Happy December 2023! Or Post-NaNoWriMo 2023

Happy December 2023! Wait, what? How did the time fly by like this?

Well, the streak has finally broken: I didn’t make it to 50k words for National Novel Writing Month 2023, falling short of 45,000. But, I did get past 44,500, so it’s better than zero. I’ll have to see what is salvageable, if anything was at all. There’s next year, I guess. Writing sure is a process.

The above image is/was the 2023 NaNoWriMo Writer Badge, which you can find over at the NaNoWriMo website, with more info about NaNoWriMo.

Work and life took a lot of my mood from writing and writing prep this year, unfortunately. Regardless, to all of us who did it, 1 word, 50k words, or more: we survived NaNoWriMo 2023!

On a more positive note: I was also in the middle of reading Haruki Murakami’s “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running,” a memoir of Murakami as a runner and a writer who runs. I finished reading the book, and I liked it. I am not a runner, but the book gave me a lot to think about when life is such a process for us all.

Anyway, I’ll see about posting again on Triscribe soon before the year winds down. How does the time get away from us all?! — ssw15

(cross-posted to sswslitinmotion.tumblr.com.)

Taking a Moment to Pause and Reflect 2023

Try to remember the kind of September

When life was slow and oh, so mellow.

Try to remember the kind of September

When grass was green and grain was yellow.

“Try to Remember,” from The Fantasticks.

Time passes. I find myself disliking the mantra “Never Forget,” because I’m more concerned about what we learned from remembering. If September 11, 2001, was a nightmare, we somehow came together on September 12, 2001, if my memory isn’t so hazy to recall the attempts to help each other.

Have we kept at it? Have we developed resilience and overcome hate and whatever else? Have we made a better world for everyone yet?

Or am I asking for too much with my entirely rhetorical questions? Well, yeah, I am asking for too much…

22 years ago, I was trying to figure out how to make any use of my last year in law school, and then that Tuesday happened, the horrors marring the perfect blue sky. I didn’t imagine the entirely different landscape that we’ve had since. I never imagined that all the crises and calamities we’d be through.

Photo I had taken some years ago, at the Brooklyn Promenade.

Photo of the WTC Memorial, from however many years ago now.

Another photo that I had taken at the Brooklyn Promenade from some many years ago.

In 2021, FC shared this over on Facebook, so I’m passing it along again: “Wake Me Up When September Ends” – Green Day (Cover by First to Eleven):

See here for last year’s post of September 11, 2022. I wish you all a peaceful and thoughtful day. Thanks again for being here. — ssw15