Long Day: aka This is NOT the end of the movie

When I woke up this morning I decided that I would write all day. I knew I'd been feeling better because for the second day in a row I didn't have that creepy Sleep Paralysis thing (meaning, hopefully, that I am less stressed out). I feel my life is starting to improve, except for the fact that I can't wake up when my alarm goes off to save my life.

Anyway, my plan was to write all day today. That didn't work out. Surprise, surprise. I wrote a few hundred words and diddled around with Scrivener for a while before becoming distracted by the timesuck that is Twitter for the rest of the day.

Then, around 10:15pm I started getting tweets about an upcoming speech. What was going on? Due to the types of people I follow on Twitter (sci-fi geeks, etc.) there were many joke tweets about the end of the world, how there was a meteor hurtling towards Earth, or how we'd made alien contact. But it turned out to be far more important/significant than that: after 10+ years of searching, the US had finally captured and killed Osama bin Laden.

My reaction was typically how I react to anything and everything: That's cool. Now what?

President Obama gave a very beautiful speech (kudos to his speech writer). People gathered outside the White House and the WTC and waved flags while singing God Bless America. Even Phillies fans were chanting USA! USA! during the ninth inning of a tie game versus the Mets.

It felt nice that America could take part in a similar celebration that the Egyptians did when Mubarak stepped down.

But of course, it didn't last. I didn't mind the jokes about Osama bin Laden or even the Osama's Ghost and Osama in Hell Twitter accounts that popped up. Some of the jokes were funny. What bothered me was how quickly and inevitably it turned to Democrats versus Republicans. I found it disgusting how all of a sudden everything became "Obama finished what George W started" "George W couldn't find him but Obama could." In other words, everything became all finger-pointy. And, of course, FoxNews and CNN joined in on it.

But the tweet that inspired this post essentially said that all Muslims were responsible for what happened on 9/11 and how it was "our turn to dance" on the streets after Muslims celebrated our deaths. That kind of thinking is what pisses me off. To say that an entire demographic of people is responsible for an attack of that magnitude is socially irresponsible. To say that all Muslims are responsible for 9/11 is no different from the group of Islamic terrorists who say that all Americans are money-loving heathens who must be destroyed.

You cannot take a group of extremists who happen to be Muslim and then say that ALL Muslims are extremists who want us to die. The terrorists said the same thing and we know how wrong they are, right? So what makes a person think that they can tip the scale to the other side of the Prejudice Board and claim that they're in the right as well. It's extremist thinking and has no place in the world. Least of all my Twitter feed.

Alas, the death of a terrorist does not make racism go away. It does not make terrorism go away. It does not make hatred, or ignorance, or bigamy go away either. If anything, it makes both sides more justified in their beliefs. We should not for one second pretend that Osama bin Laden's death is the end of the movie, that everyone will go home and have tea and cookies and lots of babies and the credits roll and everyone is happy. That's not how the real world works. Bin Laden's death may or may not see Al-Qaeda elevating him to martyr status, further fueling their fight against the US. America has a LOT of work to do now. We're in no position to pack up and go home.

There may be (and probably are) some Islamic extremists who believe that bin Laden's death is further proof of the US's assault on the Islamic way of life. Just as there may be (and probably are) some Americans who believe that bin Laden's death means that we were right and they were wrong and they have no choice but to accept Western-style democracy.

I long for the day where we can all take a Zen-like look at the world. When we look at our wars and all the people who have suffered because of them and let out a big WTF and knock it off. I long for the day when we can all get along because that's what we should've done millennia ago.

The mastermind behind 9/11 may be dead but that doesn't mean that terrorism is dead and we can all live in World Peace. The battle is not over. It isn't over by a long shot.

Back In It

I'm going to pick up on The Temple of the Red Velvet Jesus again. I need to get this finished. So I can be published and awesome and totally non-gloating by rubbing my book in your face.

And screw Script Frenzy. I'm just not feeling the screenwriting thing anymore. Oh, well.

So after I awake. At some point during the day as I will be very busy doing whatever, I will pull out my manuscript and get to work. Not working on it makes me feel unaccomplished and lazy. And if there's anything I hate, it's feeling lazy. (That's right, I'm a *procrastinating* workaholic. Is conflict, yes?)

At this point I'm not entirely sure how my little fledgling novel is going to end up. I've made so many changes (in my head) that I don't know where it's going. But I look forward to finding out.

I blame Twitter for this sudden desire for productivity. Since hockey season (or at least the Thrashers' season) ended I've been following more writers. There are so many writers on Twitter who either have books out or will have them out soon. I want to be one of those. I want to be published. I want to be something.

But first. I need to sleep.

Here's to dreams of publishing.

Lent Update

I know how for some people a Lent promise is more like a New Years' (Year's? Years?) Resolution in that it typically gets a lot of attention for about a week or so then is promptly forgotten. Not so for me.

