One Side of the Penny is Nice and Shiny. The Other Side is Death.
What’s that supposed to mean? Well, it basically means that I’m experiencing both good and bad stuff right now.
First, the Good:
I’m finally out on break! No more Finals, thank heavens.
I think I’m most confident in my Feature Writing Final. It helps that I thought out all my answers before the test, even though I only memorized short note versions of each one. My Origins of the Bible Final also went well, I believe. I think I knew the answers to just about all of the questions. I guess we’ll see how good my senses on such things are. And then there’s my Hebrew final. I’m sweating a little about that one. While I think I mostly nailed the vocabulary, I’m not at all confident in my translation skills.
But all that is over! Everything is done. I even got confirmation on my KJCR article, which should be coming out in the newspaper today, which I’m excited to see. The editor recently e-mailed me to say he’d like to talk with me sometime about the “changes” he made though. …>.>… That makes me suspicious and worried. I have to read that article today. It should be here within the next 2 hours, I believe.
More good news mostly involves me completing my Christmas shopping (I think) and hording more good books. I recently purchased the comic book adaptation of Sandman: Dream Hunters and it was fantastic, as Sandman comics tend to be. I also got Kingdom Come, which is about a future alternate universe in the DCU, involving older versions of classic superheroes and reckless young ones in a sort of apocalyptic tale. Fantastic. Brilliant read.
I’ve also finished Assassin’s Creed II, and the storyline for both the DCU and Mortal Kombat Characters in the Mortal Kombat vs DCU game. Assassin’s Creed II was amazing, although I don’t like some of the shots it takes at religious faith (I have no problems with the shots it was taking at the Catholic Church and its corrupted priesthood, mind. That was just fact during the Renaissance.) Mortal Kombat vs DCU is fun, but ultimately the ridiculously stupid D-pad on the Xbox360 controller keeps me from just loving it. Why can’t they make one that doesn’t tell my character to jump when I push left?
I’m also looking forward to Christmas and New Years a whole lot. Christmas for obvious reasons, and New Years because I’m going to go visit Katie again, where I can give her her Christmas gits. I can’t wait! ^_^
Unfortunately, the Good news is often accompanied by bad news.
So…
For those of you that know me and my family, many of you know that we own an obscene number of animals. We own horses, dogs, cats, goats, ducks and chickens.
We also own Donkeys. There were three of them. Samson, Delilah, and their foal, whose name I cannot remember at the moment. Now there are two.
Apparently, some time in the night, Samson accidentally hung himself on a tree. I don’t know how, yet. I haven’t been outside to see him for myself, though I probably will shortly when I have to go help take him down. I imagine that he got his head stuck between some branches while rubbing against them, got stuck, panicked and fell. In his panic he probably couldn’t stand back up.
This is the scenario my morbid mind thinks of.
My dad is really torn up about it. I don’t know if he cried over the Donkey or not, but he’s clearly torn up about it. He can’t even make himself go back outside to deal with the problem yet. He just can’t see Samson like that. I can catch a glimpse of Sampson from the windows of the house. I don’t blame dad at all. It is not a nice sight, even from all the way back here. And Sampson was dad’s big pet, you know? There are only a few other animals on the property that I can think of that would hurt dad more. The horses, certainly. TJ, our inside dog. …Maybe Teddy, our three-legged dog/bundle-of-energy? I don’t know.
Anyways. The thought of Samson dead makes me sick, and sad. Death always does. I cannot wait for the day when death is done away with. Those of you who don’t believe that day will come… I don’t know how you bear it.
I don’t have much of a connection to the Donkeys, personally, certainly not as much as Dad did. I’m not grieving like Dad is. I hate that Samson is dead, and I’ll miss the big lug too, but I’m just as sad to see my Dad so depressed.
There are some people out there that defend the idea of death.
Stop. Just stop.
Anyway, I’m sorry to have probably brought you all down today. I can’t even get interested enough to include pictures in today’s post. Sorry about that. Maybe I’ll be up to it this Weekend.
Goodbye, everybody,
- Edward L. Cheever II
That’s it! This Was The Last Year Anything Good Happened.
Okay, I actually wrote this on Monday, so I wouldn’t have to remember the topic that popped into my mind at the beginning of the week. Here we go…
When do people die? (Oooo, morbid!) No, really, when do they die? How do you define it? Is it that last breath? Is it fifteen minutes afterward? Is it when the Doctors tried to bring a person back after they were already clinically dead and failed? It is when their tissue starts rotting? Maybe they’re only really dead when the last memories of them fade? (If that’s the case, Youtube is the new Cryogenics World Leader!) How do you define it?
I would propose that for some people it happens a lot sooner than that. Of course I’m being just a tad facetious here, but bear with me.
