life. faithful.

I've gotten the opportunity to listen to just Christian music every day while I've been in Bentonville, and it has been wonderful. It may sound odd, but I've found that I've been more optimistic (not all the time—I'm human), less stressed, and more settled. Okay, I know I'm sounding a little bit like I'm trying to sell snake oil...but there's a purpose to my story. The station I've been listening to is holding a contest right now called “Dear Younger Me,” based on the song with the same name. The idea is to write a letter to yourself, and the winner of their contest gets concert tickets to a show at the AMP in July. I've decided to hold my own contest. In the comments, submit your own letter to your younger self. It can be written out in the comment, it can be a link, or you can send me an email—it's entirely up to you. I'll leave the contest open through the weekend. Then, the winner will get to pick a couple of my books for...

"Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake." ~E.L. Doctorow "What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God." ~Elanor Powell "This writing that you do, that so thrills you, that so rocks and exhilarates you, as if you were dancing next to the band, is barely audible to anyone else." ~Annie Dillard, THE WRITING LIFE A student was sent to talk to my dad a while back. She had said she wanted to be a writer, so the high school counselor told her to talk to Pop. After all, since I had written a book surely he could tell her all she needed to know about how I had done it. She asked him how I became a writer, in answer to which I'm pretty sure he laughed. He told her that I had been writing and telling stories since I was little (I can still remember taking from the time I came home until dinner was finished one ...

**First, congratulations to (drumroll, please)... Sabrina ! Thanks to random.org, your comment was selected as the winner :0) Shoot me an email at ajkilbourn(at)hotmail(dot)com...you know all the usual tricks here to keep the bots from spamming me nonstop! We'll connect and figure out just how I can make your word "intentional" into something you can look at as a reminder this year.** And now, the rest of the story... My word last year was faithful, and if you look back at my introduction to that word a year ago you'll see that one of the first stories that popped into my head was Peter stepping out of the boat in faith, amidst the crashing waves. It seemed Peter kept popping up after that, too...I guess maybe I'm drawn to those hard-headed, passionate, stubborn guys...but I digress. This year I struggled to find a word for 2013. I read other "One Word" posts, hoping maybe somebody else's word would jump out at me. When that didn't...

How many times growing up were you told to be a leader? Our society seems focused on being the leader, the one out in front all the time. We are taught to develop our leadership skills we pick team captains from childhood we strive for promotions we work hard to be at the front of the pack. I'm definitely no exception--I worked hard to become captain of my cheer squad from middle school on through my senior year, I studied to be at the head of my class and then get into the Honors Program at Tech when I started college (the first time around , anyways!), I developed the skills that would get me into grad school. I was taught to lead instead of just going along with the crowd. What if there's something else being asked of me, though? Hang with me here--if you're like me, this concept is a bit of a hard pill to swallow. What if, instead of being pushed to become a leader, I'm being asked to simply... Follow. That is my word for 2013. It found me unexpect...