A Decade for Truth

We’re raised in a world of perceived absolutes and extremes. Solid colors are often the rule, even when it comes to being “open minded.” I've seen people who take the hard-line approach, with a black and white morality that has no flexibility, while others trade the stick straight and narrow for a canyon so wide that nothing matters and everything matters and nothing is real and everything is real and honestly, I get lost in the metaphysics of it all. 

Either way, I've shared in a range of these beliefs at one point or another. My systems of thought have been in limbo, impassioned, influx…I've been sure of what I believed as deep as my soul, then uncertain of anything at all. But intense self-reflection and introspection mixed with harsh realizations and tragedy tend to alter us. For me, they created a sort of uncertain hybrid that might be okay with not knowing. I mean, I think my belief is that I don’t know what I believe, that I don’t think any of us do. I mean, we feel things. We can feel them strongly enough to build a whole life philosophy around them, but do we really believe them? When the foundations that hold our fragile systems together are shaken, toppled, crumbled into dust, what’s left is a harder lesson. It’s truth. It’s individual truth, which is often merciless and full of turmoil.  Seeing ourselves as we've truly been, as opposed to the way we wanted to be, the way we strove to be, or the way we believed ourselves to be, seeing ourselves…down to the raw…that vision is a religious moment. It's a spiritual experience. That is agony and terror and a miracle.  In fact, it’s one of the only things in life 

I can consider a miracle—clarity. A minute free of blinders, when my defenses and self-delusions are gone and I see what I've done, what I've been doing. And how. And why. All the lies I've told myself to sooth old wounds, unraveling the times I was sure I'd found enlightenment. All the patches I wore--the ones I'd used to “heal”, the ones that looked pretty but concealed an infection of hurt that spread beneath my skin even still, they didn't stop the old voices from replaying, they didn't resolve actual feelings or take away the sting of memories I couldn't bear to face if I couldn't bear to face them. 

Sadness, anger, weakness and flaws---uncertainty—these are gifts. But the ability to process and feel these things is the only means of unwrapping them. Sounds cliche, but I've had to abandon a good deal of fingers-in-the-ears optimism over the years in order to locate the source of some thorns. I found that stubborn idealism could be every bit as close-minded as utter pessimism.There was a balance in my own truths, many and unpredictable as they are. I've embraced those ridiculous parts about myself. I've acknowledged the sad parts, I've comforted the angry ones. 

Funnily, I actually know far less than I used to think I did. And then I know less and less every day. I’m constantly unknowing what I was certain of before, and that’s okay. I mean, it sucks. But it’s okay, because knowing everything, having all the right answers (or believing you do) is exhausting anyway.  I’d much rather break down and cry like a loon than convince myself I’m fine--that everyone is juuuust fine--when I’m not. Even if life is. Because that may not be my truth at the time. 

And this is the decade of truth, scary and otherwise. Passionate truth. I’m embracing it.   

xo

Jen

What is The Light Series: For New Readers

First of all, I just want to do a little (big) dance and flying kick-a-pow in celebration of Simon and Schuster taking over The Light Series. I am now an S&S author, and proud of it! And in celebration of this, we have new covers, a soon-to-be-box set and all kinds of fun activities planned. But for those who have yet to read the books, maybe you're asking what The Light Series is all about (without spoiling things)? Well, here we go....

Imagine that you’re a simple woman, helping your grandparents run a little convenience store in your home town when all kinds of creepy things start happening to you.  You don’t feel safe in your own home or out in the woods or anywhere else for that matter, but you have no idea why or what on earth is going on.

This is how The Light Series begins, with one woman—Lillian Hunt—who thinks she’s losing her mind. But things aren’t always as they seem, right? Or maybe they are, and that’s the scary part.

In book one of The Light Series Trilogy, (Seers of Light) Lily faces a huge learning curve and a major life change in the form of a group of gifted souls who have to initiate her into this strange new world before some serious stuff goes down.  Lily is a bit on the over reactive side, partly due to her temper and partly because of her gifts, but her conflicting emotions make it tough to decide who is good, who is evil—especially where it comes to two men in particular. She has no idea what secrets came before her, what mysteries are ahead, but she’s too passionate to turn back.