What was the last year that music was any good? Everybody knows someone who laments the good ol’ days of music, when “real” musicians played. What about movies? When was the last “real movie” made? Who was the last great philosopher? Which President was the last good one we’ll ever have? When did the youth become spoiled?
T3h int3rn3tz h4v3 don3 spoil3d dis h3r3 child.
What marker solidifies the end of the Good Old Days?
These people don’t even have to be crotchety old men sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair waving a cane at the young hoodlums. I know one particular person, near enough my own age, who seems to think that nothing good will ever come again. Anything of worth is already in the past.
To him, the classic RPG dungeon crawlers, such as Plainscape: Torment and Baldur’s Gate, are all there ever really need be. (No, I’m not talking about who you think I am. You’re so vain, you think this blog is about you, don’t you?)
Let’s talk for a moment about a particular field that I know of personally. Videogames. What’s that? There are people like what I’ve described above in Videogames? The Videogames Industry is so young! Believe me, they’re everywhere. Like the person I talked about above.
2D Zelda is classic. No doubt.
I recently played through The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. It’s a great game. It truly is fantastic. I see why people love it so much. In many ways it set the precedent for adventure games to follow, and is arguably the game which is most consistently used as a template for game ideas, especially within its own franchise. Some people claim that nothing new has ever really been done with LoZ:LttP’s formula in that series since.
There is a Fairy in the bottom left bush.
They may have a point, in a way. Not a Zelda adventure goes by where a green-clad nearly mute prophesied heroic warrior goes off to save the princess against the evil sorcerer. He collects rupees, shoots arrows, throws bombs, slings his boomerang and above all, finds the mythical Master Sword. He crawls dungeons, slays massiv evil creatures and doges bats or skeletons in EVERY FREAKING ROOM! *Huff*huff* okay, got out of control there a bit with personal experiences. But you get my point.
There have been numerous fantastic Zelda adventures since Link to the Past. Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Windwaker, Twilight Princess, Phantom Hourglass, and the brand new Spirit Tracks. Fantastic games, all. The formula is familiar, but each one has something new that sets it apart from the rest to make it special (YES even Twilight Princess which borrows liberally from Ocarina of Time. I don’t have time to explain myself here, but all you haters are WRONG!)
Oooo, I'm getting all nostalgic just looking at that screenshot!
*Ahem* As I was saying, there have been many worthy adventures since, and yet there are some people who draw the line in the sand at Link to the Past and say: “That’s it. No other Zelda game will ever match the glory that is Link to the Past.” They box themselves off, and bam, their journey through videogames is essentially dead. Nothing living and fresh will ever come again. The Legend of Zelda is dead.
I strongly disagree. Not only was Ocarina of Time, the first 3d Zelda experience, fresh and exciting, it is a videogame classic for the ages. And then, guess what, Twilight Princess comes along and utterly surpasses it in cinematic and gameplay glory (Yes, I said it. Ocarina of Time is brilliant, genius even, but only Nostalgia calls me to say it was a better experience.) And even in that above-head almost 2-d viewpoint, I believe Phantom Hourglass to be just as good an experience as Link to the Past, despite a repetitive final dungeon.
Twilight Princess was a fantastic game.
For those of you not plugged in to the videogame world like I am, I’m making some serious enemies here. If I disappear over the next couple of days, look for my body in the dumpster behind the Gamestop.
Take another franchise that I, admittedly, don’t have as much experience with. Final Fantasy.
The easy example is to talk about the people who draw the line after Final Fantasy 6 (3 in America) and say there are no more good Final Fantasies, but that is too similar to my Legend of Zelda example above, as it was the line between 2d and 3d Zelda. Final Fantasy 6 was the last main-line 2d FF in the series.
I fell into a burning ring of fire.
Instead, I’m going to put my head under the guillotine by talking about the Holy Cow that is Final Fantasy 7 (I suppose one could say this is also an easy target.) No, I haven’t played the game yet. I want to. But I can still look at the ridiculous reverence paid this entry in the franchise and say, objectively, that drawing the line of the “Last Good Final Fantasy” at that game is stupid.
FFXIII Looks Pretty Good
Final Fantasy X is also a fantastic game, by all accounts, Final Fantasy IX similarly, though I have less enthusiastic support on that front, and Final Fantasy XII which is reviled in some circles and beloved in others. The point it, there is always another chance for lighting to strike. Final Fantasy 7 was not the last of all things good and holy. I’m really looking forward to Final Fantasy XIII, myself.
Now, let me digress from Videogames. Is it really a digression if I’m, getting back to point? Eh, whatever.
What I want to get across is that this happens with everything, not just videogames, music and politics. This happens in life. “Nothing beats the good old educational system. Back in the day parents knew how to raise their kids. When I grew up, we really knew who God was. There’s never going to be someone else I can ever care for like that.”
