Joining in prayers

Happy birthday! I happen to be making chocolate chip cookie today. I'll enjoy one in your honor!

Welcome! Your books sound interesting!

Have a wonderful birthday!

It took me a few days to realize how this site works. I expected more of a typical forum, but it has a forum/Facebook feel to it. I wish there was a little more explanation, maybe more of an FAQ that explains things such as: Status updates. I still don't see how to make one of my own. I know it's not because of low posts, since someone with lower posts than me managed to make a status update, so I'm just missing the place to do that somehow. Also, I didn't see how to comment on someone else's status update, and THAT may have been before I had 10 posts. (If not, then it was just me who missed it. If so, it would be nice to have something explaining "here's what you can do when you reach 10 posts." I did see that you needed that in order to see the critique section, but that's all I knew.) Clubs. I was so confused and thought they were just a blog style and that the main topic was buried beneath all the newsfeed stuff, and yesterday I finally noticed the "topic" buttons. Now that I'm getting the hang of it, I'm really loving this site! It just would be easier if "how this works" was somewhere more prominent. (EDIT: I just did a little more digging and found the status update option in my account settings!)

I had to look at your website after Alley said this. I agree, it's great! Welcome!

My guess is Yom Kippur. The theme for the 3 fall feasts is a wedding: trumpets=the announcing of the groom's arrival, atonement=being made one (as a husband and wife become one), and tabernacles=the wedding feast (which also happens to be my favorite holiday!) Yes, the prophetic fulfillment are so cool to see! Honestly, I'll be surprised if Yeshua returns anytime other than around the fall feasts (which will be confusing to some since there are at least 3 different "calendars" people use to determine which days those will fall on. We've had friends celebrate Sukkot a whole month later than our church did.) But that doesn't mean I will reject him if he returns during a different time than I expect Hebrew Roots believer here, so I've heard some theories, but haven't heard about the three trumps you mention in connection to those holidays (other than, obviously, the feast of trumpets), I'm interested in how you came to those conclusions!

What all do you do to market it? I'm kind of looking forward to marketing a book someday.

I get the whole idea of "show don't tell" (meaning, I understand why you say it, I may still struggle to know how to actually WRITE it). But a scene like this just turns my brain into mush. I don't do well with reading descriptions, and really, until maybe 10 years ago (or less), I would skip it and just insert my own images because it slowed down my reading experience to try and understand. "Okay, dishwater-colored hair, that's like mine. Wait, what's ebony again? Oh, duh. Yellow locks tipped purple... give me a minute to think about what that looks like because all of these are much more than just saying "blonde/black hair, etc." and now I feel like we're in an anime" And then my brain is stuck on the use of the word "locks" instead of simply "hair," or some other word. By that point, I'm so bogged down in just one paragraph that either I give up on the story or ignore what was supposed to make a point and I miss some important (or at least interesting) information. I feel like there's a time and place for telling instead of showing, but as Zee said, So you can add some detail, but too much feels very show-offy to me. Plus the longer you take to get to the point of, "she was surprised that a good looking guy sat down and started talking to her" kills the momentum for me. I'm curious if I'm part of a very small minority that feels this way, but reading that example, by the time it mentioned "barely saving the coffee from disaster," I'm more interested in imagining that scene and totally not feeling the whole, "whoa! A cute guy just talked to me?!" For readers like me, simple words can be better (hair vs locks). I know there are lists of, "instead of this word, use one of these synonyms," but there's a point of going overboard. And breaking up highly descriptive scenes by adding a little more action or thoughts helps it to flow. I guess maybe it feels like you're just adding more "telling" when you describe Zoe and Cheshire, because what does this have to do with Diedre? In other words, is she somewhat jealous of them? Does she sometimes wish she had their hair color? Does she often sit and think about her looks, or did someone recently insult her, or once again pick her friend to talk to instead of her? And I don't know what "scoffed up" means, so here's where I'd say to simply use "picked up" or "found." That's my two cents.

Congratulations!

I'm curious what you mean about hating them too! I don't think I've ever hated my characters, but I've certainly been frustrated about the ones that fall flat. I realized recently that I have 3 stories where the main character is very much a good person and I had to really think through how to keep them from being perfect, and how to keep them distinct so I'm not always writing the same type of character. But I love them all.