Book two, Whisper of Light, is written from a different point-of-view –that of a normal human woman named Nicole Abbot, with ties to Lily’s group. Still, you see how different she is from the forward, outspoken Lily, and you see how every polarity of personality is necessary in their world. Nicole, through virtue of her troubled family life, is an important witness and inevitable player in the series.

Circle of Light takes it back to Lily again, but now we see something special is brewing in the relationships of all the characters, in their loss, in their love, in their anger and release...something taking more and more shape as a whole. The Light Series is about connected lives and destinies and the outcome of our actions when we choose love over fear (or the opposite).  I could say I wrote these books more for me than anyone else, but they’re also written for you guys, and there’s bound to be a character (goofy, sexy, nerdy, passionate, you name it) in this series that we can all relate to as ourselves.  The books are classed as paranormal romance, and they're at times scary, at times romantic, at times incredibly dorky, but I hope the series is something that gives you hope and inspiration and comfort when life gets complicated. 

Here are the new covers. I love them.  What do you think?

This coming week begins a month of buzz for the The Light Series, with a boxed set being released and new covers and just a fresh start.  Authors and readers will participate in a big Facebook blitz of fun media and giveaways on Wednesday, so follow me on Facebook to participate. I’ll be interviewed on the radio, a podcast, some vloggers and bloggers and reviewers will chime in with their opinions, as well. So tune in to learn more and enter to win your own copies of the books. Oh, and by the way, you see the Goodreads Giveaway on the right side of this blog? You can enter there, as well. And tell your friends.

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Check out some reviews on the Light Series page of this blog, on Goodreads, Amazon or Simon and Schuster to see what other readers are saying about the series. But most of all, if you love it, talk it up, spread the word! 

Peace Out My Friends,

Jen

Dreams and Runaway Trains

I never thought of myself as someone who has premonitions of things. I wasn't one of those people who dreamed about something specific only to have it happen the next day. I don't think I've ever really seen a ghost or definitive proof of anything otherworldly with my waking eyes.

But. But then again, sometimes I think life's visions aren't so blatant. They're not so spelled out for us in neat, massive sky writing. Sometimes, when you dream things and they hit you hard or stick with you forever, I think those are important things...even if we don't know why for a long time.
So far in my life, I've had two such dreams. One I wouldn't understand until recently, and one profoundly and immediately obvious. For example, the week I was to leave Missouri for Seattle, my heart was breaking. It had been two years since I'd split with my long-time significant other, but we remained best friends and as close as family. We'd basically grown up together, and I knew that saying goodbye would be one of the scariest, most difficult things we would ever do. Still, I was determined to be brave and move on to this new stage, to wipe my chalkboard clean of old mental residue and figure out who I really was. I needed to go away.

I remember laying on a blow up mattress in my ex's living room the night before we were to drive to Washington state, and just as I was about to drift off, the black of sleep turned into a stream of running water, and then the stream branched off in two different directions, with the message loud, clear and emphatic. Heck, I could even hear the water running! In fact, it was so shockingly loud that it shook me fully awake and sent me scrambling for my laptop to write an email entitled, "DO NOT OPEN UNTIL THURSDAY" (the first day alone in Seattle) for my ex to read. In it, I said that I'd had a dream and I knew I was supposed to share it and it was loud and clear: When you truly love someone, it doesn't matter if you grow apart, because that person is in you, they're a part of you and they'll always be close, no matter what it seems like. It was exactly what I didn't know I needed. And I was incredibly grateful.

Fast forward a year and a half.  I'd been thinking about an old dream--one I'd had when I was just a young teenager and predominantly charged with the care of my little brother and sister.

In the dream I was holding a young John's hand (he was probably eight or so at the time), and pushing my baby sister in a stroller. We came upon some railroad tracks, and seeing a train speeding towards us, I rushed us from the tracks only to find that we were walking on another set of them, same scenario...rushing train. Starting to panic, I hurried them along, but new tracks always emerged, and a new train sped toward us. Finally, with five or six trains barreling down on us, I turned behind me in desperation for some escape. But instead of freedom, there was a brick wall.