You’ve met them. The dead walking amongst the living. I’m not even talking about people who are extraordinarily stupid or incompetent, the dead can be that too. What I’m talking about are people who refuse to grow beyond the bounds they set for themselves. They are no longer a part of the world. They’ve passed on.
My Grandfather and Grandmother on my Dad’s side are true examples of this. They sit around their house, listening to the same old music, watching the same old television programs, reading the same old books, daydreaming about days gone by. Grandpa wanders the house eating too much of the same food he always eats, complaining about everything and anything, driving my Grandmother into depression wondering where the fun-loving husband she had is gone, so that she often as not doesn’t care to think past her memories and what household chore she’s working on at the moment.
I love them both, truly. They are dear to me and I will feel sorry to see them go, but in many ways I feel as if they’re already gone. The only time you see life in their eyes is when they’re re-living the past by telling it to others.
This is called staring into the Black Abyss
When people sit around in their homes with dead looks in their eyes, slumped shoulders and drooping mouths, drooling over what used to be, they’ve forgotten that they can still live. There are people they can help, things they can do, experiences to have, knowledge to pass on. Instead of that, they let themselves die.
People die younger and younger, too. While medicine pushes our lifespans out, our minds pull it right back in, tighter. Some people die before they’re even born! They look back at their parents’ lives and say: “It’s never going to be as good as it was then.” And so they’ve killed themselves before they were born.
For one, I plan on living so that I never draw that line. There is always another excellent videogame, song, movie, book to read. There was never a Golden Day of Education and Politics, so there’s always reason to strive to make it better. There are always more people to help, to teach, to love.
Last week I talked about how people put God into a box. Well, people put themselves in boxes too. They’ve dove headfirst into the packing peanuts and taped it shut from the inside.
To close, then, I have just one question for everybody: “Who’s got the box knife?”
- Edward L. Cheever II
Finals Week Bears Down Upon Me!
This is going to be a very short post this week. You know why?
Because I’m starting to feel like this poor guy:
Yes. Just like That.
Admitedly, this is partially because I just finished work after working over 40 min overtime. What’s worse, it was a pretty bad paper written by a nice girl who became more and more crestfallen as we talked about the improvements needed in her paper. *MEGA SIGH*
It might also be that I haven’t seen hide nor hair of confirmation concerning the publication of an article that I recently wrote for the Local (flaky) newspaper. I’m basically having to wait till tomorrow to see if it just magically shows up in print. And I NEED this article so that I get a good grade (Verbal confirmation for the Record article just doesn’t cut it, and that Editor is flaky too.)
It also doesn’t help that loads of the papers I’ve been helping with recently are on the legality of Gay Marriage, and I disagreed with everybody. Helping people write papers that you disagree with well is difficult.
It could also be that I’m beating myself up mentally for not getting back on the writing wagon (you might have noticed the lack of info concerning Jaine since NaNoWriMo.) I plan on getting back to it right after finals, but I plan on a lot of things that never happen, so we’ll see.
Planning events for next semester (A poetry slam) is also difficult, and I’m worried that we(The Rough Writers) will just end up as poorly-attended counter programming to something the S.A. is doing.
On the plus side, I’ve been seriously enjoying Assassin’s Creed II! Take a gander at this lovely still image:
Beeeeeeautyful, Ain't It?
Oh, and there is a character in the game that brings up an interesting theological idea that I might tackle some time. Maybe during the Christmas break?
Anywho. Prepare for a huge post this weekend. More long-windedness.
Even though nobody reads it.
Except Katie.
Whom I love like crazy. I mean Assylum Crazy. I mean Arkham Assylum Crazy.
Wow. That’s crazy.
(I love you, my dear! ^_^)
She’s blushing right now. Tehehehe.
And you are averting your eyes in an embarased manner.
Tehehehehe.
I’m evil like that.
Have a most excellent day!
- Edward L. Cheever II~
Peoples’ Perceptions of the Nature of God(s)
As the title may suggest, this is my brand new and shiny attempt to take this blog back somewhere serious again. On this topic weekend I’m taking things a little bit more cultural analysis than religious theology. This means I will probably say lots of things a “fascinating” or “intriguing” when talking about other religions. Don’t panic.
Warbreaker, By Brandon Sanderson
So I mentioned the other day that I had read the novel Warbreaker, by Brandon Sanderson. I highly recommend the book, by the way. In this book, there are four major storylines that only rarely intersect for most of the book, then two merge leaving only three storylines. All three of these storylines heavily feature gods. I enjoyed Warbreaker as much for its examination through characters’ perceptions of religion, and what it means to be a god, as I did its mystery plot. One god in particular, Lightsong, actively questions the religion that worships him, and is, in a sense, his own disbeliever. What makes a God in Warbreaker, is when a person who died comes back to life to become one of the Returned. Their theology basically believes that every god has come back because they have seen something on the other side of the veil between life and death that they have returned to fix it. Once they are done with that, they will choose a dying person to give up their life for, so that that person might live, and the god will return to the other side.
