A writing birthday is something I commemorate to mark the day I decided to take a professional attitude toward my writing, in pursuit of eventual publication.
To my knowledge, the writing birthday is something I invented. I’m not 100% clear on the actual date, but most years observe it on February 12.
(Continued from Part 1)
More specifically, that post was about all the things I demanded of prospective members in order to prove their interest, commitment, and ability to do the necessary work of critiquing.
Most of these contradictions stemmed from the involvement of the medieval Church in dictating proper sexual conduct. In turn, according to Marty Williams and Anne Echols, authors of Between Pit and Pedestal: Women in the Middle Ages, the Church’s involvement was owing to the fact that,
Many theologians were completely unable to reconcile sex and the sacred because sex was viewed as something unholy and unclean (p. 86).
I’ve always found this perspective unduly negative and deterministic. Yes, many people may suffer setbacks in their yearly goals during February. Yet it’s also widely agreed that “If at first you don’t succeed…” is a valid approach to life.
For a long time, this has been my way in every form of writing that I do, from emails to work memos, from “short” stories to “short” novels.
The anniversary of the day of your arrival into this world.
And that of the day you actually became a writer.
The services it provided contributed to every key turning point in people’s existence. According to John R.H. Moorman, author of Church Life in the Thirteenth Century,
It gave first, the regular worship of the Church on Sundays and weekdays. It gave also the opportunities of Christian baptism, matrimony and burial, together with a little teaching and some spiritual direction mainly administered in the confessional. Further, it offered to the sick and the dying spiritual comfort and perhaps, in some places, medical help as well. (p. 151)
“I’m looking forward to 2016. Even-numbered years are always great years.”
To be honest, I’m not even sure what data I was basing that assessment on. When I think of recent even-numbered years, no especially noteworthy occurrences immediately spring to mind.
I tend to assume a lot of things about my skills and abilities in general. Like that time I took tennis lessons.
I’m a pretty fit and active person, so I just assumed I’d channel my inner Serena Williams and kick ass at it.
Janna G. Noelle 