update: Peculiar - In All Thy Ways

My meditation on Proverbs 3:5-6 is posted here. Thanks for reading :).

update: Taerith - Chapter Twenty-Nine, aka The End

I've posted the final chapter of Taerith, bringing one more journey to a close.

The four-inch stack of paper on my shelf indicates that I wrote a lot of words.

It brings another journey to a close, too. Taerith is the second novel I've blogged while writing, and I think the last. After this it's back to the old-fashioned method of writing feverishly and alone, without a whisper in the darkness to indicate that anyone else is listening until it's finished.

Time to break my comment addiction.

update: Peculiar - Turned Away

I've updated Peculiar at long last. The new post is based on Proverbs 2:10-14 and can be found here.

update: Taerith - Chapter Twenty-Eight

The penultimate chapter of Taerith is up; please do read and don't forget to leave a comment.

I finished writing this particular novel two Wednesdays ago. At the time I was ready to stuff the whole thing into a time capsule and dig it up again in two hundred years, at which point I would have calmed down enough to read it again. (It is not tremendously easy to push oneself through the finishing of a novel on a self-imposed but necessary deadline.) I'm happy to report that I'm feeling much better about the whole thing now, and will probably be ready to start second draft revisions in a month or two.

update: Taerith - Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Seven of Taerith has been posted. I haven't been very consistent in announcing that here... oops. It is a chapter of encounters, the One That Begins the End.

Earlier I mentioned my desire to finish Taerith in a week. The goal was to write the last words before teaching started last Thursday. Accordingly, the Wednesday afternoon before found me seated on a plywood floor in Twin's ballet studio in Fort Erie, looking up blinkingly and proclaiming, "I did it." I did indeed. The book is done. I have a bit of tweaking to do before the last two chapters go up, but overall it's finished.

I'm going to put it down for at least a month before starting revisions. Sweet freedom :).

long sigh

I sigh a sigh of... settling in, I suppose :). Summer is over. I've begun teaching (62 students) and am settling into the work year. I'm home from travels and visits. I spent half an hour on a railway platform yesterday morning, noting the chill in the air and the slanty way the sun shines in Fall. Time: it passes.

I'm not sure if I announced this already: my "Hero Hunting" article for Boundless.org (a Focus On the Family webzine) has turned into a contract for quite a few more over the coming year. The second, "Four Habits of a Pulpit Critic," was published last Thursday. You can read it here--and please let me know what you think.

Worlds Unseen: The Ebook Edition

... is here :).

If you'd like to help get the ball rolling, feel free to copy the below announcement and post it on your blog, email it to all your friends, skywrite it from an aeroplane...

Worlds Unseen

Book 1 in The Seventh World Trilogy by Rachel Starr Thomson

Click to Download the Free eBook Now!

The Council for Exploration Into Worlds Unseen believed there was more to the world and its history than the empire had taught them. Treating ancient legends as history, they came a little too close to the truth. Betrayed by one of their own, the Council was torn apart before they could finish their work.

Forty years later, Maggie Sheffield just wants to leave the past behind. Memories of the Orphan House where she grew up are fading; memories of her guardians' murder are harder to shake. When a dying friend shows up on her doorstep bearing the truth about the Seventh World--in the form of a written covenant with evil--Maggie is sent on a journey that will change her forever. Along with the Gifted gypsy Nicolas Fisher, who hears things no one else can, Maggie joins with the last surviving members of the Council and a group of eastern rebels led by a ploughman and a princess to discover the truth.

It won't be easy. The Seventh World has long been controlled by the Blackness, and its monstrous forces are already on Maggie's trail.

Readers Weigh In

"Wow, Rachel, oh my goodness.... wow. I fell in love with Worlds Unseen. I finished it a few moments ago, with tears in my eyes. It was really touching...and brilliant, and beautiful. The whole thing reminded me of a mix between C.S. Lewis, Ted Dekker, and Diana Wynne Jones, while being wholly different."

"Your story is wonderful! You are such an artist and you paint such beautiful metaphors. I am in awe."

"You have a gorgeous poetic way of putting things that's incredible and enviable. I love the huge grand scale of things that your world runs on, yet your characters make it personal in such an amazing way."

"I thought all of your characters were great! They were real, which is what I've always loved about your writing."

Coming Soon: Worlds Unseen in hard copy!

It's still in production, but Worlds will be available as a "real" book in the next few months, with beautiful cover artwork by Deborah Thomson and availability on Amazon.com and special order from bookstores across the continent. Watch for it!