My thoughts on this election.

The White House put out a press releasing calling the election tonight a 'seizure of the House of Representatives', and the President will basically tell them in his press conference tomorrow to go along or he'll steamroll them. The election marks a beginning more than an end. Savor the moment tonight. But there is much to be done and no time to linger. Plans must be implemented. More battles waged. Our opponents have been planning for this moment for many months. They are ready. We must be, too.

And if you don't think they are ALREADY working to undermine and undo this, you are insane. It's time to re-start the War Room.

Malone: You said you wanted to get Capone. Do you really wanna get him? You see what I'm saying is, what are you prepared to do?

Ness: Anything and everything in my power.

Malone: And *then* what are you prepared to do? If you open the can on these worms you must be prepared to go all the way because they're not gonna give up the fight until one of you is dead.

Ness: How do you do it then?

Malone: You wanna know how you do it? Here's how, they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way, and that's how you get Capone! Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that?

Ness: I have sworn to capture this man with all legal powers at my disposal and I will do so.

Malone: Well, the Lord hates a coward. Do you know what a blood oath is, Mr. Ness?

Ness: Yes.

Malone: Good, 'cause you just took one.

Am I overstating it? Maybe, but look at the ad they ran against Ford. the robocalls on the last two days and the voter intimidation of the last two days. These are thugs on a basic level, and to fight them you just have to fight harder."

And now I know how you can explain meth crazed gay sex! Thank you right wing!

First, I'd like to say that I would like everyone who is FERVENTLY against gay marriage to take an oath that they aren't, in fact, gay. As Bill Hicks so wisely said: Anyone that far right wing has something really dark and twisted in their background, and the last few months continues to prove that to me.

Ted Haggard is another one of these "Focus on the Family" guys who has made a great living and gotten a lot of political power out of hating gay people. At a work meeting about three years ago, I had to listen to one of his hateful screed on how how gay people are adopting children, and how God Warriors need to do everything in their power to make sure it doesn't happen. It's also a fact that the White House is currently going through their records to purge that he was involved in the weekly Evangelical phone call for Bush to show he is a Good Christian Man, and plan the latest political gay bashing.

Funny then, how he is being accused of a relationship with a gay hooker who supplied him with meth. I won't even go in to how he is disgustingly dragging his children into every interview with reporters, even when the reporters are telling him they'd rather talk to him away from them so that they don't have to be subjected to questions that are of an adult nature.

You can get info on it from just about any blog, but the ones that I look at is how the Political Christian community (which is VASTLY different from an actual Christian community) is looking for someone to blame other than Haggard.

The most entertaining is Mark Driscoll, who blames the wives of preachers.

The money quote : "Most pastors I know do not have satisfying, free, sexual conversations and liberties with their wives. At the risk of being even more widely despised than I currently am, I will lean over the plate and take one for the team on this. It is not uncommon to meet pastors’ wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness."

So, if his wife hadn't gotten fat, he wouldn't have to go to gay hookers for sex and drugs.

I wonder if I, as an agnostic, could get away with that excuse.

NaNo Day three

Today was a much better writing day. I had an appointment for the car, and when I got there, they didn't have the part yet. I got my word count for the day as I waited, and then read one of the magazines I bought after the laptop ran out of power.

One of the things you always hear about writing is to read a lot, and the magazine gave me a few ideas that may or may not show up later in the novel, but it's nice to think about. The first chapter is done and wrapped, which means that I have to move the plot faster since I've realized that I'm a little over 1/5th done with the book. The pieces seem to be in place, and the con is set.

I wrote some more here at work, but it was like pulling teeth, and since I'm already ahead for the day, I decided to quit rather than push it too hard. I have a "no novel day" coming up on Monday, and since I'm almost three days ahead, I'm not very worried about it. Things are moving well, and I keep seeing how the novel is setting in place. I have to make sure to throw enough stuff in the early part that when the "big reveal" comes, the reader can start saying "That's why that happened!!"

