next to something huge: signing back in.

I've probably clicked the little "blog" tab on my browser favorites bar three times in the last two and a half months, and every time I sit there waiting for the page to load I have this irritated little upper-lip smile because I know I should post, but I just.don't.want.to. Ah! True confessions of a writer. Reprehensibly, next to something huge has sat untouched since August twelfth--and it isn't that I think I have some massive following, but I have this sort of anxiousness about it, because if there is one thing I never want to slack on, it is writing. If I call myself a writer, I should write. And I am. Writing, that is.

From mid-July to mid-October I wrote the first draft of my second manuscript. This is big for me, as the first one took 10.5 months and is still in this massive compression chamber of editing/work/hacking/sewing it back together. But this second book has truly captivated me, as evidenced by the speed at which the first draft was drafted. Inspired by Stephen King's memoir On Writing, I disciplined myself to write almost every single day during that time period, no matter what, to fly hastily on the wings of inspiration, or to stare blankly at what amounted sometimes to a single paragraph in two hours. That's what I did, and the book is now in the editing phase. THE POINT IS, please understand (self, I am speaking primarily to you) that my absence in the blogosphere has been in the name of passionate novel creation. The tragedy is that the book is yet untitled. When I have the title, I'll post it.

But a lot has happened in the world! Jonathan Adams, the worlds most fabulous nephew, turned two and threw down. My best friends and housemates from college had a reunion for the first time since graduation in May of 2008. We threw an epic birthday cocktail party for Mark's 26th in September and had folks in the home until Sunday began to dawn. We celebrated the first era of our marriage, having read the entire Harry Potter series aloud, by spending a weekend in Universal Studios (FL) visiting the very Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We took a couple hundred kids to Young Life's Windy Gap, watched UNC beat Clemson live, stood by Erin Rawley as she became Erin Boyd, and went back to our Alma Mater, James Madison University, this weekend. Instead of stories, I bring you pictures.

1. Jonathan turns 2.