Now, I’m stuck with having recommended the book (which most of you will probably not take my advice on and read) and I want to spoil a part of the book. So, if you plan on reading the book any time soon, skip the stuff in the spoiler tags.
-SPOILERS-SPOILERS-SPOILERS-SPOILERS-SPOILERS-SPOILERS-
Lightsong comes to the Ultimate conclusion that he is a god because he remembers what he has seen on the other side, and he truly was offered the chance to return to fix a problem, and looses his life in saving the God King (who is this really powerful Returned god.) I find it interesting that he decided he really was a god in the sense that his people believe him to be so, while at the same time it makes him more like a messenger from Heaven, rather than a true god. After all, there was someone more powerful than him to offer to return him to life. Sneaky Brandon Sanderson is sneaky.
-SPOILERS-SPOILERS-SPOILERS-SPOILERS-SPOILERS-SPOILERS-
So all of this got me to thinking about the nature of God and gods, especially across cultures and how they view them. The view of a god in Warbreaker is essentially that given to ghosts in our world. Maybe they have something left to do before they cross over to the other side? It is interesting that in reality, Warbreaker’s Gods really don’t have any special powers that anyone else can’t have as well. They are Immortal, true, but only until somebody slits their throats.
Odin the All-Father
The Greek gods were similar in many respects to the Norse gods, in that they represented certain ideals or aspects of life, like Ares and war, or Athena and wisdom(though she also had the war thing down.) They were also seen, at certain points in history, as sort of morality play characters. They had legendary screwups that normal people shouldn’t emulate, which is an interesting place for a god to be in. In many ways it seems like Zeus and the others were gods based solely on their power level. Zeus isn’t even the original super god. That belongs to his father Cronos, whom Zeus did some pretty horrible things to (after escaping being eaten like his siblings, though, so I guess he was justified.) But Zeus isn’t the original god, or the originator of anything really.
Amun-Ra: Egyptian Creator God
Even these creator gods (or forces, perhaps, in the case of Brahman) do not quite stack up to what I believe a god to have to be.
To me it seems like it would be obvious. A God would have to be the pinnacle and origin of existence. That means that God would have to be everywhere at once, know everything, be the ultimate promoter of life and love, care about everything (from the scope of the universe to the tiniest sparrow), be personal and beyond the scope of any one man or woman, many and one (trinity?), the list goes on. My sense of what a God should be matches, I believe, with the Hebrew/Christian God. The one who called himself “I Am,” or existence, which is some profound theology if there ever was any.
So if that definition seems obvious to me, then why did other people ever settle for a less striking definition?
This is a Shout-Out to all fellow Schlock Mercenary Fans!
I read an article recently, which talks about how people tend to see God in their own image. That is, that they believe their beliefs match God’s beliefs, or what God stands for. Go read it, it’s interesting. Now, what might this have to add in my examination, here? It is possible that these gods were conceived as beings closer to the peoples’ own viewpoints. I don’t want to sound like I’m judging other religions as inferior, but I suppose that, in a way, every religious person does that of other’s beliefs. How does one walk that line? Anyway, I believe that these other interpretations of God are incomplete. They box their gods into a form. To be honest, many Christians do the exact same thing. Dare I say… most do.
It’s true that I like to think my beliefs line up with God’s. But I come from the perspective that God’s stance, what he stands for, is bigger than me and my viewpoint. I am an imperfect being, and as such, something I believe is probably wrong. If I were to discover what God were to stand for differently, hopefully I would change to it.
Buddy Jesus from Dogma
I had an interesting conversation with Steve the other day about how God might react to certain situations when deciding if certain people went to Heaven. We were talking specifically about stillborn children, and people whose brains have been damaged by accident, so that they are a different person afterwards. Steve was worried about the Stillborn children because they hadn’t had a chance to choose God over their sinful nature, even going so far as to think that they probably don’t. I very much disagreed. The child was never given a choice in the matter, and I believe God is too loving for that. Similarly, Steve felt that someone who had brain damage so that they became cruel, loose and utterly selfish still had a choice, and so God wouldn’t save someone like that, while I strongly disagreed, based on the fact that these people were no longer whole.
Now, let me also state that it seems Steve doesn’t truly believe how overriding the brain damage can be to someone’s personality. Being a man susceptible to lust, I know how hard it is to turn your mind away from lustful thoughts when you have hormones raging within you. It is impossible to control, and I think I really do mean Impossible. That’s just hormones. What happens when your brain is truly re-wired? I believe that God is loving enough to save them based upon how they were originally. God knows I would want to be saved despite getting clobbered in the head so that I turn evil. I believe God has too much grace and love to let me go so easily. Satan would go around clobbering people on the heads all the time, were that the case.
