and unharmed, it's like we hide ourselves away in a tower with it, locking all of the doors and throwing away the key so that no one (not even ourselves) can ever hurt it again. But as we stand there next to our precious heart, stroking it tenderly and trying to do all within our power to make it as comfortable as it can possibly be, we realize that we haven't truly protected it from ourselves since we're right there with it. And so, in a moment of pure terror, we toss it out of the tower window and into the moat far below and feel very proud of ourselves for having finally "saved" our heart. But this isn't what God wants for us! He asks us to give Him our heart so that He can TRULY keep it safe and unharmed. And then, if we are truly trusting in Him and desiring His will, we have the freedom to let our dreams soar up high into the sky. And if they do fall. . . He will be right there beneath us to catch us and hug us, and then gently toss us back up into the sky again.

So walk the sky with me, won't you? And we can soar on eagles wings with our Father. :)

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂. (God guide your words.)

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

There's a First For Everything, So They Say

Would you believe that I've never been in a car accident? . . . Up until this past year that is. Around last Thanksgiving time we went to my cousin's house, and on the way home we hit a deer. But still, that was only a loud thump and a sudden jerk to a stop, and besides the fact that we had to drive home with our car light scanning the treetops above us instead of the road, no one was hurt and we were all good. Shaken but good. Until today. . . . My mom and I were driving into a Meijer's parking lot when another driver rammed straight into the side of our car, sending us spinning out. The side of our car is crumpled inward, and the front tire on the other side got blown out. But God really had His hand on us this time, and neither my mom or I were seriously harmed. Both of us are finding aches and pains in different places all over us, and I bumped my head against the dashboard, but that is it.

But when you think about it, please pray for the other driver. Even though she wasn't harmed, and our car got by far the worst of the beating, she didn't seem so secure mentally or spiritually. She was about my age or possibly younger, and this was her first accident ever. She had never even gotten a ticket before. So please pray for her.

Thanks.

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂.

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

God is Good All the Time!!!

And today is a day to remember it. . . .

Happy Assr er Go∂r (God is Good) day everyone!!! :D What is one way that God has shown His goodness to you over this past year??

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂.

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

The Birth of the King

Several years back I wrote a series of posts in the days before Christmas called "The Birth of the King". I wanted to do something special this year for Christmas again, but I don't have time, especially seeing as how Christmas is almost upon us. . . . So I decided to link you to those previous posts so that you can go back and read those in order to help get you in the mindset of the true meaning of Christmas. I still like to look back and read them just before Christmas. At the time that I wrote these, I was going through a very hard time, my whole family was, so Jesus was pretty much the only thing that I could lean on without fear of Him falling and pulling me down with Him. Although many times I feared that He would also fail, I learned to trust Him in ways that I never had before. :) I hope that these posts can encourage you as much as they did me as I wrote them.

1. http://visitingwithdragons.blogspot.com/2008/12/birth-of-king-mary-joseph-and-new-baby.html
2. http://visitingwithdragons.blogspot.com/2008/12/birth-of-king-shepherds-emmanuel.html
3. http://visitingwithdragons.blogspot.com/2008/12/birth-of-king-through-eyes-of-angels.html
4. http://visitingwithdragons.blogspot.com/2008/12/birth-of-king-hope-of-god.html

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!! :D

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

Christmas, CHRISTMAS, CHrIsTmas, Christmas

Well, NaNoWriMo is over. . . . I'm still working on typing up The Wolves of Langoor so that I can give you a final word count, so be looking for that to come very soon!

I just finished a pretty busy weekend, filled with acting the part of Mary in a Christmas pageant tableau (meaning that you act a segment of the scene while the narrators are talking, and then freeze in a position and hold it for a VERY long time), which performed two nights, with shows twice each night. I had the privilege of playing this same part last year, and last year as well as this I found it a very good way to get into the spirit of Christmas, and the mind set of what Christmas is truly about. Especially this year, when the added a segment at the end of the tableau; while me, Joseph, baby Jesus, and the shepherds and wise men and angels were all posed in the typical manger scene, a man who was supposed to be Jesus when he was older came across the lawn (it was outside), all beaten and bruised, with blood all over him, and more than half of his face made up to be all purple and blue. He was carrying a cross, and slowly made his way to the pavilion where we were, dragging his feet as he came. When he got there, he stopped and just stared at the baby Jesus for a while, before turning and going around and back to where he had come from. In the moments that he neared, and he just stood there, swaying slightly and breathing hard, as he stared at the baby in the manger, were really powerful! And what with me into the part of Marry so much that I began to feel what Marry might have felt, I was almost in tears with the thought that to her this was her baby. . . her son.

