You are not confessing to the priest but to Jesus. You're simply receiving a guaranteed absolution of sins through the priest in persona Christi by the priest's authority granted in his ordination through apostolic succession (not available from any protestant pastor).
Confession is a bath for the soul. You don't always feel peace/relief immediately after confession, however. Sometimes it doesn't hit until later in the day or the next day. I've wondered about the delay at times, but it's usually a case that I needed to get over my anxiety about confession.
Confession is nerve-wracking for EVERYONE, no matter how many times you've done it. 😬 However, the priest is not judging you. You are making reparations to God for your disobedience.
It is recommended at least once a month or immediately after committing a mortal sin. Mortal sin separates us from God, while venial sin does not but does desensitize us to worse/more sins.
Confession is healing. I've had issues that would not leave me until after I confessed them, no matter how small of a venial sin or defect. Frequent confessions for issues that you trip on will continue to help until you no longer commit those sins. As the exorcists say, sin attaches those demons to you and confession detaches them, which leads to the next point...
Confession is more effective than 100 exorcisms! (Some say more than 1000 exorcisms.)
Be prepared. As soon as you confess, it seems like that's when the devil will tempt you the most to sin again. He does NOT want you becoming a saint. He wants you in hell where he can torment you into eternity. The more resistant you become, the worse the temptations are but the more readily you recognize them to avoid the trap.
Confession is one of the greatest sacraments to bring us closer to Christ and his divine mercy.
Book 22 writing is off and running. I've been dealing with some issues that slowed down the writing for the last week, but the story is going well overall. The slowdown allowed me to consider some aspects of this and give them more thought before writing. I knew the opening scene that I wanted, had come up with it while editing Book 19. It's just what I needed as a way to set up for an angle on character development in this, although originally it was just for my fun, because I wanted to write it.
Figuring out the personality of the new character (from Book 21) is a bit of a challenge. I barely know him, so it's a learning process. That will come out in this book. I intend to take advantage of his presence in this.
I also know what has to happen in this, but that opening scene gave me a springboard for great potential in character development, not only of the new character, but also for L'Ni (like he needs any more development!) and Nya.
In this book, I wanted to reveal a bit more of a particular history that was never fully explained. Not only that, but I also have a few little threads I wanted to pull together in this book. At this point in such a massive series arc, I have a lot of established canon from which to pull. I can no longer make up all new stuff but have pieces to weave from previous books into the current book. As I said, pulling together little threads. And after the jumbled mess (organized mess) that is Book 21, I decided to keep this one linear, although maybe with a couple of short flashbacks just to fill in a couple important pieces of the story.
This series is outlined, but I've left room for changes like characters coming and going. Book 18's farewell to a character wasn't planned, but I made it work and felt it had to be done. I had storylines including that character to the end, but the series arc has been adapted to the change. I also have nearly a dozen extra plots that I could have used, but I knew I didn't want to go past 25 books, so I narrowed the ideas to what I most wanted. I'm now down to the last few of the approved episode plots that need to be in the story to bring the series to a satisfying ending. I hope you've been enjoying the ones that made the cut. They get tweaked to accommodate the changes that happened before they get written. (Look up the history of JMS writing Babylon 5 episodes through all the cast issues and network threats of cancellations and how he had to adapt that as he went and you'll get an idea.)
Right now, Book 22 is currently at 8K words. It's growing, although I wish the writing flowed faster. I have the story outlined--not scene-by-scene but enough to know what needs to be done.
Once this is done, I'll go to work editing Book 20, likely for publishing around late July, give or take a couple weeks. Book 20 explores how Zaer and Shen met and touches on some of their adventures together. I love those two little besties and hope you do too.
Happy Easter! Know that you are all in my prayers, always.
I hope you have been able to improve your spiritual journey and grow closer to Christ in your real life and, for writers, in your writing. Jesus Christ died for all sins from the beginning of time to the end (Jesus is fully God and fully man, the son of God given flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. To know the Son is to know the Father, and God is outside time and space, the reason he doesn't change by our perception. Therefore, Jesus felt then our sins of this time and for the rest of our lives too!). We owe him our sacrifices to ease His suffering in His passion then (as we perceive time) for all of our past, present, and future sins.
This brings me to my main topic of this post. Because modern fantasy fiction has desensitized our society to evil by twisting evil into something to consider to be used for good, I thought I'd share a series of videos about a topic that Satan uses to steal souls from sanctification. It's easy to say that dark magic or demons are clearly evil, but what about "light", "white", or "good" magic? Still a sin and comes from Satan.
Like the mortal sin of lust inspired by graphic sex scenes, magic/divination/occultism is another way that authors must beware that what they write risks their souls and the souls of readers by scandal (a mortal sin of causing others to sin) in that they lead people away from the one true living God's immutable laws. Fantasy is not sinful, but it can be if you promote any occult practices not only as bad but, worse, as good (spirit mediums, "good" or "white" magic and any other magic, new age, other occult, yoga, etc.). Even something as seemingly innocuous as a "love potion" is a sin and, according to exorcists, brings demons into one's life. All divinations and "magic" come from Satan tricking people into not trusting in God and to being disobedient to God. (The inspiration and desire to write/read/watch graphic sex scenes and the fascination with magic both come from demons.)
Below is a series of videos to help you understand the risks and how to come back to the true Light of God, not the false light of Satan, who can appear as an angel of light and distort the truth to trick you. (Before you think I'm being a prude, I used to be caught up in entertainment of this kind without knowing any better, nor caring, until my awakening and reconversion of faith.)
