Novembers past, present, and...

I put on my NaNoWriMo t-shirt today for the first time in a long time and realized it's been three years since the madness. Sadly, it wasn't until several hours later that I realized it's been EXACTLY three years. See, this is November, and this is NaNoWriMo month.

(Oddly enough, when I was looking up old posts to link to, I realized I'd also called it madness then. Yeah, there's really just no better word for it.)

I stopped by the NaNo site to see if they are still selling the 2006 shirt (they're not), and happened upon a discussion board that caught my interest. Long story short, I found this and it made me giggle:

"One wordcount to rule them all
One website to find them
One month to bring them all
And in NaNoWriMo bind them
-- SynapticJam"

I don't know who SynapticJam is, but well done, my friend. Well done.

Oh, and my story? Yeah. I haven't worked on it since the summer before last. That makes me a little sad. But it's still percolating. I've had several ideas for it and am keeping them in a safe place (but not a place I'll remember where they are, mom). My more recent writing news is that I'm planning on submitting two of my short fiction pieces I've written this semester for my fiction class to the UIS Literary Journal. And after that, who knows? Further news: I wrote a short story based in Glockenspiel in the Forests of Waldweg and my teacher (who used to be an editor for fiction journals and who taught my Children's Lit class) loved it. She told me to polish it up a bit and submit it. So that's extremely encouraging. I'm not sure where I'd submit it, but I'm looking into it. So, while it's not quite NaNoWriMo, all is not quiet on the writing front.

...from ashes

More articles. Sorry.

Except, I'm not sorry.

You may have heard of Steven Curtis Chapman, and you may know his youngest daughter died under particularly tragic circumstances a little more than a year ago. He has a new album out, so there's lots of press out there right now. But this is not slick, new-album marketing; this is not glossed over in any way. This is real. This man has poured his grief and hope and anger and faith into these songs, and that is coming through in the press. I admire so deeply the way he and his family have dealt with this, not glossing over the grief, and not giving into it either; living relatively publicly that constant struggle of faith. This whole thing has touched me deeply, so I wanted to share.

So. The articles.

An interview from Christianity Today.

An article from CNN.

And, best of all, streaming music on his website. I wept through the entire first song, but not entirely out of sadness. I guess the title of the album just really sums it up.

Beauty Will Rise.