True Love?

Why is it that sitting at a table of four in a remote cabin in Alaska I am the only one who believes that a relationship between a man and a woman is meant to be permanent?  That there is something to the concept of "LOVE" beyond romance and lust. 

And I'm the embittered 30-year-old bachelor.

Yes this blog is still Active

I've definitely been losing steam on this blogging thing.  Not because I don't want to be writing on here, it's basically more a lack of subject matter.

However, today I want to announce that I'm officially beginning the final editing process for my book.  I've edited about 50 pages so far and things weren't as odious as I had thought.  There are some flaws, but I've had some pretty good brainstorms on how to fix them.  For those of you who read the first draft, I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the difference these changes are going to make.  One change that I hope to do today is the addition of a prologue which will add more depth to some of the characters while at the same time creating a hook at the beginning of the story. 

Editing is going to be a long process.  I've been spending anywhere between 5-20 minutes on each page during my reading sessions.  Some pages get a lot of red ink, and some get very little.  It doesn't help that I'm working a lot more than I expected this summer--so far I've been working 50 hour weeks--which doesn't leave a lot of time or energy for editing at the end of the day.  Still, I hope to have a significant chunk of the revision done by the time I return to Utah in September.  Then End.

Dirty Politics. . .and Anti-Mormonism

Ten years ago I spent two years as an LDS missionary deep in the Southern Georgia Bible Belt, where every other person you talked too was a preacher.  I heard a lot of falsehoods and smear campaigns directed at the Mormon Church.  It's good to know that the hate against Mormonism is still going strong.  Check out this video:


 How original. . .spreading lies about Mormonism to undermine Romney's campaign. 

Face Time

Is it just me or are Atheists becoming everything they hate about Christianity?

Now I don't know for sure, but my general opinion (arrived at by careful observation) is that Atheists believe that Christians are a bunch of self-righteous-morally-superior-prigs who shove their beliefs down everybody's throat.

But lately I am starting to believe (once again through careful observation) that Atheism breeds the exact same thing, a bunch of self-righteous-intellectually-superior-prigs who shove their beliefs down everybody's throat.

That's the one constant about humanity, isn't it?  Each of us likes to believe that we are better than everybody else and that attitude spreads to the way people socially arrange themselves as well, be it politically, sexually, religiously, or whatever.  I just wish there wasn't so much of the shoving those beliefs in the faces of everybody else.

Facebook: The Death of Logic and Critical Thinking

Don't get me wrong.  I like Facebook.  As a whole I find social networking to be quite useful.  However, sometimes I am frustrated by the lack of critical thinking displayed by a good portion of Facebook users.  We often see something that strikes us as humorous, or wise, and we share it without thinking about whatever it is that we are sharing.

It'll be easier if I just show you.  Example #1:

Here we have a verse from Frank Sinatra's "The way you look tonight" compared to a snippet of Justin Bieber's "Baby."

It's funny, and at first look we really wonder what has happened to the music industry.  Then you realize that the Bieber segment is just the chorus.  Here's an actual verse from Bieber's song.

"You know you love me, I know you care
Just shout whenever, and I'll be there
You want my love, you want my heart
And we will never ever ever be apart"

It's not Shakespeare, certainly, but really Bieber's song isn't as stupid as this graphic is making it seem.  I'd go as far as saying that Bieber's lyrics are comparable to Sinatra's, not quite the same level, but really not that far off either.  The truth is that there's plenty of brilliance left in the music industry, especially once you get away from the teen-pop-machine.  But graphics like this draw people into accepting a narrow minded perception of things.  (For the record, I do not listen to Justin Bieber.)

Example #2:

I am not defending Twilight.  However, the love story in Up (a lovely movie, btw.) is depicted through a filmic technique called a "montage."  The essence of a montage is to briefly hit a series of high points in a particular story.  Montages are very, very easy to do.  And they evoke huge emotional responses in the audience.  Ask people how pumped they are to work out after they watch a Rocky training montage.   The point here is that it isn't fair comparing an 8 minute montage to a 4 book series of novels.  Novels are hard to write, I know this from experience.  Characters, plot, tension, romance, intrigue, dialogue, and setting must be developed and created over a sequence of 100,000 or so words.  Montages deal with none of that.  They skip the meat of a story, which makes this a very unfair comparison.  Stephanie Meyer's novels may have a lot of issues, but we could create a Twilight montage that would actually be quite engaging.  That's why you should always distrust the power of a montage.

Example #3:

Here we delve into the realm of politics.  And seriously, this is what makes people stupid.  The sheer ridiculousness of the claims on this graphic speak for themselves.  Politics are a sticky mess because the issues involved have so many complex sides. It's pure stupidity to boil down the issues into simple power phrases that attack the opposition's stance.  In most cases there are valid points/concerns on every side, but it's all too common for people to get caught up in the rhetoric of posts like this.  Come on people!   Use your noggins and quite spreading this crap all over the internet.  
 

Example #4: 

What in the blue blazes???

There is no semblance of logic behind this.  Really.  Rapists already know they are breaking every societal rule.  They choose to do it anyway.  No amount of feel-good commandments posted on the internet like this are going to do anything.  I have no clue why this one spread so fast across Facebook.  Stupid.

Look, there are people out there who do evil things.  They choose that for themselves.  Logically, we should prepare for that, because at some point we will be affected by the evil choices of others.  Unfortunately, women will always be the targets of depraved men.  Short of a Minority Report society, the only way to stop them is if the victims take matters into their own hands.  Jiu-jitsu, knives, and guns are all rapist deterrents.  A combination of the three is what I would recommend.  That seems more logical to me than spreading a bunch of silly rules that rapists aren't going to follow anyway.  But that's just me.


In short, people should think more critically about the things they are posting all over Facebook.  If there isn't any intellectual depth to it, then don't waste my time.

Things to Read

I found a couple interesting reads through facebook this morning.

If you think it's unfair that old people, who collectively have much more money than young people, get all the cool senior discounts, then read this article.

And I found this article about motherhood quite interesting, even though I'm male.

Editing

I'm still here people.  I'm just investing much, much less time in blogging right now because I've got a head full of steam on my book.

After short break I read my rough draft with a red pen in hand.  At times it was quite depressing.

I am now in the process of editing, a more significant process than I originally envisioned because I made the choice to alter the narrative to third person.  I have a much clearer vision for the story now, so hopefully version 2.0 turns out much better.  Peace out.