(Fr. Ripperger homily - he is an exorcist who has become famous for his lectures)
(In pulling up all these, I was also shown videos by proclaimed witches that proved to me how much Satan hates all that is holy. Any videos of witches decrying the Catholic church are from the father of lies, because Satan doesn't want souls saved from his grasp. The Catholic church is the ONLY authority on earth with the power to cast out demons, because it has the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus, who founded His church on Peter, the first pope, and that church became the Catholic church (katholikos).
Demons don't want us to rely on saints either, especially the Blessed Virgin Mary. She was never stained by sin, because God granted her the grace of being saved prior to conception based on what he had planned for her being the vessel of the living Word (God is outside time and space and has full power over His creation), and the demons could never make her fall in the least way. Satan despises her and wants others to hate her (the woman whose offspring will crush his head while he strikes at [the offspring's aka Jesus's] heel) and all the saints (those who are alive as souls in heaven). Praying to known saints in heaven (confirmed through a strict process of the church) is not necromancy. Rather, it is an act of loving God, who is in their presence in heaven, where true love abounds in the desire for the greater good of all (love for one's neighbor is not a feeling as defined in modern culture but an act of the will).
Any occultists that say that praying to saints is demonic are proving that saints are a threat to Satan's power, because occultists serve Satan, whether they believe it or not. The father of lies doesn't want you to lean on the saints as intercessors. Exorcists use relics from saints that are effective against demons, often particular saints, people who in their earthly lives aligned their wills so perfectly with God's that temptations ceased having power over them, despite all the attempts by certain demons.)
I'm not talking basketball. Besides, that's done for this year.
I'm talking the final four books of Starfire Angels: Forgotten Worlds. I can't believe it! Four more books to write and it's done. All this work, this whole journey with these characters... will be finished. I started out with ideas for 30+ possible episode plots but knew that 24-26 would be a good run (and eventually settled on 25), based on a 22-26 episode season of most TV shows from the era before streaming services. Back when we had to record on VHS. Yes, I'm that old. Actually I remember when VHS first became popular, winning out over Beta.
Yikes! How the years have gone by.
How this series has gone by! I started writing Forgotten Worlds in 2018 and released A NEW BEGINNING on April 4, 2019. I'm six years into it and about a year and a half left to go, probably two years until the last book is actually published.
The final four books yet to write.
I finished reading Book 20 & 21 to refresh what I had done with those and make any notes to address when I dig into editing them. The biggest possible issue is that I introduced a new character in Book 21. No one died this time or died and came back. (Did you see that pattern with Ann's and Alric's additions? And they both have "A" names. That's not the case this time.) This new character flipped my plans a bit.
Alric was unplanned too, actually. I just thought it was time to switch things up when he came onto the scene in Book 18. I hope no one hates me for what happened to Vel.
Anyway, this new character changes my plans for the rest of the series a little bit. I've had to consider how I could make use of him or if I need to use him at all. Spoiler alert--yes, I will use him. His addition provides an opportunity for situations I couldn't have done without him like Alric did for Book 21.
I was having trouble figuring out how to use the new character and during one of the three best places for the creative juices to flow (walking, driving, or shower), the spigot of creativity opened... in the shower. I figured out exactly what Book 22 is going to be while moving the series forward in the way I had planned but with some modifications to incorporate the new guy.
Once 22 is done, only three to go. It's not just the final four but the final countdown.
(The music is catchy, but the song actually makes no sense.)
Hang in there a little longer. It's going to be epic!
It's been less than two weeks since I (finally!) published All the King's Men. In the time since, I've been reading through the next two books to catch up before starting the writing of Book 22.
When I catch up on my progress, I do some editing and make notes of anything I think needs particular attention for the deep dive edits (aka developmental edits). My assessment so far is that Darkest Depths won't likely need much rewriting. However, Armor will be a beast to edit. It's a complicated back and forth story that gave me some issues in writing it and, although not as long as Book 19 (the longest of all the books in this series and one that feels like it could have been written to be twice as long, but I didn't want to get over complicated on the story). Book 21 has a complex setup of present action amid flashbacks to previous scenes in the series and some new flashbacks, as well as flashbacks to the setup, such as I used in Book 4. It's a weird hodge-podge of flashbacks and very intricate timing on those flashbacks so I don't give away the plan too soon. It's complicated, but that's why it will require some big time editing when the time comes.
For now, I'm making notes (using Word comments and a separate notes file to address more detailed thoughts) for editing consideration. I may attempt some rewrites on Book 21 now to address the bigger issues I already see so I have less to do when the time comes for full-on edits, but I want to get back to writing too.
I hope to start working on Book 22 by the end of next week. With 25 books planned in this series, I'm in the homestretch now. Book 22 will still be a bit of a side adventure, although those are now all focused on reaching the series climax. A few of the early books were more for fun and getting to know characters and the setting (social-cultural, political, trade, species, technology, etc.), everything from this point is targeted towards the finale, like most of the books in the series. I describe each book as a chapter of one large book (like Babylon 5). They all build on one another, even the few thrown in just for the fun of it. As L'Ni tells Nya, I use everything; there's something in each book that advances the series. No story is wasted.
And for fun, something extraordinary happened at our house this morning--all four cats lined up for the perfect picture! This has never happened before, but the spring return of birds to the yard caught their attention so all had to get a good look.
