l-e-morgan-author

[l-e-morgan-author]

One of my favourite passages of Scripture is the start of Hebrews 12. The older I grow, the more I appreciate Hebrews. A few years ago, I started to learn it off by heart. I haven't really focused on that for a while, but I should get back to it for the good of my soul, or something like that. I love the logical development of arguments, the use of other verses and the themes explore throughout.

Hebrews 12 is an intensely encouraging reminder to keep on keeping on in faith. I had that song from the Worship book at my baptism (thirteen years old and so unprepared for life! it hasn't even been a decade but my faith has changed so much in so many ways I didn't expect at the time!) that quotes the start of it - Let Us Run. It's funny how God puts things in place to prepare you for what's to come. Part of why I've really paid attention to that part of Hebrews is because of that song, and having had it at my baptism; but I chose it almost entirely because I liked the music, and I wanted more than just hymns. (That, incidentally, was a callback to my days in the ecclesia I grew up in, and badly missing singing anything other than hymns, between the ecclesias in both countries I was bouncing between at the time.)

I don't remember what other songs I had at my baptism (only that Uncle, when I gave him five songs, gave me a look and said something about how I expected him to fit five songs into four song slots? and then rearranged things so there were five after all).

No need, I think, to explain endlessly just why the idea of there having been so many before us who endured Despite Everything is so important to me. But look. God has plans in place long before we realise, or before we need their results. I wonder what plans he's putting in place right now? I wrote a poem yesterday that mentioned God as a weaver, and had a line something about the 'shining God-threads' through our lives. Didn't really like a lot of the poem, though the concept was sound; the execution was poor. Anyway I think it's just interesting and really neat.

If you endured my rambling thus far, what is or are some of your favourite passages and why?

Go with God :)

[l-e-morgan-author]

If something that didn't bother you at the time comes back to haunt you today, remember to be gentle with yourself about it, even though it didn't happen today.

I'm thinking, for no apparent reason, of something that I think I only told one person about at the time, and even though it was quite a long time ago, find it occasionally difficult to think about let alone talk about. If we exclude my first year of life, I'm pretty sure this is the closest I've ever been to actually dying, and it wasn't even *directly* mental health related. It was during my most severe ED relapse, after I reached (and rapidly rebounded from) my lowest adult weight. It was maybe ten or eleven at night, and I was doing that terrible habit I'm currently trying to break, of reading stuff on my phone in bed. Felt a bit out of it; pulled up my trusty clock app and took my heart rate.

Guidelines in Australia have criteria for advised hospital admission in known ED cases. The exact number doesn't matter, but I was indeed experiencing severe bradycardia that warranted a medical admission. I kept tracking it. I know for sure that it stayed below that magic 'your heart could actually literally stop anytime' number for at least half an hour without rising above it. During that time, it got worse. My hands went almost entirely numb and my vision was unsteady; you know when you're dizzy and every heartbeat renews your vision just enough to see things slightly clearly, but it's fading before the next beat rather, because your heart simply isn't up to the task right now? That. Hypoxia without the reserves to compensate for it.

I wasn't thinking clearly. I stayed sort of curled up and wondered if I was going to die when I went to sleep (because heart rate drops during sleep), but I also didn't care, because I was so thoroughly out of it. Eventually I thought about the whole sense of impending doom thing that's said to happen in cases where people are about to experience something near death, decided that wasn't happening, figured I'd be fine and went to sleep. Clearly I didn't die, but I don't think my suspicions of potential death were unwarranted. The next day I told a dear friend what had happened, wrote a scene putting that experience onto one of my characters, and figured I was fine, since I'd woken up and all. I told nobody in my direct, real-life circle, including medical professionals.

I have experienced that degree of bradycardia both before and since, including once in a doctor's office. (It was, bizarrely, brushed off as no problem.) I have never before or since experienced those other symptoms.

Tonight, I am safe. I am drinking hot chocolate, listening to one of my favourite albums (The Seekers' Seen In Green) and thinking about starting a new project tomorrow once I have time to jump down a research rabbithole. Tonight, apparently, my brain wants to rehash that one time I'm pretty sure I nearly died and didn't even care.

I would not go back to that time for anything, now. You really don't need the concept of an after-death hell at all when you have an eating disorder or any other kind of addiction. These things are hell on earth, and sometimes you can be trapped in that hell for a long time, because freedom is more terrifying than any cage. But tonight I am safe, and once I finish my hot drink, I will go and read a bit of a good book instead of doomscrolling.

