the great writing tool debate of 07

I’ve just downloaded three different open source “writer’s tools”:  RoughDraft, yWriter, and ScriptMaker.  They all supposedly have their pros and cons, and yeah, I’ve got Microsoft Word.  But Word, (and WordPerfect, which I prefer) for all it’s bells and whistles, is a shotgun approach to word processing, meant to do all things for all users.   There is a decent argument that a tool that doesn’t really care whether you’re writing the Great American Novel or a letter to your great aunt Gertrude isn’t really the best tool for the job.  I’ve heard at least a few writers say that they work more effectively when using a tool that is more a sniper approach: something made specifically for writers, or even for writing a particular type of project. 

So I’m going to install all three of these tools, and take them for a test drive to see if there’s really any benefit to a more tailored tool.  I must admit, some of the writer-specific features of each have piqued my interest.  Will update in a few weeks when I can say more accurately whether they’re worth the time to download, install and learn. 

February 26, 2007 | Filed Under the writing life | 4 Comments 

what i’ve learned this week

  • That I can, in fact, take care of the kids for five days without Chris’ help.
  • That I don’t want to do it again in the near future.  Or at least till the facial tic I’ve developed goes away. 
  • That WordPress has now decided, for some unknown reason, that Jonna is not a spammer trying to post comments selling generic Cialis.
  • I’ve had a sort of running bet with myself as to which local commenter would be the first to ask who Bartlett and/or ND are.  Answer: my sister, Jenny. 
  • That it’s possible to lose weight while eating Fried Spam and Macaroni & Cheese.  It apparently really is all about portion control and calories in vs. calories out. 
  • I didn’t actually learn this item this week, but I had to post it anyway as a public service.  A couple months ago, I found out that pipe cleaners were actually created (wait for it…)… to clean pipes with.  I was in the “smoking products” checkout aisle at EvilMart and amongst the rolling papers and other smoking paraphernelia, was a packet of pipe cleaners.  And I tilted my head a little and thought to myself “How are pipe cleaners smoking products?”  And then it suddenly dawned on me.  Pipe. Cleaners.  Pipe.  Cleaners.  They’re to clean out pipes with.   OMG.  My entire life, I thought their sole purpose was arts and crafts projects. 

February 25, 2007 | Filed Under the daily brew | 3 Comments 

movies

Did I tell you guys what my Valentine’s gift from Chris was?  He picked up the DVD of “You’ve Got Mail” which is probably my favorite movie.  I used to have it on VHS, but a commentor who shall remain nameless borrowed it, um, a while ago.  So now, she can keep it.  You know who you are. ;) 

(Hokey smokes, I love getting to rib someone else for forgetting to return a borrowed movie.  I’ve had another friend’s copy of “Hoodwinked” for a ridiculous amount of time.  I just returned a kids video to our old church library.  The due date stamped on it was “May 2006.”  And we could probably sponsor a Worldvision kid with what we’ve spent in late fees over the years.)

But my point (and I do have one) is that I got to watch what is arguably one of my favorite movies in the last week or so.  I have watched this movie a blue million times, and I enjoy it every time.  Which makes me think “It’s probably not the plot.”  I mean really, once you’ve heard a story, you pretty much know how it ends.  I really liked “Seven,” but I seriously doubt I’ll ever watch it again.  Same with “Identity” and “Memento.”  So much of those movies appeal is in the plot, figuring out where it’s going and where it will end, that there’s not much enjoyment left for subsequent viewings.

The movies you watch over and over again, I think it must be something else that keeps you coming back.  Honestly, for me, it usually boils down to atmosphere, setting, visuals, and dialogue.  Or if it is about the story, it’s about the larger themes and metaphors, not the details.   I watch You’ve Got Mail over and over again because I love the NYC setting, and because it’s a “Fall” movie, that makes me feel all the good things I like about Fall, and because at it’s heart the story isn’t about whether the guy will get the girl (it’s a Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan/Nora Ephron movie, people.  The guy is going to get the girl. Trust me.)  The story is about those rough transition periods in your life.  It’s about dealing with unwanted change.   It’s also a lot about what we’ve been talking about here lately; what direction is your life going to take, and how much control do you have over that?  Big stuff, worth revisiting. 