So many trains, relentless tracks, and a brick wall...and me, thirteen or fourteen years old, with a toddler and little boy. In that moment, I knew there was nothing I could do. I remember saying, "God help me." And then, as the worst was about to happen, I woke up.

You never forget a dream like that, though I just couldn't understand what it meant. My need to protect my brother and sister ran deep and started young--quite without any alternative. I was their caretaker and teacher. It came with the territory and it would extend into my adulthood. I was willing to be a human shield if I had to, and, in a lot of ways, I was.

But, in the end, no matter how much I wished I could keep them safe, it would reach a point where this was out of my control. The pinnacle of this realization came this past winter when, at twenty-five, my brother left this world. I felt so helpless, I was so helpless, to protect them now.

Thinking about that old train dream again, I'm pretty convinced it was more of a warning than anything else. Things would be hard. Then they'd get worse. And worse still. And eventually, we'd run out of tracks and I'd have to admit that I couldn't protect them forever. That we couldn't keep running away from the things that hurt us. Eventually, I'd have to stop with my back to a brick wall, face those trains with courage and release it to God. We love, but we have to let go. We can only stand back and pray for the best.

Maybe that was just how it had to be.

Anyway, strange things, dreams. They don't take a psychic to understand, just some awareness, or perhaps a few decades. So don't forget those dreams. You know the ones. If they don't make sense now, tuck them in your back pocket for later. You never know when their time will come.

Here's hoping I dream of joyful things tonight. I wish the same for you.

Love,
Jennifer

Sometimes I Pee...And Other Things Authors Should Know Their Editors Do

To all the wonderful authors out there,

 

You know I love you. I am you. But I've seen some things over the last few years that suggest perhaps it's time to speak on behalf of my fellow editors--those often under slept, often underpaid soldiers everywhere when I say, please, writers of books...have mercy.  

 

Look, writers are needy people. Let's just be honest with ourselves. When it comes to one's work, I well understand that things can be stressful and emotional and that one's manuscript is a very significant aspect of their life. We've foregone sleep and fielded rejection and we want this damned book published yesterday already. I know this because I have three of my own books published to date, so I've been there and I'm still doing that. But, the previous being said, there are a few points I'd like authors to keep in mind during the editing process.

 

First, an author mustn't forget that they are not the only instrument in the orchestra, so to speak. And while each author is individually concerned about their own deadlines, an editor is concerned about many. And that doesn't just include the authors on their slate, but all those involved in the process of a book's publication, from detail editors to copy editors to font setters and so forth. If more revisions are needed, if things are taking longer than expected, it's not a decision made lightly. It's a necessary one that impacts all parties. So, if we're willing to slow our roll to do things right, you should be, too.

 

Second, please know that many editors have several faces--myself included--outside the realm of the editing world. I have an obligation to market my businesses, for instance. If you see me on Twitter or Facebook, please take a deep breath before the knee-jerk feelings of neglect set in. I have a boss and a publisher, too, after all, and these venues are major factors in marketing and public relations. Each one has its own allotted time in my life. They are necessary and they are mine. If it bothers you to see that your editor has a life beyond the notes in an email or the margins of a word doc, it's probably best to look away, unfollow, whatever helps you sleep at night. You are the center of your universe--but you are not the center of your editor's.

 

Along with these things, and with the unpredictable income this business allows, your editor will often maintain another professional position to help pay their bills, which makes for a juggling act and a half, let me tell you, resulting in many grossly late nights spent squinting in front of someone's manuscript because, by golly, it needs to be done. Sure we have other personal business we'd love to cut into, sure our kids are whining or the husband/wife keeps shooting us dirty looks for ignoring them and working 16 hour days for the third week in a row...but authors rarely see that. It's all about perspective. 