Be gentle with yourself. You are the only human who really knows what is hurting you. Your problems are not unique, but they do matter. If you're someone for whom helping others is important, remember that if you destroy yourself, you cannot as effectively be of assistance. You need to be healthy enough in every way to operate at full capacity; but it's not easy. The road is long and worth the walking.

Go with God, and reach out to people, tell them what you're going through and allow yourself to be carried when you need it.

[l-e-morgan-author]

[l-e-morgan-author]

Perhaps it was worth it—all this. Maybe the taste of good food, and the smile on his face, and the sense of warm comfort that came with being properly fed, was enough. Maybe she didn’t need to walk away from everything in search of an ideal she would never find enough when she reached it. Maybe life did have some softness, after all, that didn’t need to be cut out. And afterwards she rolled over and went to sleep in the scented darkness of the ward, while Vaniah sat by her bed and held her hand. At some point in the evening he would slip away, and she might wake, but for now she was warm and safe and protected and had nothing to fear. Even then, when he left her behind, she would still be safe.

[l-e-morgan-author]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64863319

posted on my main as a tumblr post but here's the crosspost to AO3

[l-e-morgan-author]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/63327904

A little scifi for you - just under 1k, standalone.

[l-e-morgan-author]

She lay asleep, but did not quite look peaceful. They were supposed to look peaceful—when they were helpless. That was how people were supposed to work. Not like she was experiencing some unknowable and unreachable pain. He wrapped his strong, scarred hand gently around her insubstantial, bony one, and sat with her while time passed them by. “Wake up, love, and together we will fly,” he whispered to her. Anneka did not respond, but lay in her tortured sleep far away from him. Perhaps she had never been close; perhaps his life was a game of pretend, while God laughed. At last he remembered the responsibilities she had deemed less important than the obsession she could not control and dared not reach to him for help with. At last he let her pale bloodless hand slip from his warm grasp and stood up. “Wake up, love, and together we will live.” The words trailed off, his face working. “But you have to wake up….” He would have kissed her forehead, but was afraid of disturbing the medical paraphernalia keeping her alive right now, so he left without a backwards glance or lingering touch. Outside the day had faded like a worn-out garment; it was damp and cold, and the sky had forgotten it was summertime. Vaniah shivered, the dull air cutting like a knife. It had been warm and sweet when Anneka walked beside him last. Now, alone, it held all the bleakness of winter and none of its tragic beauty.

[l-e-morgan-author]

Post for Love Week 2025!

[l-e-morgan-author]

Crowdsourcing thoughts. If I've already done so and forgotten, sorry lol.

Currently, I plan for Hands Made for Gentleness to be told solely through Anneka's viewpoint. I have written other scenes and one short story from Vaniah's viewpoint (or others as well? I can't remember), but do not intend to include them except possibly as an appendix or something, Tolkien style :P In part, that depends on the total word count and therefore page count of the novel itself, which obviously isn't something I can for-sure predict especially before I complete the first draft.

I have run into a snag.

There is a point at which Anneka is extremely ill and totally out of it for a goodly chunk of time; I haven't yet figured out how long that will be, or how long she'll be too busy in the immediate first stages of recovery to really notice all the things around her. But the stuff that happens while she's unconscious and all that is juicy. I'm writing a scene from Vaniah's point of view right now, and I just checked and it's up to 3k; likely to get at least 5k before I hand back the point of view to Anneka and continue as I'd planned.

It seems clunky to have this the only scene from his point of view during an entire novel, just out of place. At the same time I really don't want to make it dual-POV; I neither want nor think it would be edifying to get too much into Vaniah's point of view for a lot of the book. It's just so incredibly dark, and would bog down the hopeful themes.

But there is so much I'm digging into in this scene, that I don't really know how to convey in any other way. The way he responds to everything, all the things that come up, the dynamics with other characters, it's so good and I don't want to just not show it.

Thoughts? What should I do?

[l-e-morgan-author]

Decided to hastily format it as a google doc. Annoyingly, my PDF is having fun breaking the font layout, so I can't share that at present. (It also has some Helvetica hiding, because Scriv has a love affair with Helvetica and likes to sneak blank Helvetica spaces into compiled documents... whyyyye.)

@inklings-challenge

My Christmas novella, "Hands of Tradition", is completed for 2024! Didn't go in directions I expected, but I like it all the same. I wrote a chapter every day (well - a chapter for each day, though I fell off the wagon at the very end) leading up to Christmas. Each chapter corresponds with that date. It's about Vaniah and Anneka's first Christmas with a child, and is largely fluffy and Christmassy. Links are below the read more; because of how many chapters it is, I decided not to write up a paragraph with links embedded like last year. It's a single cohesive story, but doesn't require any context to understand it (though it'll probably be enjoyed more with context).

