Utah Just Doesn't Cut It Sometimes

It's not really hate. I just need rural Virginia. I need it like people need air to live. If I didn't get to go home over Christmases at least, I would probably die. Literally.

This song embodies pretty much every nostalgic, homesick-esque, love for the middle of nowhere sentiment that I have right now.





Today was one of those homesick days. It's not homesickness like I miss my mom and dad. Although I do like visiting home too. But it's homesickness like I miss trees, and rolling hills, and good sunrises. And mist in the woods. And winding roads.

And this:

This is the Shenandoah River

This is the Potomac

This is the land between our house and the neighbor.

This is the street where I live.

These are on the street where I live.

Also this:

Texting

Texting is supposed to be the simple, most immediate form of communication.

And it used to be, for me.

But ever since I've been getting my editing groove on, I just can't send quick texts anymore. There's always proofreading, fixing, and it ends up taking me forever. Some things don't even matter, but I have to fix them. I just have to.

Yes, it's kind of a pain. But I suppose it's better than ending up with this:

Or this: 

The Life of a Writer

All the necessary antidotes to writer's block:

Glasses off
Computer on
Chocolate
Fantasy music
Assorted plastic weaponry
Ninja Pants





In case anyone is wondering, yes the katana does help. Meditative pose... not so much.

War

I'm against war.

Anyone with even an ounce of humanity should be.

But you know what else I'm against?

• Innocent people dying for no reason
• Letting evil people have their way
• Watching my family and friends get hurt/killed
• Seeing people's rights get stomped on
• Hiding instead of standing up for important things

Pacifists (in the strictest sense) are opposed to going to war, no matter who or what is involved. There absolutely is no excuse. They duck out of serving in the military. They throw stones and shoot guns at veterans. They picket and whine and groan about how terrible war is.

So it's alright to let Hitler finish his genocide. After all, we wouldn't want a war.

Keep chopping those aristocrats' heads. It's cool.

Xerxes, Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon all want to become world dictators. nbd.

Yes, war is bad. And there are a lot of wars that didn't need to happen. But wars aren't generally started by the good people, are they? The job of the good people is to stop the bad ones. And you can't do that by sitting around. You can't do it by watching. And you can't do it by being violent toward the people who are trying to help.

When a war starts, the good guys have a choice: fight back, do nothing, or join the other side. Fighting back is bad, because people die in horrible places, doing horrible things.

But isn't it worse to do nothing?

If you say you're a pacifist, all you can do is join the bad guys, or step out of the way and let them carry on. Is there really any difference?

Anyone who has an ounce of humanity will hate war. But anyone with half an ounce of humanity will defend the innocent, protect their families, and try to keep bad from becoming worse.

Agony

I'm kind of in pain right now. For a very good reason, I assure you.

I'm in a contest with 397 other people. We all submitted a picture book manuscript, and now they're being voted on. I'm number 108 right now, which isn't too terrible, all things considered. But that's not what's killing me.

The thing is, all the people who have absurdly high vote counts have really lame stories.

And I honestly don't say that because I'm jealous, or conceited, or have any sort of grand ideas about my own story. I say it out of complete objectivity. They're just... bad.

We're talking misspelled words, run-on sentences, rhymes that don't rhyme, "rhythmic books" that don't have any sort of rhythm at all, preachiness, complete lack of plot...

In short, so many thing that will always cause pain to rational, intelligent human beings. There have been several that I couldn't even finish. I even found a Your vs You're mistake! Authors just shouldn't do that. EVER.

And these people are beating me out by hundreds of votes.

Yeah, it really is more of a popularity contest than anything else. But I still retain one hope: the highest voted stories aren't the only ones that will make it to the finals round. The staff who run the contest get to choose favorites too, and I have a small amount of hope that they are actually competent in the publishing industry.

In other words, I am hoping that they won't allow the grand prize to be taken by someone who can't write worth beans. It may not be me. I hold no grand ideas about being so vastly superior to any of these people. But if it isn't me, I just really hope that the story that wins is at least good.

PS. Vote for me:

http://www.meegenius.com/challenge/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-superhero-by-laserkid-by-sara-ansted

Nano Day the Last

Well I did it. I won Nano, and 4 days early too.

