Three dozen day 12/12/12

I'm calling today "three dozen day," in honor of the date 12/12/12. It will be a long while until we have another symmetrical date like today's . We'll of course have 1/3/13 and a palindrome, 3/1/13 next year, but that's not quite as pretty as the date patterns we've had going for the past eleven years, starting with 01/01/01.

To celebrate, here are three sets of a dozen goodies for you:

A dozen quotes (from yours truly)

"...truth is beautiful, no matter where you find it."
(From a guest post for Tricia O'Brien, "Make your stories sing")

"If you wait for inspiration to strike or writing conditions to be optimal, you’ll never finish anything. You have to keep chipping away at projects on good days and bad."
(From my interview on Read Review Smile)

"Gratitude is light in the darkness, friends. It is a powerful weapon against despair, a powerful creator of joy." (From "Thanks and Joy")

"A funny thing about listening to fear--it takes away your power to contradict it."
(From "Leaving Fear, Grasping Hope")

"Hope comes from being like the Magi--keeping an eye on the far horizon, watching for something good. We lose hope when unhappy things in the immediate environment consume our vision and we stop regularly scanning the horizon." (From "Following Your Star")

"...the stuff of creativity--joy, life energy, what have you--is like manna in the wilderness. It is a gift that must be gathered fresh daily." (From "Living Forward")

"The past doesn't stay in the past. It always has implications for the present and future."
(From "I've Got a History")

"Remember that where you come from shapes who you are."
(From an interview with Melissa Sarno, "Let Setting Emerge from Character")

"Real attraction, real magnetism is more deeply layered than finding someone hot. It grows out of finding something admirable in another person that resonates with who you are and want to be."
(From a guest post for Laura Pauling: "Romance is more than 'hotness'")

"The writers who do non-preachy well...succeed because the way faith deeply shapes how the characters think...around the idea of rescue and redemption, of deeply needing help themselves."
(From interview with Karen Akins, "Edgy? Clean? Writing across genre divides")

"Despite the eye-rolling, daughters know they’re valued when their dads don’t let just any guy get close to them."
(From a guest post for Tyrean Martinson, "Why Dads Matter")

"One of the most lovely things about literature is how it opens a window into other worlds, gives us a chance to understand other perspectives by living inside them for just a little while."
(from guest post for Leigh T. Moore, "Getting Real About Faith...and Doubt")

A dozen albums that inspired Never Gone

The Hurting, by Tears for Fears
Requiem, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Disintigration, by The Cure
Once Upon a Time, by Simple Minds
Macalla, by Clannad
Avalon, by Roxy Music
Mercury Falling, by Sting
Fields of Gold, by Sting
Hey Jude, by The Beatles
Optical Race, by Tangerine Dream
Thirtysomething Soundtrack
The Best of Simon and Garfunkel, by Simon and Garfunkel

A dozen British slang terms from Never Gone

barking mad / barmy / blimey / bollocks / crikey / fancy / gadding about / Geordie / git / hobgoblin / nutter / peaky

More chances to win

I also have a few giveaways going on. If you'd been hoping to win a copy of Never Gone and haven't yet, check out Read Review Smile (2 copies up for grabs) and Day 6 of  Fifteen Days of Christmas giveaway at Ramblings of a Book Junkie!

How will you celebrate Three Dozen Day? 

Categories: blog ramble, England, giveaway, links, music, quotes, slang