Please let me know what you think of it, with all the feedback you'd like to give! Including criticism. I'm not super good at fluff, but I had fun here, especially given Hands Made For Gentleness is decidedly not a fluffy novel in and of itself. This is longer than I intended and also longer than last year's story "The Patience of Hope", which was only 12 chapters. (You can check that out on my website too.)

I can provide the complete text in another form, such as PDF (properly formatted) or Google Doc, on request. The total word count is 26,747 words, which very comfortably brings it to novella territory.

More stories, rambles or snippets about these characters are available both on my AO3 and on request.

One: Sunday

Two: Dress

Three: The Stranger

Four: Microchip

Five: Christmas Special

Six: Resting

Seven: Wakefulness

Eight: Comfort

Nine: Cake

Ten: Periwinkle

Eleven: With Polish

Twelve: Surprise

Thirteen: Jet Engine

Fourteen: Petri Dish

Fifteen: Church

Sixteen: Figuring Things Out

Seventeen: Habits

Eighteen: Making Up

Nineteen: Decorating

Twenty: Cooking

Twenty-one: This Dance

Twenty-two: Lost

Twenty-three: Lonely

Twenty-four: Christmas Eve

Twenty-five: God Bless Us, Every One

Epilogue: New Year's Day

[l-e-morgan-author]

After "Hands of Tradition", what's next for Vaniah and Anneka, you might ask? With that nice, feel-good ending, where do they go after that; what happens in the subsequent parts of Hands Made for Gentleness?

Haha, funny you should ask.... The answer is pain and suffering. They do survive. Just.

I'm not kidding about the 'just'. Where I'm up to writing - which is about, eh, a month or two after Christmas - a chain of events just kicked off. It's getting worse rapidly, but in a few hundred words, it's going to get so, so much worse.

I wonder how many times the ordinary person is in genuine life-threatening danger in their lifetimes? 'Cause both of them have been several times (I think; not quite so sure that Anneka has). But... tee hee hee, as my brother would say.

Bring on the life-threatening danger. Somebody's about to be emergently hospitalised.

[l-e-morgan-author]

Hands Made for Gentleness

@stealingmyplaceinthesun

@noisette-tornade

@choasuqeen

@graycedelfin

@esters-notepad

entire novella! all finished! all posted! please read I love you

@inklings-challenge

My Christmas novella, "Hands of Tradition", is completed for 2024! Didn't go in directions I expected, but I like it all the same. I wrote a chapter every day (well - a chapter for each day, though I fell off the wagon at the very end) leading up to Christmas. Each chapter corresponds with that date. It's about Vaniah and Anneka's first Christmas with a child, and is largely fluffy and Christmassy. Links are below the read more; because of how many chapters it is, I decided not to write up a paragraph with links embedded like last year. It's a single cohesive story, but doesn't require any context to understand it (though it'll probably be enjoyed more with context).

Please let me know what you think of it, with all the feedback you'd like to give! Including criticism. I'm not super good at fluff, but I had fun here, especially given Hands Made For Gentleness is decidedly not a fluffy novel in and of itself. This is longer than I intended and also longer than last year's story "The Patience of Hope", which was only 12 chapters. (You can check that out on my website too.)

I can provide the complete text in another form, such as PDF (properly formatted) or Google Doc, on request. The total word count is 26,747 words, which very comfortably brings it to novella territory.

More stories, rambles or snippets about these characters are available both on my AO3 and on request.

One: Sunday

Two: Dress

Three: The Stranger

Four: Microchip

Five: Christmas Special

Six: Resting

Seven: Wakefulness

Eight: Comfort

Nine: Cake

Ten: Periwinkle

Eleven: With Polish

Twelve: Surprise

Thirteen: Jet Engine

Fourteen: Petri Dish

Fifteen: Church

Sixteen: Figuring Things Out

Seventeen: Habits

Eighteen: Making Up

Nineteen: Decorating

Twenty: Cooking

Twenty-one: This Dance

Twenty-two: Lost

Twenty-three: Lonely

Twenty-four: Christmas Eve

Twenty-five: God Bless Us, Every One

Epilogue: New Year's Day

[l-e-morgan-author]

@inklings-challenge

My Christmas novella, "Hands of Tradition", is completed for 2024! Didn't go in directions I expected, but I like it all the same. I wrote a chapter every day (well - a chapter for each day, though I fell off the wagon at the very end) leading up to Christmas. Each chapter corresponds with that date. It's about Vaniah and Anneka's first Christmas with a child, and is largely fluffy and Christmassy. Links are below the read more; because of how many chapters it is, I decided not to write up a paragraph with links embedded like last year. It's a single cohesive story, but doesn't require any context to understand it (though it'll probably be enjoyed more with context).

