OK, applying for school over in Tel Aviv Israel. Definately more adventurous than I am. This is the next step God has for me, it's a real faith builder. I have far too much school work and application work for me right now. Slightly overwhelmed but all I can do is one thing at a time. Right now, I am printing out forms and leaving the rest up to God.
Lots of story work and editing left to do as well as some reading for tomarrow. Whew, need to go, later.

One Night In Nebraska

  It has been too long since I have posted I am sorry for that, I have let my self neglect my writing as well as my blog here I do apologize I am trying to endeavor to post more though once College starts up in the fall I may end up neglecting my blog here again. 

This poem is about my Great Grand Father who my father never knew because he was killed in Nebraska when my grandfather  and great-uncle were kids. My great-uncle never got over it, which is, I guess, another story. I hope you enjoy this peice.

 One Night In Nebraska

My wiper slaps the water that pounds across my windshield,

I swipe a kerchief across the glass in front of me,

Beneath the neatly folded displays of knives

Lies the silhouette of a woman-

That reminded me of summer drives in the country,

Warmth spreads across my chest

And a sigh with a stab of emptiness,

The car seems colder, the back seat empty, drab.

I pull my drying coat tighter,

The smell of Della surrounds me,

I dream of warmth by the fire,

Gazing into brown eyes

Whose pools I cannot sound,

I press my foot a little closer to the floor,

I wrap my hands tighter around the wheel,

A sign flashes past, Ashland Nebraska,

How I dream of Iowa,

Rolling plains and rivers,

Cattle lowing in the fields

And first shoots of corn,

 Your waiting arms and four tiny feet at the door,

It is then my car takes flight,

Rolled like the dough on a baker’s table.

I feel the sharp pain and heavy pulls,

A chorus of frantic shouting,

I lie upon the road,

Blood clouds the pooling rain,

The passing thoughts in my mind:

Your song,

And two peaceful faces

Under the crook of either arm,

Your heart and theirs that await my return,

I clench my fists and then let go.

I want to apologize for my being tardy on my posts no excuse I just procrastinated. I am writing again using Nanowrimo.com Which stands for national novel writing month. You write 60,000 words  in one month. Well if I had written nineteen hundred words last night I would be up on my count but I didn't so I am looking at about three thousand the next two days. I an also starting to draw character concepts and fleshing out my world as well.

My antagonists to this are called Televison and Movies. They eat up so much of my time I need for writing. I have actually been fighting depression these last few months which let up when I started writing, so what does that tell you?

If you have a passion to write I really suggest checking out Nanowrimo.com, its a good tool and please use common sense if you finish a novel there. You need to edit. I repeat you need to edit your work. If hiring an editor is too expensive join a writing group on line that can help you out and give you feed back. Read how to write novels books. I heard Stephen Kings is really good.

I suggest not hanging on the word of any writer in these websites but look for the common things groups of writers are telling you. Every writer has his own opinion but some of us are more mature than others. If you have one person telling you your protagonist is weak it may just be his opinion but if you have a group of writers telling you your protagonist is weak and you have a lot of passive sentences you may want to go back and look at your work.

Most importantly if you have edited your work, rewritten it and had several people look over your work  with a fine tooth comb a few times it may be time to submit your work. I can't say there is any catch all on this Dune was submitted and rejected like twelve times. Harry Potter(whether you like this authors work or not.) was submitted twenty-nine times before it was published.

Publishing is the hardest part about writing. There are plenty of books out on this and blog sites. I will post two of them I really like if anyone is interested. The most important thing I can say with confidence is DON"T tell anyone the work you published came from Nanowrimo.com I can promise you nine out of ten or ten out of ten editors will throw away your work or send it back right there.

Here's why, so many young writers and aspiring authors get really excited and whether they don't read Nanowrimo.com Pep talks about editing their works before sending them in or whether they just ignore it editors have received some really atrocious and I'm guessing unedited work. I'd like to take this time to inform you or remind you that the writing business is professional and they expect your work to be professional also.

