merry merry!

I've had my nose buried in work and writing lately, but I'm emerging to send you all warm fuzzy happy holiday-type thoughts.  I'm a Christmas girl myself, but whatever you celebrate - or even if you don't - please know that I'm wishing you a cocoa-and-fuzzy-socks-by-the-fire kind of next few weeks.

(warm fuzzy christmas)

(warm fuzzy hanukkah)

(non-denominational warm fuzzy)

I may or may not post again before the new year, but feel free to begin preparing yourself for an inevitably sappy Resolutions post.  (Oh, now, don't pretend you didn't know it was coming.)

Merry merry and happy happy!

the leaves, the wind

"It is a delicious thing to write,

to be no longer yourself

but to move in an entire universe of your own creating.

Today, for instance,

as man and woman, both lover and mistress,

I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves,

and I was also the horses,

the leaves, the wind,

the words my people uttered,

even the red sun that made them almost close

their love-drowned eyes."

Gustave Flaubert

speaking into the frost @ gayYA.org

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Thing You are Doing with the following announcement: 

I have a guest blog up over at gayYA.org! 

"I could probably list one hundred reasons why I write, but one of the most important is this: we only have so many opportunities in our lives to transform bad things into good. We only have so many opportunities to take things that are muddled and angry and difficult and shape them into things that matter. We can choose not to lie every day of our lives, but we only have so many opportunities to say things that are very, very true."

I really enjoyed writing this post, and I'm delighted to get to share it with you, so please head over and read the rest! 

(And for anyone who's here from there - welcome!  Come on in, put your feet up, have some hot cocoa, introduce yourself.  I'm always thrilled to meet fellow writers, bloggers, and kindred spirits.)