  

Also, and strangely enough, I confess that editors can and do choose not to edit every free moment of their lives. They even try to maintain a day or two for non-editing purposes. As a good editor pal of mine once told me, "the NLRB ruled that my employers are required to let me sleep and eat." I tend to agree. Most of the time, I try (and fail) to make my weekends a sacred writing time. Other editors will have a "family time" rule, while others will sneak a day in to just ignore their emails and keep from becoming a mentally off-balanced, self-neglected recluse. And this is good, because you do not want a burned out editor working on your manuscript. That will do it no justice.   

 

In closing, writer folks, remember that your eagerness to be published does not and must not determine the speed of the editing process. It's bloody cool that your book is being published at all, so throw back a shot of something strong, and whatever you do...think twice before sending your editor another email, or complaining when you've (stalked) seen them doing X, Y, Z and why would they ever be doing anything else but working on your novel?!

 

I beg you. Do not repeatedly poke the editor. I mean it. Seriously, they are obviously not in this for the glory. They're in it for you. They're in it because they love words, they love perfecting them and they love helping an author present a product beyond anything a writer could have imagined by its end. Many a wonderful editor has helped me grasp this with my own books. And I'll love them forever.

 

That's all, folks. Now, go out there and do what you do! Just do it patiently, huh?

 

Love,

Jen

 

 

Appeal to an Awakening Soul

    Perhaps you thought that you were brought here to find yourself, but you were wrong. You were brought here to remember yourself. This place, the new wilderness is only a guise, a catalyst to trigger the eruption of your soul’s force from the inside out. All that you have been is but a small part, a very mere bit of the potential of your life.

    We have come here together so that you might know, through virtue of your own pain, your own hopelessness, your own fear, your own darkness and the lie of powerlessness, the very actual power of your own will, of the will of your soul. No one can save you, Great Spirit child. No one—out there—can save you from this life’s lies. To be swooped up and carried away from your soul’s journey is a prize stolen, a wisdom deprived. You are better to dwell with it, to mourn and to weep with it, to scream through its pangs, even to drown beneath its weight, than to be carried away by some outside force before the transformation can occur. For within your flesh, deep within the center of your being, is the undaunted, waiting, longing, all-knowing. Is the ready, able, perfect. Within you, waiting its turn to emerge, piece by piece, with the dawn of every former test of trial and blackness, is the next unfolding, the great unfurling of wings, the re-forged backbone of a true Child of Light.

    Unbury her, God Child. Let the falseness of flesh burn away in a cleansing, agonizing fury like a Phoenix, another layer of illusion gone.  And without it, the remaining light of strength can glow more passionately forth, can trigger a spark of remembrance in those who have forgotten their own, and so that you, Gleaming God Child, may fly in the perfect knowledge of a capable universe, of a centered power, of a strong, bright, illuminated and joyful mind—the faithful passion of a child and the peaceful wisdom of an eternal spirit.

    Let the darkness find you if it must. Throw off the quick and tempting escapes, and seek help only from those who would teach you to grow, feed your soul, embrace your heart, but would not steal away your journey. With it, comes the gift of remembered power that, once felt, can never be revoked. 

    Your vision evolves as you allow it. From the lower to the higher places, from the outer delusions to the inner truths, peeling away the layers one rebirth at a time—forward and forward you go, flowing with the fear and terror of the moment, dying and dying a never-ending death in order to be born and born to new sight. And you will see. You will rise and rise and rise and rise beyond the great heavy mass of this life-veil. But only so long as you spread your arms to the waves and let them teach you to swim with the current. And when you break the surface, pulling for air, you will know its sweetness in a new way. You will be stronger than before. Always stronger.

    Choose strength. Choose to know who you are now. Why wait? So precious is this life—this gift—this temporary blindness. Burn and drown and embrace the false dark, then grasp the unthinkable height of resulting joy. For in the end, in the light of truth when the flesh is cast off, there is nothing but this.    

You thought that you were brought here to find yourself, but you were wrong. You were brought here to remember.

Jennifer DeLucy

Grandpa's Legacy to Me - Why I'll Always Love Christmas

Christmas for me as a little girl was kind of a time travel event.

