It’s 2:30 in the morning, and I can’t sleep…

Honestly, I WAS asleep, but can’t seem to get back. Too many things are buzzing around in my head. I thought maybe I could make note of them while the valerian I just took kicks in. Let’s see.

Faith in Fiction.
You’ll notice both a blog and a forum by that name in my links, to the right. Someone in the Christian forum at FM pointed at the blog. (I see the link on yours, too, Tina, but you have so many links that I gloss over it, and now I’m sorry.) You see, it makes me want to weep. Why didn’t I find this before? There are several years of blog here written by an acquisitions editor at Bethany House, and his purpose for the blog is to actively fish for talent that is thinking outside the box of traditional CBA publishing. Wow. So many posts in which he gives mini-lessons, talking about the fine arts that relate to his job, his passion, and actively encourages dialogue, questions, WHICH HE ANSWERS. It will take me a very long time to read through the archives there, but it will be well worth every minute.

So of course I followed the link back over to his forum by the same name. There are about 88 members there, and they are real people. Some of the Christian writer’s forums I found didn’t look too kindly at genre fiction, but this group is actively writing it, and those who aren’t, read it or at least aren’t snotty about it. So much to learn there, too. It’s overwhelming.

Edited to add: The link to the forum isn’t working, and I’ve double checked it, so I’m not sure what’s wrong. You can go to the blog and link to it meanwhile while I try and figure out why it won’t go through. Tomorrow! After sleep

How do you name God?
I’m up against a wall here with my fantasy religion, trying to work things out. How do you make a *new* name for God that a) sounds right to the ear and b) doesn’t have some hidden meaning in…Zulu or something…that is negative? How do you make a fake religion that rings true (cultists everywhere actively seek the answer to this question!), isn’t sacreligious, but isn’t exactly Christian, either. It needs to be able to address Christian truths, though. I think that this is the subject that is REALLY keeping me awake tonight. Talk about a balancing act.

Hmm. Maybe I could just call God, “The One Who Orders”, or simply, “The One”. Karen Hancock calls hers “Eidon”. Narnia’s is Aslan. Both start with vowels, end with ‘n’. Does it matter? Does that sound more gentle yet powerful? Am I missing something very obvious here? Can you think of other examples? I’m trying to remember what Kathy Tyers uses. Aargh. Why don’t I have my own copies of her Firebird trilogy? Maybe I should make that a priority. It won’t help tonight, though…

Town name endings
Help me out here, folks. Different languages typically use different endings for town names, and I think they help give the feel for separate countries, languages. What can you come up with? Since 1:30 I’ve only come up with a few: -ton, -ville, -burgh, -ov. No, I came up with more but can’t think of them right now. And this isn’t the primary thing keeping me awake.

In other news…
We had our friend Anita and her husband over yesterday after church, the ones whose son suicided last year. We had a really good visit with them. We didn’t speak of Mike much, but it seems God is giving them healing. I’m so glad they came; it took our friendship deeper which can only be a good thing.

Maybe I can go back to sleep now. I’m gonna give it a try.