Story Embers

^^ One of my favorite poems.

I love this. Something stirred in my soul when I read this…and I wanted to cry. Thank you so much for sharing this poetry with us, Kate…and please continue to share more. You have such a beautiful way with words. ❤️❤️❤️

Yeah, I felt a bit like crying too, Eden. Lovely poem! The end makes you want to read it again.

Wow, Amazing!!!
I Love this so much. Thank you for sharing.

Ah! So lovely. <3

I read it to myself and sighed so much that I had to read it to my thirteen year old brother and even he said, “Aww..”
Beautiful work!! I agree with Eden, it really touched me…

Absolutely lovely. I really like trains in general, so your poem here just increased that liking.

Thanks!

Thank you!

I love this metaphor, Kate! Well done. 🙂

I thought I had commented, but just realized I didn’t.
This poem is lovely! The symbolism of the trains is so beautiful! I fell in love with the story interwoven in your beautiful rhyming. This is simply wonderful. 🙂

Awesome job!

Ah, I keep coming back to read this. You did a wonderful job. This might be one of my favorite poems. 🙂

short but engaging, I like how every word has purpose.
packed with truth and very picturable thank you for
sharing.

This is breathtaking! So beautiful! 🙂

Oh, I love this.

This is definitely one of my favorite poems posted to SE thus far. Thank you so much for sharing it with us Katherine!

this is SO great, Katherine! Do you live in CA, because I do and am totally with ya every step of the way there. It has rained this week for the first time in like 16 months, and I am LOVING it. (=

Well done. I enjoyed your poem a lot. Rain is such a blessing especially when it’s dry and your garden doesn’t want to grow. No moisture=no food=very very bad! 🙂 Thank God for rain!

Ooh, I think this is one of the most beautiful poems on SE! I love it! And I like rainy days too.

I’ve read this through so many times now that I can’t count. I just wanted to let you know that God used this to touch me in a wonderful way that I needed the first time I read it – and ever since. <3 "Raindrop Eyes"…what a lovely, simple, accurate way to describe something so amazing and beautiful!

*happy, content sigh* Thank you for writing about the rain. <3 I love this so wonderfully much.

Beautiful poem, Katherine! The rhymes feel natural and unique. 🙂

So beautiful, Katherine! Thank you for sharing it. 🙂

I love this! Lovely work!

Katherine, this is hauntingly beautiful. I love your last stanza, esp. because it anticipates something so much brighter and better. And I would agree with Gabrielle that your rhyme scheme and rhymes are very unique and… I’ll use that word again…beautiful. <3

Thank you, Gillian, for this wonderful article. Praying over our artistic pursuits is so huge. It was such a game changer when I started praying over my stories, and artwork. Surrendering them to Him is definitely necessary if I want them to be a light for Him.

Love this article so true. I wanna post everywhere so I can see whenever I write. Thanks for the reminder and encouragement!!!

Writing is harder for me than it used to be what with work and school and a handful of other responsibilities, I don’t write often anymore, and when I do I write with the nagging feeling that I should be doing something else. I’ve never been good at praying over my writing, but as I move forward into this scary world called adulthood, it’s pretty clear that I’m not going to get anywhere without a lot of prayer. Thank you for sharing these great thoughts. I’m gonna be thinking about them lots as I move through my hasty NaNo prep.

This is a beautiful reminder. 🙂 Thank you so much for sharing!

Loved this, Gillian! Thanks so much for the beautiful inspiration. 😀

Thank you so much for writing this. It’s never been put so clearly to me until you wrote it down, and I really appreciate your taking the time to do this. This encouraged me a ton.

I’ve believed for a while that it’s important to pray about writing, but I often haven’t known what specifically I should be praying about when I do so (other than a general request for God to help me as I write). This article was really helpful for me to think through what this can look like.

Thank you so much for this amazing article! I am so glad you have blessed us with some specific things we can pray over. I particularly liked the section on pride and confidence. So often I teeter-totter between being prideful and haughty, and then feeling woefully incompetent and useless. It’s worse when I try to conquer my pride or insecurity on my own strength because without fail I try to fix one problem by pendulum-swinging the other way. It’s a great reminder to give everything – all are insecurities or prideful tendencies – back to the Lord.
Thanks again for this wonderful reminder and help.

Great article! I especially love what you said about feeling empathy toward characters. I normally tried simply because it helped me write them better, but I hadn’t thought about it in this context before.