One of the biggest surprises I discovered in writing is that it really is a lot of work. So if you want to write guess what? You have to put in the work. I have to say I haven't published anything as of yet, but I am working towards that end so lets you and I get busy and  as Winston Churchill said,"All I have to offer

I am Number Four Series

I got into the I am Number Four series, through the movie. Sorry but I didn't hear about it or the book The City of Ember though I will talk about that series later. The first book of I am Number Four is really good. It is the story of an alien race called Lorien. Their world was destroyed by this other race called Mogodorians. The Mogodorians want to destroy the last nine Lorien who are the only ones that can stop the Mogs. The catch is the Lorien have to be killed in order. So you have number one though nine and guess what the first three were killed leaving for ta,ta, ta, ta, to be the next victim. All kidding aside I really recommend this series its simply a fun read.
To be honest though I thought about half of the second book was boring. In the Power of Six we meet Seven who is held up in a Catholic Monestrary in Spain with her guardian who doesn'w want to remember Lorien she would rather be a servant in the monestary. For a quick paced action book  I found the parts with Seven very boring hand hard to slog through. You might not think so but I am Number Four was so good I slogged though it.
I almost didn't buy the third book, however, I am glad I did. This book was so well written I finished it in about three weeks and that's due to me putting it down for about four days because I was hardly coming up for air the Rise of Nine has, you guessed it number Nine in it. Its fast paced and didn't let down or disappoint. The only thing I wish Pitticus Lore had done differently is I would have liked a cliff hanger that kept me wanting more at the end of the book. I mean(granted it's a movie) but Empire Strikes Back ended giving me a deep sense of anxiety about what was going to happen to Han Solo. Luke Skywalker barely made it out of Darth Vader's clutches, arrgh, what's going to happen next?
I would have loved a cliff hanger like that but you can't always get what you want. Sing it! " But if you try sometimes, you get what you need! Oh, yeah!" Sing it Mick!  Anyway that's all for now.

Suffering as a part of the Christian Life.

It takes some of us longer than others to discover the unfairness of life. Perhaps we have been working hard for a promotion only to be passed up. Maybe we had a parent who was taken from us at an early age and our relatives unsure of how to handle the situation were of no help or made a tough situation worse. Or perhaps your parents were destructive people as mine were.
I was reading Phillipians chaper two the other day and it was talking about how if we are Christ's we will suffer with him like he suffered. I don't know about you but sometimes that's not exactly what we want to hear. I have been living with an angry destructive man who likes to threaten people around the house. He was suppose to be there just for a few weeks to work around the house, he isn't even paying rent.
Work as I have been griping about has been really hard also. Very challenging. Some stupid mistakes on my part got me called into the office by my store manager but I know God will get me through my stupidity as well as just dealing with how tough it can be at times fixing other people's mistakes and looking out for the well being of my employees.
To me to be a manager means to serve others at a greater compassety. To be a store manager means to build up your assistant who will help build up your management team. Look after the employees and keeping your store on course. Which is more than I want to do. It means letting go of selfiishness and putting others before me.
What I was missing with the verses before it was talking about suffering, it was talking about being in fellowship with the Holy Spirit something I have only begun to do and also recieving God's ministering love. Oops! I have been missing out on that and that is something I need if I am going to endure hardship. God doesn't say he's going to change the world and make it fair he said he will use unfairness in the lives of Christians to change them so we react differently in Curcumstances.
I know you may not be Christian, but I hope this gives you some perspective on what it's like to be Christian. I have suffered without Christ, being angry for abuse I was going through, I have dispaired to the point of death and wanted a bus to hit me or God to kill me. I was too young to understand suicide. God was there and kept me alive but I had no hope I hoped against hope because I suffered without God. I don't have all the answers on suffering I just know that what God tears down(he allows suffereing he isn't responsible for it. We will suffer either way. Life isn't fair but I now have someone who will turn my suffering around and build me up. Like Joseph in Genesis who suffered unjustly and God used him to lead a nation. ) he will rebuild.

