Week 10

Is it just me or have we officially hit that point in the semester when everyone's brains just kind of explode? I know mine has and, judging by the kinds of questions we've been getting at our desk in the library, I'd say this has happened to several other people at least.

Thanksgiving can't come soon enough.

I ripped through Princess Academy in the last few days [I adore Shannon Hale] and I just picked up The Screwtape Letters this afternoon. I've never read it before and I'm excited to get into it. My biggest question right now: why is his name Screwtape? Wormwood I understand as with many of the other names that have already come up but Screwtape? Seriously, what kind of demon is that? I'm assuming that it is my symbolic knowledge that is lacking here because I would never insult C.S. Lewis, though I am intrigued at the dedication made to JRR Tolkien at the beginning of this edition.

Okay, today's writing excerpt is from the big YA idea rumbling around my skull right now. It only ever comes in bits and pieces and never in an specific order but I'm working on that. In the mean time, please feel free to let me know if you think this works or not. I can take it!

Time had such little meaning here and I had nothing to mark it with even if I had wanted to. I never knew if the glimpses of the forest that I saw were given to me in my own time or if I was witness to another plane where a world experienced the seasons out of order. Though, it was more likely that the one out of order was me.

I watched the trees for a long time, trying to assess what time of year it was out there where lives were normal and being lived. October? No, November. Though many of the trees were still clothed in rich colors, others had shed their leaves entirely and I watched in pained wonder as yet another tree released a storm of leaves, a cloud of swirling color caught up by a breeze before settling upon the forest floor.

I missed autumn. Walking through the trees under falling leaves had always been a treat each year. I couldn't tell if the magic was being kind or cruel in giving me this site of the season I loved the most but would always be ever only on the brink of here in eternal summer.

I heard myself sigh, a great rushing, rumbling, and heart-wrenched sound very unlike the dainty, staged, little sighs that I had exuded in another life.