Even though I have not posted since 14 March, I have not gotten my Lent promise out of my head: to NOT procrastinate.

I must admit. I have been doing a LOT of procrastinating. Take this post for example: I started writing this post about a month ago and have never been able to finish it. And now it is the day before Easter. Technically Lent is over. And I don't feel like I've come anywhere close to accomplishing my goal of not procrastinating. I feel a little like this instead.

So how did my Lent "experiment" go?

MASSIVE EPIC FAIL.

I don't know why I'm such a procrastinator. I don't know why I like to put myself under unnecessary stress. It's a bad habit that, for the sake of my health and sanity, needs to change. I don't know how I'm going to do it but it's something that must be done. If Lent can't cure my procrastinating ways, what can?

What is Lent? AKA: I'm already breaking my promise

According to Wikipedia's Lent page, because it's SOOO accurate:

Lent in the Catholic tradition, is the period of the liturgical year leading up to Easter. Lent is a time of sacrifice for Jesus. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer — through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial — for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the events linked to the Passion of Christ and culminates in Easter, the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And as I stated in my previous post, I'm trying my darndest to give up procrastinating for Lent. How is that going? Not too well.

Last night I pulled an all-nighter staying up until 5am to not just finish, but WRITE my speech about the Mozart Effect (MOZART!!!!!). I put that speech off for so long. I'd know about the speech since the first day of class in January. We were officially handed out the assignment about three weeks ago. I finally started writing it less than 24 hours away from the due date. Despite all of this I did surprisingly well.

I have no idea why I can't just sit down and do the work assigned to me in a reasonable amount of time. I don't know why I become so productive when there's hardly enough time to do the work. I guess I work well under pressure. That might be why I did so well in NaNoWriMo, a competition where you stretch the limits of your creative writing ability.

For NaNoWriMo I got off to a great start, another thing I'm very good at. There was no school, there was nothing else to do, and since both the internet and cable were out there were no distractions. But halfway through November, when the telly came back on and I could do something more besides watching Dr. Wayne Dyer on PBS for six hours, I began goofing off again. Then school started back. I went an entire week without writing a word. And that added up tremendously.

In the last week of NaNoWriMo I was once again in a mad rush. I WANTED THOSE WINNER GOODIES! (Even though I did not yet know what they would be.) Things started working out again, the cable and internet went off again, Dr. Amen and his Brain in Love program came on so much that I had memorized half of the 2-hour program, and I got back to work. I finished at 1:50am the day of the deadline and verified my word count at school. The site sent me this:

Among other things...

This was the biggest project I've ever finished. This was the first time I was ever able to finish anything of real importance for me. I was so proud of myself, despite the fact that by the last day of the 30-day contest, I no longer had the mental capacity to form a complete sentence on paper. My fingers literally locked up over the keyboard every time I tried to type, but I got it done.

Which brings me to the point of this excessive rambling: Procrastination can be a good thing. Procrastinating is what forced me to have to be creative and pull words out of my ass and put them on paper in a mostly comprehensible manner.

But it certainly would've gone a lot better had I just been able to get the words on the paper in the first place.

So come on, Lent. Bring it.

This Was Written to Pass the Bloody Time

Since I randomly decided to brutally overtake my kick-ass yet confusing Blogger template with a much less exciting yet more understandable Blogger template, I thought I might as well post some sort of...post to commemorate said happy, happy occasion.

And since my computer's clock says 12:03am, thus making it not Mardi Gras anymore, I can't say and/or do the things on this blog that I could've done just a mere three minutes ago. Sad timing there...

Anyway, I'm not a particularly religious person (maybe I'll explain why in another post, but given what I wrote on my spanking new About Me page, that most likely won't happen) but I do very much appreciate the time of Lent: where devout Catholics willingly give up something they enjoy, be it a bad habit, or a particular food, or activity, for the sake of proving their devotion and ability to resist temptation. All for the love of the Jesus.

I commend all the hardcore Catholics who can pull off such a feat, which for the normal, undevoted sinner can be as hard keeping their New Year's Resolutions. For those who manage to pull off their Lent promises or whatever they're called: I am truly jealous, thus adding more sin to my pile.

So for the sheer, self-annoyance of it, I, a devout non-Catholic, will give up something for Lent as well. And this one is a doosie, because this is something that pretty much defines my life, and existence. Something that without it, I would feel incomplete. That's right world: I'm giving up PROCRASTINATING.

Just in time for my new About Me page in which I so proudly proclaimed my procrastination. I even hailed myself as a Professional Procrastinator. This will be a true test of faith, self-ability, endurance, and any other trait I don't have but will list here for the sake of listing.

How will I do this? When I have a task, I will do it. I will not make excuses. I will not put it on the back burner and completely forget about it until it's almost too late. I will sit my ass down and work until it's done. Which most likely means I will not be wasting as much time on the internet/staring at telly as before.

Imma duke it out. Let's hope I can pull it off.