Uglies series

This week I am going to recommend the Uglies series, now I need to say first off that this is a teens series so if you are not into that then feel free to stop here. This series is a future light distopian society. In this world children at the age of eight or so are taken away from their parents and put into dorms and are labeled Uglies.
At the age of sixteen they are cosmetically enhanced into Pretties who live on the Pretty Island and attend Pretty parties, and eat drink and be merry. Tally Youngblood wants to be pretty more than anything. Her friend becomes a Pretty sooner than her and she has to admit he has changed it's like he doesn't want to be with her anymore.
A friend of her's tells her she doesn't want to be pretty and takes off. Then a group who call themselves Specials abduct Tally and tell her if she ever wants to be a Pretty she will find her friend or remain Ugly forever. I have to admit I really had a hard time with the first book Uglies. The Tally is an unsaisticated airhead and she is selfish.
(Slight Spoiler Alert) Yet she changed at the end of hte book in the end she chooses to do the right thing after so many people who trusted her were betrayed and she chooses to infiltrate the Pretty society.

Pretties is my favorite book so far. In this book Tally is inflitrating the Pretties as a Pretty herself. She is going to parties, she is also trying to remember what her infiltrator group told her. They believed that the Specials not only made Pretties, beautiful but they did something to thier brains which is why they were so shallow.
The Third book is Specials, Tally ends up becoming one because she impressed the Specials.I have to admit by the third book I was really routing for Tally. Which is why I hated much of the ending. I wont tell you anymore but how you think it ends may not be how it ends. Right now I am on the third book called Extras. After the first three I was hesitant on reading anymore. It was slow going at first. Its a new Character called Aya.
In this new society Tally helped to bring about everything is about noteriety and reputation. Aya is an Extra and she wants to be somebody. I  thought it was going to be boring but when they got to the mountains and found some almost humans there it got really interesting. I highly recommend it its gotten really good.

I really enjoy Scott Westerfields world building I really got into it after a while.

Sorry I missed some posts. I have gotten really busy but I need to keep up. I am going to post how things are doing. They are going really well I made it past inventory and we are entering the busy season at work and I am really having a hard time with the girl who I work with who is from New Jersey. She's like I am going to do this, I am going to do that.
Yesterday she quipped that she was going to leave early. I think it needs to be said that she is a really good worker but she whines constantly and calls in sick a lot. When she is there she works but I just want to tell her to find another job. It really drags on my spirit to have a really negative person there like that.
Pushing away the daily whine, if I put it into perspective I could always put someone like that into one of my stories. Heh,heh.
I think most of my really good work has come out of extreme pain and suffering I have endured, however, as I am trying to write for kids I have to lighten it up. I can't do stories for really young kids that are like my poem Weeping Rain. The summation being that a heroes former sidekick gets turned into a lycanthrope and he has to kill him. You know guys I have to admit I really have a hard time talking about my life. I feel like I have to embelish it or I have to make it interesting. The truth is I really have a hard time believing I deserve it. I am getting better though. I have a lot more self worth than I did. I didn't become subserviant to the active alcoholic that has been living with us for two and a-half months or so making our lives living hell.

It was like visiting my childhood. Everyone gets angery but with an alcoholic you can't reason with them. Their ears don't work you do what they say or else. This guy liked to threaten us with violence. One of the guys called the cops. I wish it had been me. He recently appoligized not to me but someone else. That housemate then acted like everything was better. Until this guy gets help, I really don't put much stock in a simple I'm sorry. I've seen it too many times before. Where I struggle is drawing the line between unforgiveness and tough love.

This is where I lean on God I suppose. God let me go through this hard time so he could grow me I know that. Afterwards he moves us on. Well I am putting another post up after this on a writer I recommend reading so if you are here for that continue on to the next post. Thanks for reading ,  -Brian