Please let me know what you think of it, with all the feedback you'd like to give! Including criticism. I'm not super good at fluff, but I had fun here, especially given Hands Made For Gentleness is decidedly not a fluffy novel in and of itself. This is longer than I intended and also longer than last year's story "The Patience of Hope", which was only 12 chapters. (You can check that out on my website too.)

I can provide the complete text in another form, such as PDF (properly formatted) or Google Doc, on request. The total word count is 26,747 words, which very comfortably brings it to novella territory.

More stories, rambles or snippets about these characters are available both on my AO3 and on request.

One: Sunday

Two: Dress

Three: The Stranger

Four: Microchip

Five: Christmas Special

Six: Resting

Seven: Wakefulness

Eight: Comfort

Nine: Cake

Ten: Periwinkle

Eleven: With Polish

Twelve: Surprise

Thirteen: Jet Engine

Fourteen: Petri Dish

Fifteen: Church

Sixteen: Figuring Things Out

Seventeen: Habits

Eighteen: Making Up

Nineteen: Decorating

Twenty: Cooking

Twenty-one: This Dance

Twenty-two: Lost

Twenty-three: Lonely

Twenty-four: Christmas Eve

Twenty-five: God Bless Us, Every One

Epilogue: New Year's Day

[l-e-morgan-author]

These lines (first from the films, thereafter from the books) taught me something profoundly essential about how to be there for a friend, a lover, or a loved one when they are consumed by despair, weighed down by grief, or overwhelmed by the weight of mental torment. It taught me that some burdens are sacredly personal; untransferable tasks that each of us must face in our own time and way.

Yet, while we cannot take their pain or carry their burden for them (no matter how much we wish we could), there is something else we can do. While we cannot lift their burden, we can lift them. We can carry their weary body, their weary heart, as they bear the weight of their pain. In doing so, we offer them a sanctuary — a place of care and safety, where they can begin to confront their hurt without the fear of being alone in its gaze.

While the pain may be theirs to bear, the journey through it need not be traveled in solitude.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, I love you.

[l-e-morgan-author]

Goals for this year just dropped!

[l-e-morgan-author]

All twelve chapters of The Patience of Hope have now been released! I ended it a day later than planned because I had to take one of the days off, but with the last chapter having just been posted, that wraps up this story, which clocks in at 18,280 words and tips into novella land. If you like explicitly autistic characters, hopeful themes and surety of Christian love, you might like this story.

A couple of acknowledgements - thanks to both @graycedelfin and @stealingmyplaceinthesun, who helped me with betareading. Thanks also to the @inklings-challenge; I wouldn't have written this story without the Christmas challenge it's for.

I love this story so much, and I'm delighted to share it with y'all, even though it's far from its best, having had perhaps not enough time to marinate before I shared it. I hope to edit it in future.

Each chapter was set one day after the previous one. Don't squint too hard at the worldbuilding, either, because it was sort of set in the present time but also sort of not really.

Chapter one: Nativity was for Christmas day itself. Chapter two: Stephen introduced a character and plotline that featured heavily in the rest of the story. In chapter three: John, there was a somewhat difficult conversation, and a kind-of-sort-of cliffhanger. Chapter four: Innocents looked more at how the results of that conversation were going to affect Patience. Next up, chapter five: Shepherds brought a surprising situation into the mix. Chapter six: Joseph had a spot of conflict, as well as much-needed reassurance for Patience. Chapter seven: Magi brought more fluff, as well as a necessary conversation. Chapter eight: David showed one of Patience's favourite things, knitting for people. Chapter nine: Baptism was shorter than I would have liked, and I intend to revise to add another scene at a later date, but it's okay as it is. Chapter ten: James briefly brought back a character sidelined in an earlier chapter. In chapter eleven: Mysteries, her father returned to take care of Patience and try to clarify the situation she was in. Finally, the chapter that just released (chapter twelve: Epiphany) contained a hard conversation, surrounded by discussions of Bible verses and wordplay, and closed the story on a hopeful note.

Thanks for reading, and please reblog this post, and please tell me what you think of the story! Also see the most recent story on this post (or one of my most recent tumblr posts), for a short story from Rhona's POV during the events of Patience, Changing, "Patience in Recovery"!

[l-e-morgan-author]

it's me