So that was a really amazing experience! And then as soon as that was done (as in the next day, and we were rehearsing while it was still happening), I played the part of the Narrator in a Christmas pageant for the children at our church. So I went from acting out the Christmas story, to telling it. :) But it was very fun.

But anyways. . . maybe I should get back to typing out that book instead of chatting away on a post. :)

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂.

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

Kind of scary, yet kind of AMAZING!

Check out today's astronomy photo of the day. . . . . . .

(Is that a ship to the bottom right of the cloud??)

Now tell me. . . . Do you think something like that could possibly be created without the extraordinary brains an all powerful God?

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂.

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

The Sword of Teneraz: The TRAILER!

I'm am very excited to announce that the The Sword of Teneraz book trailer is now complete!!! :D However. . . I am not going to show it to you, yet. You may thank my dad for the wonderful advice of waiting until closer to the books publication date to place it out in public. And I think that I'll keep the reasoning to myself and he: it may ruin it's affects on you otherwise. ;)

So keep your eyes open for the trailer to be released soon, with a great amount of hullabaloo and confetti.

And with that announcement, I think I should let you know how progress on my books are coming.

The Sword of Teneraz– is still in the editorial process. My mom is on her second run through, at the completion of which my dad will go over her notes and see if he has anything to add or such. My cousin has had–as he put it–an evil {crook eyebrows evilly} semester in college these past months, but his plan is to get TSOT edited over his Christmas break.

The Wolves of Langoor– is about 1/3rd written if my estimations are correct–which they seem to be known to not be, so we shall see just how far I truly am. The fantasy of completing NaNoWriMo's required 50,000 words in one month hasn't turned out to be a reality this year. :( All though I HAVE been able to make a great dent in the mass of writing to be done in order for this book to be called complete. So that has been exciting in itself. And I feel, that if I can keep up even just the amount of consistency that I've gotten in writing this month, I MAY (just possibly) be able to get the first draft done in a few months. (Don't hold me to that though, what with Christmas coming up and all. . . . It can be a great time to get lots of writing done, because of getting a break from other things; such as school. But on the other side of things, it's very possible to not get any writing done over the Christmas holiday, because you're so busy spending time with family.)

I hope that you feel U.T.D on all the latest happenings with my books now. Oh! And that reminds me. . . once NaNoWriMo is finished, I WILL be typing all that I have so far of TWOL into the computer so that I can put some numbers into the word count for it on my side bar; which, to my chagrin, still very clearly says "COMING SOON".

Thanks for following! And happy (late) Thanksgiving!!!! :)

Assr vísa ykkarr or∂.

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~

It's That Time of Year Again. . . .

NaNoWriMo is here. . . . Well, technically it came several days ago (I was a little late in starting). But anyways, my goal is to write 50,000 words in The Wolves of Langoor before midnight November 30th. Wheeew! That is a lot! But I've calculated that if I write approximately 5-8 pages a day, I should have it. . . . Yesterday I got a little over 5 written, and today I'm hoping to beat that, so I'd say I'm off to a decent start. . . .

I'll keep you posted with updates as the month progresses. But first, I want to hear back from the rest of you NaNoWriMo participants out there. How are you faring? What are you working on??

Before I go. . . I have 1 more announcement/question. So I've come up with 2 simi-title names for the series that includes The Sword of Teneraz, and The Wolves of Langoor. What do you think of:

1. The Chronicles of the Sword of the Kings

or
2. The Sword of the Kings Chronicles. . . .

I threw out the idea of calling it a trilogy, as I have a feeling that it might become 4 books instead of the originally planned 3.

Please let me know your thoughts. :)

Assr vísa ykkar or∂.

~ElizabethMarieKauffman~