Bare Trees

From 2012-01-08

I fell in love with Fleetwood Mac listening to Christine McVie (formerly Christine Perfect) singing "Spare me a Little of Your Love" at a concert on Halloween, 1974. Discussing the album that song is from-- Bare Trees-- and the title song on the roof of the Georgia Tech physics building, looking out over the campus on a winter day, I realized how much I loved bare trees. Or perhaps just admitted it to myself.

Either way, my love for the band and this song indelibly intensified in that moment.

Gazing out at the Party Tree (https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150441664891674.357408.636186673&type=3) this morning, this song naturally came to mind. All of creation is beautiful. It is only our foolishness or pain that keeps us from seeing that beauty.

Impersonalizing Suicide

A blogger I follow recently discussed visiting a psychiatrist and having to fill out a (poorly thought out and worded, at that) suicide questionnaire. You know, like when you visit a new doctor, and they want to know whether you have ever had polio or Chron's or amnesia, and when your last booster shot for political insanity was.

I'm not a professional counselor, psychiatrist, or even a professional psycho (I'm strictly amateur) but I have dealt with a number of suicidal and depressed people, and the mere fact that a doctor relegates the initial discussion of suicide to a written questionnaire is very disturbing. What's next, an online Survey Monkey survey on suicide so they can decide whether to grant you an appointment?

Maybe they should use an automated telephone survey.

"Press one if you have never contemplated suicide (in which case we know you're lying).

"Press two if you are just sort of contemplating suicide.

"Press three if you contemplate suicide a lot.

"Press four if you have a suicide plan.

"Press five if this plan involves shooting up a school or flying a plane into a government building; then hold while we dispatch a SWAT team.

"Press six if you have a gun in your mouth right now.

"If you have already committed suicide, please hang up and call nine one one. To hear these options again, press star."

I realize that depression and suicide are not joking matters. If you are feeling suicidal, contact me. If you're in the Austin area, we'll hug you and love you through it. If you aren't, we'll find someone where you are who will.

This method is not approved by any licensing body, as far as I know, but it has a high rate of success.

Sometimes we may need professional help... but I've seen love work miracles. Even if you need professional help, love and hugs are still good.

The Need To Do's

There are things I need to do that I'm not doing, or at least not doing as fast as I should.

But a lot of the things I "need to do"... I really don't. They are often simply the expectations of other people. I'm not accountable to your expectations, nor are you to mine (though I try not to have any).

Other "need to do's" are expectations I put on myself... for no good reason.

Realizing this is really freeing!

Want an example? Sure! For years I functioned as an assistant youth pastor at the church we attended. Eventually I became the youth pastor. And that was fine. But there came a time it no longer felt right. But...

Others had expectations. "You're good at this, and you're called to this. You can't walk away from it."

I had expectations. "It will look like I'm abandoning these teens. Nobody will trust a youth pastor without a church!"

But I knew I no longer belonged in that spot, so I resigned. I still work with teens and college age people. The groups is just more diverse and spread out geographically. I was always better at mentoring, and one on one stuff-- which is what I concentrate on now.

There are lots more, some big, some trivial. As Yoda said, "Size matters not!" If it's not truly something you need to do, let it go.

What are some of you "need to do's"? Are they really?

Thanks, Lana K. Moore, for the inspiration!

(Ironically, I started this just over a year ago, but it got lost on my "to do" list.)

Novel #1, First Draft Done!

First draft: DONE!
Chapters: 30
Words: ~75,000
Happy dance: DONE!

Sharon had a great idea. I printed out a copy for my Dad (and signed it with thanks for raising us with a love of reading, and for encouraging our imaginations). She'll give it to him this weekend. BUT DON'T TELL HIM! It's a surprise.

Caveat: That's real words, not words as publishing companies count (a multiple of page count). Using their method it's 90,000 to 100,000 words, depending on page size.

Depending on how you figure it, that's somewhere in the neighborhood of the first three Harry Potter books, and right in there with The Hunger Games.

I'm sure this will change a little before it's over; it needs at least two chapters inserted somewhere near the beginning to cover some things I glossed over. I need to add a few things here and there, but I also need to tighten the writing up. And... things may change as I revise it.

