This is a chapter I wanted to share. It is posted on my Substack site, https://substack.com/home/post/p-200858625 If you would like me to provide a synopsis please let me know. Not only was the writing exciting but creating an Image of the characters in scene was incredible. Here is the picture and the chapter. Comments on writing style are appreciated. Please come by my Substack site for more of this story. https://substack.com/@crownandcandlestudio Chapter 4 Gaining comfort from her quilt, from the essence of Amma still folded into its familiar weight, Celine noticed another lump in the soft folds. Her hand closed around something small and solid she could not immediately name. She stilled, afraid to hope, and then drew it free. With disbelief, Celine gasped, knowing at last Amma truly had forgotten nothing. Caelys, Celine’s beloved doll and friend, lay nestled in the quilt's hollow, as though she had simply been waiting for Celine to find her. Her black button eyes caught the sunlight. Strands of Celine’s own hair, meticulously sewn in place, spilled loose and glossy over the limp shoulders. Caelys’ purple dress was magically wrinkle free with a white lace neckline. Celine’s gaze moved to the small feet covered by black shoes. Touching them, she remembered all the times she stood Caelys against a supporting wall or piece of furniture co Celine could read to her out loud. For only a moment the little girl smiled at the memory until she remembered. There was never going to be another such memory. Blinking away threatening tears, Celine lifted Caelys from the quilt with both hands and held her against her chest, pretending it was the doll’s breathing she heard instead of her own. Warmth spread over her. Amma had been right. She was not alone. So overcome was she that she barely felt her heart listening to the hum, suspecting nothing until the knock sounded on the wood door.

I asked you where your faith sits in your writing. The responses were extraordinary. So today I want to show you something: how the greatest writers in history answered that same question — through their work. Writers who believed... and let it show. J.R.R. Tolkien was a devout Catholic. He didn't write a religious book, he wrote hobbits and wizards and dark lords. And yet his faith filled The Lord of the Rings with themes of sacrifice, redemption, and the eternal struggle between good and evil. Tolkien believed storytelling was a sacred act, a way humans participate in God's creation. He called it sub-creation. Every time you build a world on the page, you are, in his view, doing something divine. wow! Dostoevsky was Russian Orthodox, and he wrestled with God the way a boxer wrestles: hard, sweating, never sure who's winning. In The Brothers Karamazov, one brother's intellectual atheism is set against another's simple, devout faith. The famous "Grand Inquisitor" chapter challenges the reader with probing questions about free will and divine authority. Dostoevsky didn't write characters. He wrote confessions. Also worth mentioning: Flannery O'Connor, devoutly Catholic, who said "grace must wound before it heals", and meant it in every sentence she wrote. And C.S. Lewis, who wrote children's fantasy as a direct act of Christian faith. Now... Writers who didn't believe... and let that show too. Albert Camus was born Catholic and became an atheist. He became known as "the philosopher of the absurd", his philosophical essay The Myth of Sisyphus grappled with the question of why you should not give up on life, given that the universe has no inherent purpose. And yet Camus believed in decency, in human solidarity, in resistance. He found meaning without God, and that search became his greatest story. Ernest Hemingway was raised religious and walked away. He once wrote: "All thinking men are atheists." His prose reflects it, stripped of ornament, stripped of comfort, stripped of anything you can't see or touch. His characters don't pray. They drink, fish, fight, and try to hold themselves together in a world that offers no guarantees. There is a kind of brutal honesty in that which is its own form of spiritual courage.

I have reached the point where I feel like I have stared at my manuscript for so long that I can no longer objectively evaluate it and get it ready to upload. My book, When You Don't Know What to Say: How to Turn Overwhelming Situations Into Clear, Professional Documents That Get Results, is completed in draft form, but I need help getting it across the finish line. If you have experience with editing, proofreading, formatting, KDP publishing, or if you know someone who does, I would love to connect with you. To be completely honest, I've reached the point where I am feeling overwhelmed trying to do every part of the process by myself. Rather than putting the book on the back burner, I'm asking for help from people who may have strengths in areas where I am struggling. If you're willing to take a look or know someone who might be interested, please send me a message. Thank you all for reading. Stacey

Hi, Marcello. I loved this article. As I read I saw where I could improve my premises and immediately began thinking. Thank you so much. 👍❤️

Something happened last month that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. The Commonwealth Short Story Prize, one of the most respected literary awards in the world, announced its regional winners. Then the accusations started. Three of the five winning stories were flagged by AI detection platforms as likely generated entirely by artificial intelligence. One hundred percent of the text. Not assisted. Not inspired. Generated. The writers denied it. Granta, the prestigious British magazine that published the stories, didn't pull them. They even asked an AI chatbot to determine whether the stories were written by a human. The chatbot said yes. The internet said otherwise. Nobody was officially disqualified. Nobody confessed. And here we are. I use AI. You probably know that. I use it to brainstorm, to cerate graphic and some video trailer for my stories (check my Substack). I don't think AI is the enemy of writers, I think laziness is. We used to write on paper with ink, and then computers came along. But there's something that troubles me deeply about this story. Not the scandal itself. These were writers who entered a competition for human storytelling. Who accepted an award for human storytelling. Who let a magazine publish their work as human storytelling. Whether AI wrote it or not, they know. And they said nothing. Writing, for me, has always been an act of honesty. You sit down. You face yourself. You try to say something true. The moment you outsource that (not the craft, not the technique, but the truth) I'm not sure what's left. What do you think? Where's the line for you? 👇