Do Anger and Creating Mix?

Are You Reading Along?

Have you clicked over to Don Miller's Blog lately? You know I have, because this isn't the first link I've posted on the Relief site. He's been blogging a series on "The Way of A Creator," and I think Relief readers everywhere should be reading along.

Anger + Creation = ?

Today, his post states that "A Creator Resists the Urge to Create out of Anger." You'll want to read the whole post, but here's a quick quote:

The public only has a consciousness so big, and when you create something good, and it gets into the public consciousness, there’s less room for whatever it is that made you angry. So go and create something good, and displace whatever it is that is pissing you off.

This post has me thinking about Relief's beginnings. Part of our story is that the vision for this journal was born out of frustration. I'll be honest--sometimes "Christian" literature makes me angry. For years we've endeavored to create something that displaces the sometimes-overly-sanitized work that well, pisses us off... okay, I'm not sure I'm following Don's advice in this sentence.

Thoughts? How do you, as a creator, wrestle your anger? Do you agree with Don's advice?

Don Miller on the Church's Effect on Literature

Don Miller has a great post up this week called "Is Church Life Stifling Your Creativity?"  Here at Relief, we've often had to carefully straddle the line between offending our Christian audience (people who keep Relief alive while asking many of the questions that Miller lists) and offending our sense of craft and Relief's mission to bring the authentic to light. So check out his post and let us know what you think--we're eager to hear.

http://donmilleris.com/2011/01/05/is-church-life-stifling-your-creativity/

Relief News Tuesday 11/2/10

Relief News Tuesday is making a comeback! And we have a lot of news to share in the coming weeks. Today, we're excited to report that some great people have been printing some very nice things about us:

Relief Love from Sojourners

In their November issue, the good folks at Sojourners have included an article called "The Borderlands of Christian Publishing" which features Relief and our Founding Editor, Kimberly Culbertson. The article, subtitled "Writers who want to let both their faith and their creativity run free are finding a home in the Christian literary underground," captures and celebrates Relief's story and vision.

Sojourners is an excellent print magazine (they focus on faith, politics, and culture) but they also have a lot of great content online at sojo.net, including this article. To read online, you'll have to give them your email info, but the read will be worth it. Check it out and then leave us a comment to let us know what you think!

Want to read more? Kimberly has also blogged about seeing Relief celebrated in print. Click over to her site to check it out.

So I've decided to Nanowrimo...

If you've never been introduced to Nanowrimo, the word is shorthand for "National Novel Writing Month." The idea is that a participant will write at least 50,000 words of a novel in the month of November. It's intended to be a crappy first draft that you write while banishing your inner editor, something I'm not sure I can accomplish, but here we go anyway. November 1st marks the beginning of this adventure.  Coach Culbertson, the Founding Editor of The Midnight Diner (and my husband), created a video course called Write A Book in 30 Days, and I'm about to try it out. If you're giving Nanowrimo a go, you might want to check it out, too. There's a little bit of pre-work that you can do in these last two days of October, so click over it out right away :)