Still... 75,000 words in two months (including research and rough editing of each chapter), with a full time job and lots of real life still happening. I'm pretty stoked.

Thanks to all of you who've been encouraging me, with my awesome wife of course leading the race.

I'm thinking of letting a very small group of people read it at this stage. I'd want serious feedback (what you liked and didn't, in terms of characters, flow, style, dialogue, plot, culture, etc), what you didn't understand, how easy or difficult it was to read, and a few other things. They would all be spelled out, but I want to make it clear up front that to even be considered, I'd expect this. I would hope for at least a couple of pages of response.

Otherwise, you'll just have to wait til it's done. Sorry, but I don't want a substandard, unfinished product loose in the wild. I mean, look what happened with those velociraptors!

If you are interested, and have the time, and commit to the feedback, let me know.

Frosting - the Final Defense of the Dying

What's with The Hunger Games movie?

I find it interesting that the title of today's blog (or something very like it) made it from the book into the movie when so much was left out. Yes, I realize that any time you try to cram a novel into a two and a half hour movie, you must leave a lot out. But they left out crucial data; if you haven't read the book, you won't completely get it.

The Good

• They stuck to the plot! They really didn't change much.
• The cast was generally excellent.
• If you understand the basic premises, it's a powerful commentary on society, and on some tendencies in our government and media, almost as much so as the book (and even better in a few cases).
• The districts looked just as I imagined them. The capital was perfect.

The Bad

• They changed how Katniss got the pin and why she wore it. (Apparently this matters for the later books/movies.)
• They failed to emphasize a big part of the motivation to win (besides the obvious issue of personal survival, and for some, the glory), which was that the winner's district got a lot of extra food and other assistance the following year, whereas they normally just eked out an existence (Katniss and her family were on the edge of starvation when Peeta threw her those crusts, having burnt them on purpose to get to do so.
• They didn't really develop Katniss. The book is told in the first person, so you know her every thought. The movie is more third person, and they fail to explain why she does much of what she does. She's a very complex young lady, and the situation was as tough for her mentally and emotionally as physically.
• They just kind of glossed over the danger at the end for the champions, and how hard they had to work to turn things around, having infuriated the authorities with their defiance.

The Ugly

• What is with the constant "fat head" close up shots? Yuck.

Hope is Stronger Than Plugophobia

A plug should only go one way, and it should be obvious what that way is, even if you are nearly blind, trapped in a cave with no light, and the earwigs took a wrong turn and ate your eyeballs.

And yes, by this definition, most plugs fail. Headphone plugs don't. You can plug those in anywhere, under any conditions save those requiring gloves so thick you can't really feel anything or use your fingers' fine motor control. But lots of others fail, including AC power plugs. If you try to plug those in under adverse conditions, you could easily become a short circuit across the exposed prongs. Or worse, from the hot prong through your body to the rock you sat on.

But apart from safety considerations, some of the worst around are, in the words of Randy Kirchhof, "USB plugs. Specifically engineered to make sure that you try to put them in the wrong way, on the first time, every time." I had to disagree, because I'm pretty sure I get it right at first at least 1% of the time. Then again, they may do that just to get my hopes up so they can mock me more.

Traffic Stop

A very buff, not quite middle aged man sauntered along, peering intently at the merchandise. Something about the way he carried himself kept most sellers at bay, but the boldest sang praises about their women and tossed out prices.

Johnny shook his head, glared at the most persistent, and kept moving. Finally he stopped, staring at a dirty blonde partially hidden in shadow.

The seller flashed an enormous, knowing smile."You want her, mister? Prime stuff, best one in the whole market. Ten grand. She's worth every penny!"

Johnny stared back. "That's much too much."

The seller's smile faltered. "I've got expenses." He shrugged and started to turn away. "Either buy or get moving..."

The gun against his head got the slaver's undivided attention.

Johnny smiled. "But I'll take my wife back, thank you. And ten grand. I've got expenses, too."

I wrote this for a Valentine's Day related contest whose entries had to be exactly one hundred forty words. The story developed from another contest based on a 100 word limit. I like this version better.