Our disagreements stem largely from our perceptions of God. Steve, while still believing God to love, seems to focus more on the judgment and punishment aspects of God. I tend to focus exclusively on the loving aspects (largely because I believe the judging aspect to be an extension of that, but perhaps that is a talk for another time.) In both of our cases, it was, in some ways, foolish to even debate it. If God is the judge, then why are we sitting around doing judgments for Him? We were really just putting our boxes around him. Yes, I do that sometimes too. Do I like to think that my beliefs are in line with God’s? Yes. Obviously. But I can’t just assume that.
The Eye of God: A Celestial Formation
I’m going back to incorporating some of the spoilers. Sorry.
In Warbreaker, Lightsong comes to the conclusion that he is a god. But this realization is built from two things: 1. He came back from the dead for the exact reason his priests say he did. 2. His priests describe that as godhood. So, according to their definition, yes, he was in fact a god. But that only calls into question their definition of what a god is. Lightsong was sent back from the afterlife. He was given that choice by… someone. Someone more powerful than death. That someone was a true God, or at least it likely was, based on my own perceptions.
I remember an earlier portion o the book where Lightsong and his priest are talking about godhood, and the priest says that a god isn’t a god because of what he does, but because of what he is.
I don’t worship my God because I believe he cares for me, though I do believe that. I don’t worship my God because He gave inspiration to man, though I do believe that. I worship God because He IS.
People box in their gods. Even I do it on occasion. I just don’t have the scope of perception that God does, and so he is always able to surprise me. For a religious person, it is always a dangerous thing when you start putting your gods in cages. You never know when one’s going to break out and stomp all over your carefully laid plans. *winks at Warbreaker readers*
That’s all for today. Let’s see what you guys make of my return to long-windedness.
- Edward L. Cheever II
Failed Blog
I had this big old thing where I was going to talk about what I’m thankful for, because if you haven’t heard we recently had this big national Holiday thing.
It kind of fell through. I’m thankful for Everything I Have, Everybody I Love, and The Future That Lies Before Me. What more can you really say past that?
I even had some fun bits for the Intro and Ending:
Intro:
Anyway, I’m going to talk about nine general things that I’m thankful for, with each one becoming progressively more meaningful to me until I reach the juicy center of the tootsie-pop. Let’s see how many licks it takes.
Ending:
So How Many Takes Does It Take?
Internet Memes are Fun.
Anywho, my brain is fried. Deep fried. Green Tomato Fried. Snicker’s Bar and Sticks of Butter at the Texas State Fair fried. Now that’s fried.
So I’m not able to write anything of merit at the present. This is unfortunate, especially since this is the first blog since my Thanksgiving Break. I took a vacation to visit Katie’s family in Illinois. It went really well. I wish I was still with Katie. It’s tough being separated from the one you love, ya know? But I really don’t want to do a recounting of that trip. I’m too lazy. I will say I got a fantastic deal on a PS3 bundle over Black Friday though. That was also good.
For the sake of brevity, I’m going to quote pertinent bits from my abandoned Thanksgiving Blog project:
“Yum. Videogames! I’m definitely thankful for those. Right now I’m making my way through LoZ: A Link to the Past, which is a very good game, though it seems over-rated to me (lots of people say it’s the best game ever made.) Next will be Assassin’s Creed 2 and if I still have time before Christmas after that, it’s going to probably be a PS3 game (Littlebigplanet?) I’m looking forward to starting Boneshaker, and I just recently finished Warbreaker which was very good, though I felt that some elements of the ending weren’t handled as well as they perhaps should have been.”
And
“What would Entertainment be useful for if there was no rest and relaxation time to do it in? Christmas Break is coming soon. Thank Goodness!”
Everything went downhill from there. I started just putting in single sentences for everything. Yeah, I’m pathetic, I know.
Maybe I need a political topic to get started? How about those White House Gate Crashers, huh?
Nope, that’s not flying either. Aside from the stupidity of the whole situation, what else can I say?
I’m really going to have to try this again when my brain comes back again to visit. Perhaps he’ll see fit to come back around by the weekend. We’ll see.
I’m going to go play some videogames now. You know… Brain food.
You think I’m Joking.
Well, I’m not.
So there.
This is going to be one of those Blog posts I look back on and wish never happened isn’t it?
Well, future self, take this as a learning situation. You know that delete button? Learn how to use it properly. Thanks!
My apologies to all of you,
- Edward
I Shot the NaNoWriMo
And if you’re wondering, no, I didn’t shoot the deputy.
For those of you who have been following my multiple blogs, such as My Jaine Blog, this news will not catch you by surprise, because you already ready My Wrap-up of Week 3.
That post was where I did most of my hollering and celebrating, so instead, I’m going to talk briefly about my first experience with NaNoWriMo, where Jaine stand right now, and how I’m approaching it for the future.
