An anthology review, grieving in writing, and more!
Dec 10, 2024 10:52 pm
Hi ! I hope you're having a great day!
As you may know probably didn't notice, I haven't sent out one of these in months. SendFox quit working on me and I kept procrastinating on figuring something out. I think I've got it working now, though. Let me know if something doesn't look right.
Writing update:
Honestly. . . I don't even remember what had happened with my writing last before I quit sending emails. In the first two weeks of November I drafted Breathe Praise Sing, an almost 10k novella loosely inspired by the real life of Kanasy Yeager, while ignoring my social media and email notifs for the most part. There's more information at the bottom of the email. (I promise this isn't a ploy to get you to read the whole email, I just couldn't think of anywhere else to put it.)
After that I finished drafting Home on the Highway, a short story that I hope to post on my blog soon-ish. A few days ago I finished another short (very short) story called Imperfect. I'm planning on participating in the Ninety Day Novel Writing Challenge starting in January.
I am a published author! I was published in a poetry anthology by Skillful Pen Press called Between the Lines. You can find out more and purchase it here.
Life in general update:
Probably a lot of important stuff has happened and I forgot what I have and haven't told you. My team (Obsidian Wolves) won the Fellowship Competition in the Young Writers Workshop community. YWW has really been a blessing to me and my writing, and I think that most of my email subscribers came from there.🤣
Song recommendation:
Tell Your Heart To Beat Again by Danny Gokey. I just. . . I love this song so much. And it's helped me so much.😭💔
Poem or writing excerpt:
Today's poem is something I wrote for myself and then later put into Breathe Praise Sing, from the perspective of the fictional main character, Lexi:
Tears:
They tell me it’s ok to cry
That grief is natural, but I-
I don’t want to cry.
I don’t want to hurt.
I want to keep on believing that everything’s ok
Even though it never works.
Who even sees my broken heart?
Who would care if I fell apart?
In all the hurt, in all the smart,
Do I even care if I see the sunrise?
The light is beautiful
But it hurts your eyes.
But I hear a whisper saying
“You can cry, but keep praying
Sometimes hurt heals us better than staying
Away from the painful things.
You’re drowning right now, but I’ll be your lifeboat
I’ll lift you up on eagle’s wings.
“Peace, be still and know
I AM GOD and you can throw
All your pain on me, so
Just let me take the pain.”
So I know it’s ok to cry and hurt
For He will wash away the stain.
It sure hurts to look at the sun
And take the pain, but with Him it can be done.
And the sacrifice of the Son
Shows us death is not the end.
Oh yes it hurts, it hurts so much.
But I know that the pain WILL end.
Art:
I've been getting more into digital art lately, so I'm going to share my drawings of my character Gale and her dog-wolf Hasana:
Spotlight:
Voices of the Future Volume Four: Stories of Adventure and Imagination. I LOVE this book! My favorites are The Hungry Woods by Victoria Shanks and The Journal in the Attic by Kira Rosengren. You can read my review of it here.
The Word:
If you have a request of a verse I should do, feel free to recommend it! You are welcome to download this verse graphic and share it. The KJV version is public domain.
New Blog Posts:
How to make pumpkin pie spice crazy cake
How to make a (somewhat) professional-looking book cover from a photo
Trust: a devotional featuring my cat Nolas
New You Tube video: Broken mirror - Anna Kailin Fletcher - Official Lyric Video
Voices of the Future volume 4: Stories of Adventure and Imagination, a review
Who is Kanasy Yeager, what is Breathe Praise Sing about, etc.:
Alright, I haven't talked to anyone, not even my mom, about this other than my friends on the YWW community (because they know all about it) so please bare with me. I'm not very good at explaining things.😅
So as I mentioned above, I'm part of the YWW online community. There was a teenager girl on there named Kanasy Yeager who died from lung cancer about two weeks after I joined. I didn't have a chance to get to know her, but after she died I heard a lot about her. It hurt that she was such an amazing person and yet she died so young. I learned so much about her that I felt like I knew her. I heard about how she lost her arm and still praised God. About how she was put on hospice because of her lung cancer and still kept hoping. Some of Kanasy's last conversations on YWW she ended with "Death is not the end". But I never told anyone outside of YWW because I was (and still am) afraid they would think it was stupid for me to grieve someone I never even knew.
So I took the person Kanasy and made her into a character in a fantasy world. I created a fictional character named Lexi to be her sister, and I poured out all my feelings in the story during the month of November. Writing was the only safe way I could vent my sorrow.
So Breathe Praise Sing is a story of a real person in a fantasy world, a story of grief and healing, hope and sorrow. And someday I'm going to share it with the world.
I'd love it if you'd reply and tell me what you think of today's email, how you're doing, if you knew Kanasy, if you've read (or want to read) Voices of the Future, and anything else you'd like to share!
Anna Kailin Fletcher
For those of you who subscribed directly from my website. . .
I have a special thank-you gift for subscribers, but it comes in an email right after you sign up, and that email only goes out if you sign up directly from sendfox.com/LoveisLight. So you can access it here.
If you know someone who might be interested in my website and email list, I'd appreciate if you'd share sendfox.com/LoveisLight and annakfletcherwriter.weebly.com
And if anyone misses my newsletters on weeks I don't send them out, my friend and fellow young writer Eris also has an email list that goes out in between my weeks. You can sign up at sendfox.com/shardsofrhythmanddreams.