Wow—I love the topic you chose for your article! ❤️ You’ve certainly given me a lot to think (and pray) about. 🙂 I’ve prayed for humility before, but I never thought about praying for confidence as well. Sometimes I can get really caught up in my work, so one of the things I pray for is to remember that writing isn’t the only part of my life and that I should take a few moments to enjoy the story God is writing around me. 😊

Thanks Gillian for this article. I’ve prayed for each of these at points, but not all of them as regularly as I need to. I need the grace of God in my writing! Being in the editing stage, I especially need wisdom and patience. 😛

Wow, Gillian! Thank you for sharing this with us! It’s a beautiful reminder that God is at work through writers! It was also good to be reminded that when I pray for specific things in my writing, I will see the specific ways God is working.

Wow this is great! It sounds like something King David would write!

I love this!

EPIC! NO OTHER WORD!
TRUTH! Looks like I was wrong the first time.
THANK YOU for posting this!
I can’t write poetry to save my life, but you’ve gone and done it quite easily (at least I assume as much).

Aw, this is so beautiful!

I absolutely love it!

I love this!! <3 Beautiful and uplifting. Thanks for sharing.

Katherine, this was absolutely amazing! I loved your first two stanzas, if I have to pick any – they just sound so full of life! I have to say that this is one of my favorite poems I’ve ever read. It’s a prayer that I’ve often had many times, and it’s rhythmic and songlike – I caught myself singing some random tune in my head as I drank in your works. Thank you for writing something so relatable and true and beautiful! <3

Beautiful as always Libby! 🙂

Oh, Libby! That’s simply gorgeous!

Love the poem. Hope everlasting -our king is alive!!! Beautiful job I loved the first part because it is so true and we often forget that people who are sad and longing, are all around us. But as the ending of your poem so beautifully states there is hope for them and us because…He is alive.

Excellent work, Libby! I loved it. The poem is song-like itself, almost like a lullaby. And the array of emotion you display, from despair to hope, was beautiful. Great work.

This is beautiful.

This is beauty and truth woven together. I love it, Libby. It would make a beautiful song.

Wow! Thank you so much, Sarah! You don’t know how much that means to me. Your comment made my day 🙂 I’m so happy you liked it!

Great article!
I’m so glad someone finally found some worth in The Hunger Games. I’m miserably surrounded by people who don’t like the series.

I love when books do a good job at foreshadowing, because I love trying to guess how it turns out. I don’t mind being right about a plot twist, because I never know exactly how it’s going to come about. I thought The Selection series and The Ascendance series both had some very good foreshadowing.

I haven’t read them yet, but now they’re definitely on my list! Great article, Lindsi!
Another story with awesome foreshadowing is, in my opinion, To Kill a Mockingbird. I thought I had it all figured out through the whole book, then at the end it was like BOOM! I was quickly disillusioned, but man, was that good!

I love this to bits! Such beautiful work. 🙂

So beautiful!

Beautiful. This is one of those poems you pin to a corkboard where you can read it until you remember to believe it. <3

*whispers* This has got to be my favourite poem on the site yet. I am captivated by free verse that displays both structure and chaos tied together. Add a beautiful message like this one, and I’m in love. This is lovely, lovely work, Katherine! I hope you’ll bless us with more poetry in the future 🙂

I have no words for my love for this poem. ❤

Katherine, beautiful job! I loved the sweet simplicity of your writing and how touching it is. Wonderful, wonderful job!
Also, I may be wrong, but I think I know you. Did you used to compete in speech and debate (Stoa)? I think I met you at Nitoc 2017. 😉
At any rate, I think your poetry is beautiful and would love to see more!

This is gorgeous, Katherine!

Aww! Thanks 🙂

Thank you so much Katherine. I don’t even know what to say!

So beautiful! So true! And something I need to remember. Very encouraging.

May God Bless you soo much for reaching and touching my heart with this simple and yet precious truth!

*swallows*

OUCH.

Um, ouch.

OH! I’m crying! This is SOO good. Wow, Chelsea! Way to go!

Wow, Chelsea. Really good job.

Ahh I remember reading this! Super super great job, Chelsea, it really is a great story.

Gosh! I’m a mess.

That was excellent. Really. I felt like I was Thomas.

Thank you, Chelsea, for that journey. What an incredible gift.

These comments are paltry compared to the depth of feeling you brought into being as I read the story.

Ouch… I love this so much.

The amount of emotion and skill tucked inside this story…amazing.

Thisssss….
Thisssssssssssss……
Is. Amazing.
There aren’t even words to describe how incredible this is.
Beautiful ♥♥♥

Wow! This made me tear up… And that hardly ever, EVER, happens. As others have said, I don’t have words to perfectly describe what you did here.

The characters are so deep in their character. The pictures are vivid, resting upon the emotion of each character, which holds the power of a lightning strike.