(Okay, now. Be warned, I wrote this while dirt tired. I’ll be surprised if it makes even half-sense. Don’t be cruel, y’all)
I have to admit, I was really intimidated going into this. I tend to be a really flaky writer, letting myself become easily distracted or never even setting fingers to keys because I just didn’t feel like it. This attitude has been consistently a part of my experience, since I first had an inkling that I might just want to be a professional writer. I have many half-begun projects, most hardly out of the idea phase, all of which have been shoved to the backburner or dropped into the laugh-at-this-when-I’m-fifty bin. This wasn’t so much because I didn’t have good ideas (except for those which were thrown in the bin,) but rather because I never followed through. I didn’t ever make myself sit down and actually do the business of writing.
I’ve always known I can write well. It’s true that I’ve grown and my writing has made vast improvements, but I’ve always had a higher skill level than my classmates. It was this skill that got me good grades even when I didn’t read the homework as well as I should have. It was this skill that led me into tutoring in college. But these were all shorter projects. No longer than twenty pages at the most. I think I’ve always harbored the secret fear that, no, I can’t write a full novel; that it just wasn’t in me to do it.
Because of all these things, I was more than a little nervous setting out into NaNoWriMo. I would have to consistently make myself sit in front of a computer screen and write, whether I felt like it or not. On top of that, November isn’t an easy month to do these sorts of projects in. Not only do you have to navigate around holidays (I was really lucky to get it done before I go with Katie to Illinois for Thanksgiving) but if you’re a student you have the rush of semester’s end coming on full force. The whipped cream lopped on the top of the pie is, of course, the fact that you have to do it while other people, your colleagues and friends, watch.
Makes me shiver all over again, and I’m already out of the woods!
So those were my expectations going in. What I found out, now that I’ve come out on the other side, is something so much more.
First, I found out that, yes, I did have it in me to write a full on novel. That knowledge did wonders for my confidence. In only three-fourths of the time allotted, I accomplished exactly what I set out to do.
Second, I found out that I could rise above my own inclinations. I tend to be a creature of habit and convenience, as most of my friends will tell you. I like doing things the easy way, or not at all. But I found out that my will was greater than my habits, and I could overturn my own nature to accomplish what I want. I’ve never had quite that experience before.
Third, I’m a dancing monkey. No, I’m not insane. What I mean is that I can do all of these things publicly, which I never could have done before. I have never had the courage to set other people’s expectations of me, and then meet or surpass them. I’ve never been a performer, so to speak. But I found that I could overcome my insecurities and broadcast my progress and trials with writing to anybody that wanted to know.
But perhaps the most important thing I got out of the whole experience was the sudden, concrete certainty that I will never again be able to settle for being less than an author. I refuse to forfeit m dreams of being a full-time writer. The rational side of me still acknowledges the need to put bread on the table, and I will do what jobs I must to do that. But I will never just be the Professor who writes for a hobby, I will be the Author who is also a professor. Even if the distinction is only truly apparent in my own mind and attitude, it is a very real shift from where I was before.
Um… Um… I guess I should throw out a few more obvious adjectives out there, like “rewarding,” and “enlightening,” and stuff like that, but I’m tires, and I think that by now it should be obvious that this thing has been a positive experience, ja?
So, I finished the NaNoWriMo, but did I finish Jaine? Not hardly! O.O To think I ever thought this yarn could have been a short story. I laugh at myself.
I do think I’m probably at least 2/3rds of the way through, though. That’s got to count for something, right?
But if I’m not done yet, then am I going to just let it slide like I did before NaNoWriMo? No way. I’m not going back to the way I approached writing before NaNoWriMo. To that end, I’m still going to write on it every day until its done, either this year, or early next.
This is how it’s going to go. I’m still going to do weekly word count blogs to keep everyone updated on my progress, but they’ll likely be a bit truncated with fewer comments on just how everything is coming along. I dare say a few entries may be nothing more than just a word count. I will also scale back my daily word count goals to match a more relaxed pace. 1700 words is my optimum goal, and 1000 words is my minimum acceptable daily count, starting today. Over holidays and vacations this changes to a flat 500 word count minimum. I’m going to write this way till Jaine is done, and then I’ll switch it up a bit for when I edit the story. But I’ll likely use this model with my next project, whatever that will be.
So I’m getting super sleepy now. Been up obscenely late. You don’t even know. I’m just going to drag myself over to this corner and catch a little… *zzzzzZZZZZzzzzzZZZZZzzzz*
- Edward L. Cheever II~
We Be Flooded
For those of you who have stopped by to read My Jaine Blog, and have seen my account of My First Week in NaNoWriMo, or for those of you who follow my twitter feed @EdwardCheeverII, this is going to be old news, but I figured it would make a good topic for my mid-week update.
