I usually love to take on challenges, but this particular contest challenge was something else. The genre was not part of the prompt, but the "A World Torn Apart" prompt suggested, to me, a particular genre - one that I've not written before: Dark. It's not exactly horror, but there is certainly not a happy ending with an evil twist at the end. On top of that, I had to write it in color(s) as the contest main key for entry. So I ended up doing about 50 edits as I tried to "draw" a picture in colors in the words. Curious what I'm talking about? Check it out and tell me what you think:

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I wrote this acrostic last week. Well, a paid, professional poet or a creative writing teacher may find a lot to gripe about and refuse to call it a poem. But I love it. It's more humorous than anything. Tell me what you think.

Procrastination

I

H
A
V
E

N
O
T

Y
E
T

B
E
G
U
N

T
O

P
R
O
C
R
A
S
T
I
N
A
T
Erm... was I supposed to write something here?


Check out Paige Turner 's blog entry on procrastination. "Hang fire" 
 

Do you? What? You didn't notice my new siggy up there ? I know, I know. My writing is so interesting you just wanted to get to the meat of my blog entry for today.

I won three sigs from the Seekers of the Unknown (SOTU) first sig auction. Now I'm broke.

At least I know how to remedy that situation. Review, review, review (and hopefully win a few contests that have GP prizes). I will hopefully be successful with my own raffle that starts next month. I just really want to get a few more donations. Then, with a 25 GP per ticket price, sell tons of tickets.

I really do hope that the raffle is successful for more reasons than getting my share of the GPs from it. I also want to have a good sized donation to the four selected charities (well, three now, but I'll have a fourth when the raffle opens). Plus I really want the winners to have good sized prizes. But that will also mean having some generous donations of strictly GPs transfered into the bank.

Hey! If you're interested in helping out. Email me and I'll send you the links - or you can just find them in my port.

Okay, enough self promotion like that.

I thought I had set my alarm clock for 7 AM this morning. Turns out I had set the time, but forgot to turn the alarm ON! So I ended up waking at 8 AM. Just about the time my ride to church was supposed to arrive and pick me up. Fortunately, he was running a bit late himself. So 12 minutes after I wake up, I'm dressed and out the door. Without even a single cup of coffee.

In my church choir I sing bass. Not because I necessarily want to, but because it's the easier of the two men's voices for my baritone to fit into. Well this morning I ended up being a bass's bass. No vocal warm up (or wake up) and no coffee.

Yes, I can hear every choir director screaming now - NO CAFFEINE BEFORE YOU SING! Well, sorry to disappoint y'all. But on Sunday mornings - that soon after waking up - it is required for me to be able to hit those F3's and Eflat3's. At any rate, I don't think I've hit the F3 with quite so much volume before as I did today because I was singing in just over an hour after waking up.

We sang three of the songs that we performed in the concert Saturday night. We got standing ovations for all three songs in both services. WOW! That's not happened, that I can remember, since I've been singing in that church.

Aside from all that, not much really happened today. Home after church I paid my rent, grabbed something to eat for lunch and have been on the computer ever since. But I've had some nice rewards. Namely the three sigs that I mentioned above. Here they all are so you can see them.

I just got finished watching a 20/20 "What Would You Do?" special that they've been advertising all week. The results were both disturbing and pleasing.

The proposition was what would you do if you saw a public display of affection between a same-sex couple?

They went to Birmingham, AL, and had a male couple (real life couple in a committed relationship who were both actors) make out on a park bench. They started the segment with a 911 call that someone made on the couple. You read that right. Someone called 9-1-1 to register a complaint. Ultimately they sent out a police officer to ask the men to calm it down. But when he arrived on the scene and began to address the lovers, he got a phone call advising him what was really going on. 20/20 had advised the city and police chief what they were going to be doing, both of whom signed off on the project. The officer then moved on with just a word of caution for them.