I lived with my grandparents, you see, and so, even though I was a child of the 80's, my experience was far more accurately (and uniquely) one of the 50's. This could be annoying, for sure...just not at Christmas.

At Christmas, it was perfect.

I have the most beautiful feelings about Christmas, and it's because of those memories, which had little to do with presents and everything to do with my grandpa.

Every single year, my grandfather would happily drag out the dusty, old, homely fake fur tree--one they'd bought and been using decades before I was born--and he'd put it up, prickly limb by prickly limb. I'm not sure why he never got a real tree, but, it didn't seem to faze him. Clearly, my grandfather loved what he had, so who am I to argue?

It's a really vivid image in my head--him stretching those painted glass bulbs all over the floor and plugging them in. You know the ones, some shaped like thick tear drops, others were sharp and jagged and frosted and bound to end in a tetanus vaccine, while a third kind was meant to resemble a flame, all mismatched and random after years of replacing the burn outs. I'd watch him (mostly patiently) untangle the strings of mixed lights in long, glowing lines across the dark wood floor, and I can still smell that particular scent of warm, aged plastic and glass melding together. How old was the dust burning off those bulbs, anyway? How many Christmases had they clanked and clicked against the same wood floor in this same way, when his children were actually children? Surely I was feeling a drop of what he must have felt--a leftover essence, a resurrection of moments held in the time capsule of a plastic Santa or a creche with missing shepherds. The failing ornaments, half unspun of their colorful silken threads, and the tinsel strings that got everywhere. By the way, and for the love all that's holy, I can't imagine why people used that stuff, but it doesn't matter, because he liked it. And that was good enough for me.

We had this pretend fireplace cabinet with a green felted interior, a mirrored minibar and a record player built in and Grandpa was so proud of that thing. It was probably the coolest toy on the block when he'd bought it, but it was really just cheesetastic by the time I came around. Its record player, though--even more than clanky lights--was the solid core of my holiday experience. And no wonder, with Nat King Cole singing The Christmas Song, Bing crooning White Christmas, Alvin and the Chipmunks demanding promptness and hoola-hoops...it was impossible not to be drenched in the spirit of the season while listening to those crackly, wonderful tunes.

We also had a "second" tree, which I still can't decipher the purpose of. It was this garish silver limbed thing that my grandmother covered in cookies and popcorn balls. Just abominable, but it was the tradition in the DeLucy house when Grandpa was alive, and again, I never questioned it.

Fact is, when Grandpa was alive, so was Christmas, and after he passed (far too soon, when I was less than ten years old), no matter how hard things got, no matter how dreary, that love and loyalty to the holiday was so woven into my being that I fought to celebrate it, to feel it and to replicate it for my siblings, no matter the difficulty.

I eventually figured out, once adulthood found me, what my obsession with these memories was really all about, and it wasn't the shiny lights or even the record player. It was Grandpa's love of life, the enduring truth under the glitter and tradition. What I was really attracted to--what I truly loved to be around and what I vividly remember--is his spirit. His joy.

Here's hoping, whatever tradition you celebrate this holiday season, it has as much meaning to you as it does to me.

Love,
Jen

We've Made Best Sellers!!!

Guys, we did it!!!!!!!

Seriously, no joshing, real deal stuff here: Circle of Light is on a handful of AMAZON BEST SELLERS LISTS!  See for thine self:

KINDLE HOT NEW RELEASES

NON-KINDLE HOT NEW RELEASES

So what does this mean??? Uhm, well, I guess it means that people are finally seeing the series and books, and that I have the most beautiful grass roots reader friends who spread the word with all their hearts, and I'm grateful.

Reviewers are saying things like, "...the best couple of 2012!" (Dairy of a Book Addict) and "Her world and those that live in it are in a word, stunning."  (BoundByBooks).

How the heck can I not be happy about that? HAH! :)

Anyway, congrats to my hard core readers on doin' it like a BOSS. And hi to new readers!!!  I love you guys. Honestly. I'm already prone to great acts of sap. This is only making it worse. ;)

Mwah,
Jen