We’ve been flooded. Essentially, what happened was this: Last Thursday, before my Mom went to sleep in preparation for working that evening, while my Dad was out of town working a job, the Water Heater under the stairs started leaking from the top. This was troubling, true, but it wasn’t disastrous. The plumbers were called, the leaked was fixed, and much celebration was had amongst the populace.
Later that afternoon, after coming downstairs to head off to class, I was greeted by the sight of Mom and my Brother frustrated and bordering on panic, as water spilled out all around the house. The plumbers came, and discovered that in fixing the leak at the top, the pressure inside the heater was increased greatly, causing a weak wall at the bottom to burst. This, unfortunately, was unfixable.
The water was shut off, and the wet-vacs came out. Needless to say, I missed class. The next few days would be marked by ripping up flooring, masses of large fans, and endless boxes of stuff being taken out to the garage.
This drama, complicated by further damage caused/found in the upstairs bathroom, has been keeping me, and the family, hopping for a week now. Things are looking up, hopefully, depending on how much insurance monies we get, we’ll get new flooring, new bathtubs, and other yim-yam.
Sorry to keep this so short, but, well, today is kinda busy. Sorry! If you really want more to read then go read Jaine! Here’s a link to the first chapter, even! See, I accommodate my readers. 
Have a great day!
- Edward L. Cheever II
Don’t Talk About It, or Your Head will be Blown Up!
Okay, for the most part I’m going to keep this pretty short. Oh, and I’m not talking about National Novel Writing Month, or my progress on Jaine at all, because I’m saving it for Saturday. With that said, I am posting chapters one and two in separate posts on My Jaine Blog tonight, so feel free to go read and comment.
I’m afraid I also have to announce that my upcoming reviews for Scribblenaughts, Uncharted, Uncharted:2, and The Gathering Storm are all postponed until further notice (a.k.a. until I have time.) They will come though. In fact, I may read The Gathering Storm again before I review it, and concurrent with that review I’ll have a blog post in which I go all uber-geek over it and gush to my hearts content, which I must admit I was and still kindof am, craving to do.
Oh, and I’m also not going to talk about the English Departmental Halloween party until I get copies of the pictures of me in my costume from Dr. Doneskey. Sufficed to say that, in summary, it was fun.
So that’s all the stuff I’m not talking about today.
What I AM going to talk about, really briefly, are the two things that don’t make good dinner conversations: religion and politics. I’m going to cover those bases on a personal note, primarily, but I’m also going to make one note about public stuff near then end as well.
Hoookay.
So. If you have been following my blogs you will have noted that am in the Feature Writing class. This, of course, means I write articles for a grade, and I must get them published. Unfortunately, I have a nasty habit of writing articles that get on people’s nerves. Intentionally and not so intentionally.
A while back I wrote some articles that were eventually shortened into one article, about why I didn’t go to church. This was an opinion piece for the Southwesterner. An opinion piece, mind you. Well, there were questions about how this article would portray Southwestern if it were published. Their financiers might think that secularism was running rampant amongst the helpless college student victims, blah, blah, blah. It was eventually suggested that it might be published if it were written as a hypothetical conversation between two fictitious individuals.
I turned this down with an emphatic no. Of course, I really wanted to yell out “Screw that!” and storm away, but I have a little more dignity than that, and I wasn’t in the presence of the suggester, but a friend who gave me the news second hand. So ultimately it would have only harmed my friends feelings, if he mistook the direction of my frustration, and it would do no good anyways.
However, let me ask this: How is the message of my writing benefited by making the whole thing impersonal and “hypothetical?” It doesn’t.
That was just the first article that was unpleasantly shot down though. Just recently, my article on the future of the college radio station KJCR has been denied publication on the basis of backroom politics amongst the board members. Apparently some of them are arguing for shutting the station down for good, and they can’t very well have an article out there that talks about the future of a station that might not have one, can they?
I’m seriously tired of of Keene and it’s political and religio-political manipulations. You know, near the beginning of the semester, an editor of a local magazine came and talked to us about his job, and what he needed of his writers. One thing he said though struck me as off-kilter. He said that he had good working relationships with various organizations and public figures because he didn’t publish anything harmful. It sounded to me like he was saying, “I’ll sweep the dirt under the rug so long as you’ll keep giving me stories.” Where’s the journalistic integrity in that? If crappy stuff is going down in the neighborhood behind closed doors that affects said neighborhood, then it should be told, whether it is stepping on toes or not. But that is what happens in Keene. honest stories are shot down because somebody’s political toes are in the way.
That’s my rant for today. Now for some positives.