That call, however, seemed to be the worst of what happened. And it was the worst of the minority reaction. One man did make a rude comment, something to the effect of "Why don't you two get a fucking motel room?!" But most of the minority just rolled their eyes or shot them looks of disgust.

However, the majority showed they had no problem with it and some even spoke encouragingly to the men. One lady even said (paraphrased), "Love is good wherever you can get it."

The majority attitude shown here is encouraging.

So 20/20 thought: Ok. So what if the couple was a lesbian couple?

Again, they used a committed couple, this time of 8 years. No one called the police on them this time, but the general reaction was about the same. The minority finding it disgusting and the majority either all right with it or openly glad for it. The only difference really was that men were more at ease with a couple of women kissing than a couple of men. They even found it "exciting". ~ Oh, brother!

20/20 then thought: Well, that was in the deep south. And in a very red state. How would people in a blue state react?

So they took the lesbian couple to New Jersey. And they found the results to be almost identical with the majority being just a bit more of a majority than it was in the south. And as a closing note, they showed a police vehicle coming up the road toward the female couple (in New Jersey) and then just drive on by.

So, are we, the GLBT community finally winning acceptance? It would seem we are, though slowly. But that would seem to be the more secure route, to me. I would love to see the day when all these state constitutional amendments outlawing same-sex marriage (or at least defining marriage as between one man and one woman) be overturned. And as long as the attitude shown tonight on a television program continues to grow in the way of the majority presented, I have hope that one day I will see that day. Maybe even sooner than that day seems now.

I hope.
I wish.
I pray.
 

Last night something happened while I was at choir rehearsal that caused concern in some of my friends, but only was painful and very bothersome for me.

I've got a heart condition that is commonly found in Americans though many who have it are unaware of its existence. It's called Mitral Valve Prolapse. The valve between the two left chambers of the heart (the mitral valve) seizes open or flutters loosely (like a persons lips when they make the raspberry sound) or reverses direction (valve flaps invert). It's not anything fatal, but when it acts up so that blood flows back and forth between the chambers thus overfilling one when it's not supposed to, it causes a lot of localized chest pain which becomes even more painful if you try to take a big breath. There is no cure or treatment for it (that I'm aware of) except for valve replacement surgery.

Now things may have physiologically changed in me since I was first diagnosed when I was 17 years old, but any pain that I've had since then has been minor and barely noticeable. Until recently, that is. Last night the pain caused me to walk out of the rehearsal until it passed then started up again later when I got home. And in the course of the past few week I've been woken up at night a couple of times because it decided to act up.

Now the doctor told me that I need to keep stress low to avoid the problem acting up much. But if it acts up when I'm supposedly at the most calm a person can be - asleep - the doctor's statements begin to become somewhat suspect in my opinion.

So, if you read this regularly and/or know me, I want to reassure you and tell you not to get too worried about it. I'm fine. My heart is as fine as it's ever been. And there's no fear of dying from this condition. I just needed to make mention of it.

And moving on.

Tonight there's another choir rehearsal. Two in a row? No, actually three. Had one on Tuesday, too. Why so many? Well, Saturday we are putting on a combined choral contata joining the voices of the Sanctuary Choir, the Gospel Ensemble, and the Resurrection Singers. Plus we'll have the Drama team and the Angels in Motion dance group and a 35 piece orchestra. All of this is supposed to be for the church's 36th anniversary celebration weekend. The only group not participating is HeavenSounds, the handbell choir that I ring in. (The reason for that is our bells are at the factory being refurbished right now. They should be back within the next month all nice and shiny and scratch free and in tune. Bells should be refurbished every three years and these never have been though the church has had them for over a decade. Anyway....)

Our director finally relented and said that we could use our music books for the performance. Originally he wanted to have everyone memorize everything, but after last week's rehearsal, it was painfully obvious that that wasn't going to happen. Not in this lifetime.