I have to do a little bit of plotting tomorrow before I go much further.

The good thing is that I have time. Other than work, and the gym, I shouldn't have all that much to do.

Stress level on a scale of 1 to 10: 4
Word Count: 11934
On Target: Yes
Surprises: None today, really

Day two of NaNoWriMo

I got my word count tonight, and am sitting happily at 9448, but I almost didn't have time for it today.

I spend the morning and early afternoon with Joe, geeking about at comic shops as we'd planned, but as I was on my way home, I got a call from The Boy that there were a few things I needed to do. He'd used all of the ink in the printer, and had run through about five different food items in the house that w normally have in strong supply and told me that he'd meant to tell me when he used the last of them but forgot. So, I had to get ink to print a job application that has to be son someone e-mail by tomorrow morning ( I HATE .pdf files) run other errands, replace things that I should have known about when I had time to do such things AND hit the gym all before I could write. It also frustrated me since I know I won't be home except to sleep until Sunday night because of horrible shifts at work. I tend to get out of sorts quickly when I don't get down time at home, and it looked like I have none of it until I'm done with word count on Sunday.

And yes, I know I am a few days ahead. However, I want to get the book DONE this month, and it's rough plotted at around 65,000 words, so I need a faster pace than normal. I also don't want to blow off a day unless they are the four planned "no writing" days later in the month. I need to be in the habit of writing 2k a day for when the month is over, and I try to finish the radio novel by next summer.

Instead of starting fresh when I got home at 3:30. I started irritated and tired at about 9:15, and haven't had anything to eat since lunch.

I also wanted to yell at The Boy, since he has be slacking horribly on his part of the house upkeep, has ALL of our towels in his dirty clothes in his room, and hasn't done the dishes for the last week, even though he's the only one that eats here. But I try very hard not to have discussions when I'm angry, and I knew it would become a long, drawn out "You are here all the time" thing he tries to pull on me, even though I haven't been home for more than sleeping or writing in over a week.

The writing went well, thankfully, and I figured out a way to get the big exposition done "off stage" so the main character could condense it down to about three paragraphs. Besides, it's all about his view of this world, for now, as the different baits are set and the plot is woven around him without his knowledge. He seems to be a nicer guy than I thought he would be, since the art of the Con is to appeal to a person's worst nature. Thankfully, today's writing also helped me find his weaknesses and easy "attack points" for the plot, so things are proceeding as planned.

Stress level on a scale of 1 to 10: 8.5
Word Count: 9448
On Target: Yes
Surprises: Lead character is a nicer guy than I thought

National Novel Writing Month - My novel, day one

National Novel Writing Month That's right, I'm doing it again, for the 5th year in a row.

I am probably done for the day, and my word count is 7444.

That's right, but then I always get out of the gate with a splash because the book's first act is usually completely formed in my head by the time I start writing. I "see" it, as a movie, and then write it as fast as I can, describing what I've seen, plotted and thought about for the previous month or so. It's also a particular kind of fantasy/fish-out-of-water story, so introducing characters and settings are pretty easy, since the main character is seeing them for the first time.

I was surprised by a few characters showing up, and as I wrote them, I liked them enough that they will probably stay around. The rest was all pretty much as I envisioned it, and I stopped right before I had to do a batch of exposition, which is much better to write when I'm at home and can do it while listening to my own music and such. I was also surprised that the opening section (which was the inspiration for the novel itself) ended up only being about 3000 words. I had planned it being longer, but as I wrote it, I found that the situation was simple and easy enough to grasp that I didn't have to spend a lot of time setting it up.

I'm toying with the idea of posting it in a LJ/blog type thing instead of how I've done it in previous years, chapter by chapter in a section of my website. If anyone would rather read it on LJ, let me know, as I'll prolly start putting it on line in some way this weekend.

Stress level: Low
Word Count: 7444
On Target: Yes
Surprises: 3 unplanned characters.