I know I didn't do a spectacular job of keeping up the blog records toward the end. I didn't keep track of my numbers either, except to log them into the nano site. But the important part is that I did it. I broke 50,000 at about 11:25 this, the evening of saturday the 26th of November.

I'm pretty sure you can see the graph on my profile here

http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/zombie-dragon/novels/aurelus/stats

if you really want.

Things I learned?

-Sometimes just pressing on is the most important thing. That can be applied to Nano and life. You'd be surprised what happens when you just wade through the hard parts. They can end up being the best parts.

-"I just don't have time" is code for "I'd like to, but it isn't as important to me as these other things." Again, applicable to Nano and life. Everyone has the same exact 24 hours in their day. What we do with it is entirely up to us. When something is important, you make time. It's always possible. It's just about priorities.

-It's really easy to justify things. Last year during Nano, I ended the first week by being 3 or 4 thousand words ahead of where I needed to be. The second week I started looking at how much a day I had left to do instead of my every day needed goal. Gradually, after being lazy and not writing as much as I could have, I depleted my excess word count and ended up several thousand words behind. So, on the last day, I was on my computer, typing furiously all day, trying to catch up and make it. I did, but only just.

This year was extremely different. I was never behind, even once. I got a good deal of excess my first week, but I ignored it. I pretended I was only exactly on track. I forced myself to still meet the same daily goal every day, even though I was so far ahead. There were days that were slow, and I just didn't make it. But I never had a day where I did less than a thousand, except for one (the wed right before thanksgiving) because I just didn't do any that day. I spent all of it hanging out with people. And doing it that way, I not only won with no stress at all, but four days ahead of time. (a 7,000 word excess).

Which is better? The second, without question. Constancy makes an amazing difference in so many things.

-A lot of things in life are more about determination than anything else. (see my other blog for more in depth on this. http://supremechancellorsra.blogspot.com/2011/11/chariots-of-fire.html )

Well, that's it for tonight, folks. Happy continuing nano to some of you, and here's to learning things about life for the rest of you. :)

Nano Day 16

Daily: 1,976

Total: 33,912

Man. At 11:59 I checked my total so I could type it into the nano website where it keeps my stats. I was 88 words short of 34k and I had one minute.

Problem: At my very best, I've only ever managed about 7o wpm. And that's when I knew what to type.

So 88 words in one minute was not going to happen. But I got enough to pass the daily goal today, which is good. I've been doing quite well with that, actually. I've only had two days where I didn't make the daily goal, but one of them was just barely barely short, and both of them were still over 1,000 words.

I'd say that's pretty spectacular. Over a thousand words every single day for 2 weeks straight.

Anyway, today's nano post has to do with something I realized while contemplating my intense contempt for Christopher Paolini.

(Why so much contempt? See this post on my other blog:http://supremechancellorsra.blogspot.com/2011/11/non-spoiler-inheritance-review.html )

Huh, I guess if you count all these blog posts, my word count is even higher.

Anyway, it was about rejections. As in career oriented rejections, not getting dumped or bullied, or whatever. Rejections, in this case, specifically for writing.

Getting rejected hurts. (I would know.) No one likes to realize that they aren't as good at something as they used to think they were. It's painful soul-deep, especially when it comes to your life dream. But it happens because it has to.

Rejections weed out those who aren't into it with their whole being.

Rejections make you evaluate yourself. They force you to make yourself better.

Rejections make you work harder.

Rejections make you learn more about your field.

Take American Idol, for example. Or any other of those reality tv shows. Notice how many people go on these shows and then refuse to learn. They refuse to take any sort of criticism.

They call it "being true to myself" and "not letting morons discourage me." Those are just euphemistic ways to say "I know better than anyone else." (Obviously not always, but in these cases, it definitely is.) The people who go on to win are always the ones who accepted rejections and used them to improve.

Without rejection letters, the book market would be even more of a slovenly mess than it is. There would be oodles of trash, and barely anything good to read. The truly quality works would be lost amidst the rubbish.

Sad, but true.

Rejections, more than anything else, are what will make us reach our potential. Do you have the gumption to walk through that fire?