So tonight is the technical rehearsal and Saturday at noon we'll be having our dress rehearsal. The performance will be Saturday night at 7. The only thing that may really cause any problems is the fact that the founder of our denomination (UFMCC), the Rev. Troy Perry, will be in attendance. He'll also be speaking at both services on Sunday. So, yeah, this is something of a big thing for us.

I guess that'll be all for now. Talk later.
 

I didn't win the big prize I was hoping for from the WDC official March contest, but another one of my acrostic poems did take a first place ribbon in another contest. Whispers in the Dark's ribbon makes the second awardicon I've gotten from around here. (Thanks, * §apph * , for your editing help with it.) Let's see how Nature's New Son does now at the end of the month.

I just got finished doing an unofficial review of a story Max Griffin is preparing to submit for publication. Unfortunately for you it is under lock and key. It's really good and gives a new meaning to the old adage "There's always a bigger fish in the pond." Nice twist at the end of the tale. But let this be an official plug for him and encourage you to visit his port and read the available works of this published author.

Well, busy night ahead. So I'll cut this short. Have a good night all. Yak at ya later.
 

For today's blog entry, please read the following Article:

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I think I now know what at least one of the problems was with my being unable to write the next chapter in Unguarded. Actually this is a second reason for the difficulty, the first one I'm in the process of dealing with by using a survey "Invalid Item" . (Take a few moments to fill it out if you get the opportunity. It'll help me out tremendously.)

But this one was more difficult to face and write. It was because of what I had to do to one of the main characters, Neil. And I didn't want to do it. His doctor had to come back and give him the diagnosis of being HIV positive. I didn't want to do this to Neil because of the other difficulties that are going to follow for him. I also didn't want to put Daniel through the emotional strain that this diagnosis and its following challenges are going to bring. Especially when you consider that Daniel is based in large part on me and my experiences.

Consider further that until the past couple of years, I've never had to deal with the trauma and challenges of HIV/AIDS. I didn't know anyone who had to deal with the diagnosis and various physical difficulties. Didn't know anyone who had died from the monster of disease called AIDS. As good as I can do for his responses right now is take other instances of my life and how I handled them (none of which deal with any kind of life threatening diseases) and speculate how both I and Daniel would handle them. The first instance of this happens in the last couple paragraphs of the chapter I just finished tonight.

One thing that is a little helpful in the writing is that the primary focus of this story is how Daniel responds to the assorted events and people around him and to what happens to him. So while I do need to do research on HIV/AIDS to keep it all believable, I don't need to use a lot of the information because it is not what the story is about. Only a part of it.

Now that I have the principle challenge out of the way, hopefully the next few chapters will be a little easier to write. At least until I have to kill off a character (though that character will not be one of the primary characters -- I think).
 

In the past two days, WDC has posted 3 or 4 site announcements and, while the news listed therein is great, it's not what I am waiting to hear. I entered the official writing contest last month and I am anxious to hear who won. Personally, I only want to win 2nd or 3rd. Why not 1st? Well, as easily as I could go through $100 at amazon.com, it isn't the $50 or $20 in WDC GPs that I could use to maintain my upgrade for another 6-12 months. As it is, I have enough right now for a 1 month continuance (which I will hopefully be able to get with a 20K bid in an auction). Now I know wanting the GP prizes may be sorta greedy, but I look at it this way: if I can maintain a long(er) term Upgrade with the prize, then I can start doling out GPs that I earn otherwise to other worthy causes and charities around the site.

That being said, I'm going to take a deep breath -- slow in through the nose, slow out through the mouth -- and settle myself down and be patient. It's bound to be announced soon enough... I hope.
 

I'm about ready to fire my current muses. Ever since the first of the month (or shortly thereafter) they seem to have abandoned me. The past several days I've been struggling to make the 500 words a day mark. And I haven't had any work done on "Unguarded" as far as new chapters goes. I'm wondering if perhaps I have even more muses but I need to find them each month. Or whether I need to feed the ones I already have with a different form of inspirational nutrition. Maybe I'll figure out the answer after a brief meeting I have tonight.