And for the record: How is my Resolutions coming?

They isn't...

Maybe this midnight epiphany will change that.

I've got the W and the T, I'm sure that F is around here somewhere. AKA: What to do when betrayed by a corporation

Okay, so my To Do List goes as follows:


Clean my room


Work on my novel revision


Exercise


Fix blog errors


Oh, and save the Atlanta Thrashers organization from their neglectful overlords.


That last one might be a doosie. But for those of you who don't know, The Atlanta Spirit Group, an at one time 9-person group of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and obscenely rich men who ventured out to by the Atlanta Thrashers, Atlanta Hawks, and the operating rights to Phillips Arena, recently admitted that they'd been trying to sell my favorite hockey team for the past 6 years, after denying that rumor profusely.

For quite some time Thrashers fans at Phillips Arena have been subject to scores of Quebecois sporting the now defunct Nordiques jerseys, hoping to snag up a struggling team to add to their collection of hockey memorabilia. The people of Hamilton, Ontario also were hoping to get their frigid Canadian paws on my Thrashers, while all the while, the now 7-man Imperial Senate, I mean Atlanta Spirit, LLC said, "No, we don't want to sell. We don't want to relocate. We want to bring championships to Atlanta and build the Hawks and... what's that other team's name?"


The two main co-conspirators even sent the fans of the Hawks and Thrashers this letter saying things that we now know they didn't mean. Things like "our goals remain the same as when we bought these teams: to bring Stanley Cups and NBA Championships to the fans in Atlanta" and "We dream of being a part of the crowd and the city that rallies with pride around the excitement that comes with being a part of the hometown team" and " have a great New Year". After claiming they didn't want to sell for so long, we suddenly find out on 21 January 2011 that not only did they want to sell the Thrashers, they never wanted the team at all, and they bought the Thrashers simply because they were a "packaged deal" or "easy flip." Talk about a slap to the balls.


It basically read like a form letter, you know: "Dear so-and-so. We really appreciate your support of insert team name here and hope for continued support of insert team name here in the future. I've many times seriously wondered if the Atlanta Spirit realized they own a hockey team. I'm not a basketball fan, but I think they've, for the most part, put far more effort into the Atlanta Hawks than the Atlanta Thrashers. After all, there were never any rumors of the Hawks being sold. Some of the owners went to several Hawks games, not so much the Thrashers, games though.

Three of the Thrashers' caretakers (left to right): Ed Peskowitz, Michael Gearon and Bruce Levenson at a Hawks game, not Thrashers. (Curtis Compton)

Think of it this way: the Atlanta Hawks would be the favorite child, the one who gets a car on their 16th birthday, and the college fund, while the Thrashers would be the neglected child who's lucky to get dinner every night. Or you could think of it like you're going on vacation, you leave your house to the care of dear friends, people you'd trust with anything, and you come back to find your home completely trashed. The Atlanta Spirit has taken a team with a tremendous amount of potential, and made sure that they were run right into the ground. 


But despite the negligence and fraud that I firmly believe the Atlanta Spirit could and perhaps should be charged with in a legal setting, my Thrashers have improved, slightly, despite having the odds stacked tremendously against them.


So to save my beloved Atlanta Thrashers from their negligent overlords, I have devised several plans. Some are as far-fetched as winning the lottery and buying them myself and asking Oprah for the money. Others are much more plausible like getting the fans involved in helping to overthrow the establishment. Hey, it worked in the French Revolution. The Thrashers could be a publicly-owned team like the Green Bay Packers, or they could be turned over to be run by the NHL like the Phoenix Coyotes. I think the NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is on the team's and fan's sides and would love to see hockey thrive in Atlanta, as would the fans. But the thing is we need to get the fans involved, that is if there are any fans left after the Atlanta Spirit has tried their darndest to drive them away.


Bottom line is: The Atlanta Spirit, LLC is a group of Imperial Senators, and I think it's high time they were impeached. Or at least got their name changed to something more reflective of their "business tactics".


Sources include: Jeff Schultz, Bill Tiller (Rawhide), and Kristi E. Swartz

Revision

After finally getting through the read through of my work-in-progress "The Temple of the Red Velvet Jesus", I have decided that I hate how my two main characters meet. The original beginning was that they would meet at some sort of "love yourself" assembly at school. I quickly moved to it being a school assignment in English class, then Sociology class, but now I've decided to go back to an assembly of sorts.

My novel has taken a turn for the dark. And I think that's for the best. I'm not good at writing happy stories. So the new beginning is this:

My main character Ryan has a friend (not invented yet) who kills himself. Ryan is a bitter kid, gloomy, and depressed. It's at some sort of class counseling that Ryan and Forrest meet. The first part just seemed way to sitcom-y for me to continue to use it.

So, in closing: the story just got that much better, that much more focused. The bad news is I have to rewrite the first 40 pages or so just to make it fit. Oh, well. It's for the best.