So impact-full.

I have a new role model!

Wow. Just wow…
I’m speechless.
Ouch, but wow.

I love the way this story grabs you by the heartstrings and doesn’t let you go. There’s so much depth in Jamie & Thomas’ relationship and it’s so realistic as well. Thanks for writing this, Chelsea. It was a pleasure to get to read this. 🙂

It’s really good!! but i thought there should be more!! XD

DID SHE DIE!???

Wow! This is so powerful. Beautifully written. Good job!

Chelsea wow! It was an amazing story full of emotion and relationships that were beautifully balanced and it is in my opinion a masterpiece. That being said…WHAT HAPPENED!?! I loved it but the suspense! Did Jamie die? Did she live? Ahhhh!!! 😉

I remember reading this at some point on Ydubs, Chelsea, and I still love it. Incredible job. So proud of you!

Wow!! That was breathtaking, literally breathtaking! You certainly set the bar high! Thank you so much for sharing this stunning piece!

Well done, Libby! I loved the way you communicated your message without sacrificing the beauty of the words for the rhyme. I can’t wait to hear more of your poetry! 🙂

This poem is so sweet, Libby! 😀 I love its gentle rhyme. <3

this is so charming. it brought tears to my eyes.
well done.

Thank you so much. You’re all so encouraging and I appreciate your comments very much! They mean a lot to me.
I have worked very hard incorporating clear rhyming and rhythms into my poetry, and I’m so glad that you all liked it.

Wow…very moving. I was saddened when the man lost his child and then his wife. In a book I’m writing a similar situation occurred; and so when I read your poem I was struck with the resemblance between the two.

I hope that didn’t come off in a bad way. I really enjoyed your poem.

A beautiful piece.

GORGEOUS!!!

Thank you! 🙂

Thanks so much! Glad you liked it!

🙂 🙂

Thank you so much! 🙂

Thank you Michael for this piece. I really connected with your poem.

Awww, Grayson is so sweet! This is very well written, with crisp phrasing, snappy pace, and engaging style. Nice work!

Aw this was great! I really wanted it to just keep going for longer. 😛

Wow! What a powerful story. I was engaged the entire time. 🙂 One thing I particularly liked was your smooth interweaving of Cal’s dialogue and thoughts. They were very different, but I understood enough from her thoughts so that I could empathize when she was speaking to others. I felt her emotions rather than watched them. You connected with me as the reader very well.

This is amazing! I love how real your characters are, and how you worded things. Great job!

I love this story. It has some great subtlety as the protagonist is wrestling with these difficult issues and learning what the right course of action is. Awesome work!

Thanks! She eats the whole box of fruit loops, hopefully some ice cream, makes some cool friends, and is happy? 😂 still thinking on that part

I like this so much!!! If it was a novel I would read the whole thing almost non-stop. 😀

This is so beautiful! The main character’s thoughts are so real and vivid. And the topic on family always hits home. Are you planning on making this a whole novel? Cause I sure would love to read the rest of it. The story was just picking up pace! I wanted to read more.

Okay, wow, I really like this. I like the Grandpa. I like the mom. I absolutely love Grayson, that adorable sweet child. Good job!

I think everyone needs a friend like Grayson. He’s so sweet.
Please, please write another part to this???

*squeals* This is hands down the best article I’ve ever read on grammar or style! I think my favorite part is the ending. ❤️ Such a beautiful reminder.

This is great. I struggle sometimes about obsessing over tiny things when the big picture isn’t even right yet, so this hit home for me. Thanks for your insight, Rachel. 🙂

Oh my word. This is STUNNING! My heart paused and my spirit sighed. Thank you so much for sharing this gorgeous poem!

Mm, this is lovely. Thank you for sharing 🙂

I was emotionally touched by your poetry. It conveys a personal sense of passion, struggle, and truth that is very poignant. I liked it very much.

*shouts* Storm on!

Sorry, this poem just got me excited.

Ohhh my gosh! The picture! The title! The poem!!! I LOVE STORMS!!! This was great! I loved the enthusiasm and the image of the bowing trees. Thanks for sharing!

Oh, that’s beautiful!! Sorry I’m late… 🙂

Impressive! I tend to write 100000 words in more like /four/ months, but the words still add up.

Ooh nice! I think that this will help me. 😀 Thanks!

Wow! A lot of words. I would like to try that! This post is helpful. I hope the illness get’s better.

This is so encouraging and inspiring, and I love that it’s sprinkled with practical bits too! Congratulations on the amazing feat! Stories like this are what give me the hope and courage to press on, so thank you for sharing! 🙂