There have been a lot of people dismissing the job that President Obama has done as head of our nation, saying that he hasn’t done anything in his time in office. Well, let me say that even if you don’t like everything he has done, or even any of it, read this article, and you will see why he has, indeed been busy. I tend to approve of quite a number of things he’s accomplished on that list, and guess what, he hasn’t actually been in office for a full year yet! He was only elected one year ago, he’s only been in the office for 9 months! That article made me respect him even more than I already did.
Finally, in my most positive note of the evening, I’m going to post another article I just wrote for the Record, which I can only hope will be published without incident. It is a 500-600 (it comes in right at 599) word article on my faith/walk with God:
A Voice in the Calm
When we are born into this world, no matter where or into what situations, we face challenges and obstacles that stand between God and us. Being born into a Seventh-day Adventist family did not protect me from the distractions of the world, and it did not give me as many advantages as it is easy to believe.
I was born into the scientific dissection of the scriptures that permeates our churches and Sabbath-schools. As I grew up, the Bible stories I had loved as a child became objects to stretch and distort for “hidden meanings.” I have always struggled with theology. I have debated and argued and fought over religion. Pouring over God’s word for the intricacies of truth, only so that I might prove others wrong had become a part of my daily life. While fighting with others verbally, I was living in sin as surely as if I were attacking with blades not words.
I was becoming jaded with God.
God speaks to man through many methods, and he walks with every individual on their own path. Some people’s walk with God blossoms in the Sabbath-school room as they listen to the words of the teacher. They feel God’s presence when they sit in on the pew while listening to the pastor’s sermon. Thank God that He speaks to us in myriad ways.
My walk has survived and flourished because God found me first. Not through theology, but through simplicity and beauty. When I had nearly lost the beauty of God’s love, it found me in the quiet of the sanctuary late at night. I would walk between pews under the hallowed roof, devoid of man, but not of God, and I would witness his splendor in the quiet majesty and strength of sturdy walls, soaring roofs and glittering stain-glass windows. A mighty fortress is our God.
God found me as I walked alone on a grassy hill in Illinois under a clear night sky filled with stars and the spiraling arms of the Milky Way. The music festival that night was immaterial, and my campsite destination was forgotten. I knelt under that twinkling sky and felt the embrace of the creator of the universe around me, in the beauty and quiet of the night.
I feel God’s care while walking beneath the swaying emerald trees of spring. I feel God’s strength driving down lonely summer roads with the window down. I see God’s artistry in the glorious colors of autumn. I sense God’s providence standing amidst the crystalline winter snows, while flakes fall from a midnight sky.
God found me in the stillness of my room, in the small hours of the morning.
I had just spent another night spewing vitriol on the internet. Turning away from the screen, I was struck by the silence around me. There was no yelling. No arguing. All was calm. God was in the silence, waiting till I decided to stop screaming at the world and listen to him.
Tears streaming down my face, I fell to my knees. What had I lost? How many hours of bitterness had I endured, when the simple beauty, the wondrous poetry of God was all around me, waiting to be noticed?
My walk with God has been one of many returns. Though I stray, God reaches out to me, through the art found in nature, the wisdom found in books, and the love found in holding hands. He brings me back with that still small voice; a voice that drifts in the quiet of the night, and rides the winds over the mountains.
That’s all for now! Goodnight, all!
- Edward L. Cheever II~
What November Brings
November is here, and it is bringing with it some excitement and challenges.
School-wise it should be quieter than normal. I’ve got a leg up on my Articles in Feature Writing, thankfully. I might have a massive leg up if one of the articles count for two because it might be published twice. Of course it might only count for our required publications twice, but it might not count for the total article requirement. *shrug* we’ll see. I’ve finished my Origins of the Bible papers already, so I don’t have to deal with them anymore, leaving just reading chapters and doing quizzes and tests. Hebrew stay the same for challenge, but the homework is still fairly minor (vocabulary memorization and workbook pages.) But none of that, outside of more Articles for Feature Writing, should take up too much time, leaving me lots of breathing space to work on Jaine.
And that leads me to National Novel Writing Month. You can keep up with my progress on My Jaine Blog, and there is a new post there right now explaining how that process will go, so feel free to go read it. In fact this Blog will be somewhat truncated because of NaNoWriMo for the rest of the month. There is a good chance that I will alternate between the two blogs, so that I will still be doing bi-weekly posts, just on two blogs instead of one. We’ll see how this works out.
But NaNoWriMo isn’t the only thing that is brought by November. Thanksgiving is coming up soon, and it marks the first time I’m going to be spending a major holiday away from my family, and with Katie instead. I’m looking forward to it, and it gives me new reasons to be thankful. It makes me thankful for the girl I love and the promises of the future. At the same time, it’s the first time I’m spending a major holiday away from my family. It’s… an awkward feeling. Exciting, perhaps, but definately awkward.
Well, that’s pretty much it for this weekend’s post. Remember to go check out my Jaine blog! and have an excellent evening.
- Edward L. Cheever II~