I will probably pick up The Devil Wears Prada for similar reasons.  Love the setting (and the costumes), love the “feel” of the movie, and because it touches on larger themes that are important to me and worth revisiting.   The rippling effects of compromising “just for now” to achieve a greater goal.  How the act of taking that compromise can put you on a path that ends up leading you somewhere you never expected to be.  (And not in a good way.)  The dangers of work defining your identity.  Who we choose to make our mentors and why.  What will bring me back to that film isn’t the question of whether Andy will escape the poisonous influence of her boss, but why she needed to try so hard to please her in the first place. 

And some movies are just gorgeous eye candy (with a little shot of, I don’t know, motivation?  Hopefulness?)  I watch Legally Blond when I feel particularly lacking in self-confidence and need to channel my inner Elle.  I watch Down with Love when I’m feeling particularly bitter and cynical, particularly about romantic love.  You can’t stare at all that pink for two hours and not feel at least a little mood lift, if nothing else.  

I have to admit a similar relationships to superhero movies.  Nothing gets a person geared up to kick butt like a good superhero movie. Metaphorically speaking.  I’m not literally beating people up in real life.  Usually. 

Although I gotta admit, after watching Mortal Combat in the theatre, I had so much adrenaline, I was kind of hoping to pick a fight with someone in the ladies restroom.  “Use the last of the toilet paper in that stall?  You shall suffer the consequences!  Ki-Yah!”  I think it was the techno music. 

So what movies do you watch repeatedly, and why?  Let’s all pop some Cousin Willie’s (may God rest his soul, since I just recently found out he’s dead) and Twizzlers, and talk cinema.  :)

February 25, 2007 | Filed Under the soulful life | 5 Comments 

You are now exiting the valley of shadow.

Don’t bump your head on the way out.

Yesterday was a threshold for me. In some way or another, I had to face all my personal demons and ghosts, all day long.  I actually felt “presences” following me around, staring me down all day. My mom, my grandpa, and the many and sundry painful experiences of the last half-decade.

It started at 3:30 in the morning. We got up, got the kids ready, and headed over to Jeffy’s on the way to the airport. And Chris was so clearly pained at the idea of leaving his kids for just five days. That’s when the ghost of a previous Chris turned up, one who didn’t make his kid a priority. One who made awful choices without regard to the consequences for his son. That is not the present-day Chris.

We drove on into the darkness, and passed the gas station where we’d said goodbye before his last trip to Tucson without me.  I faced the ghost of my mom, who had picked him up there and taken him on to the airport.  Thanks to the events of the past couple of months, I was able to remember her and think of her fondly without pain. The demon of guilt that has plagued me about moving on with my life after her death appeared, but only briefly and already defeated upon arrival.

At that same point in the road, another ghost appeared. A phantom of lies and betrayal and attempts to convince me I was crazy and out of touch with reality. A demon of resentment, and pain, and the sneaking suspicion that I was lied to and betrayed and disregarded because that’s what I deserved. This one I had to wrestle with a bit more. And I was already tired.

Dropped off Chris at the airport, found a well-lit spot close to work, locked up the car and slept. Dreamed of my grandpa and how I’d locked my keys in my car that same week that Chris was in Tucson before. Dreamed of walking the two blocks to my grandparents house, and Pop coming over, and scaring me half to death getting stuck trying to crawl through the trunk into the backseat. Because he never stopped to think “can I actually DO this?” he just thought “what needs to get done?” Last week, Gigee reminded me that it was a year exactly since he passed.

I woke up, and drove to Starbucks, and had some coffee and coffee cake, and then on to work. My new work, where everyone is almost painfully invested in what they do. It’s such a change. A year ago, I was at the end of my rope, working with people who just did. not. care. About what I did for a living. About what they did for a living. Like a bunch of zombies.  And still, it was hard to leave because that was where I really learned to believe in myself professionally. I had probably my two greatest professional mentors there, who honestly adored me, and who I think took my leaving much more personally than they admitted to my face. Spiritual brothers and fathers who helped me become who I am.

That was when the ghost of “you’re not good enough, and when they find out what a fake you are, they’re going to fire you” showed up (who has dogged me my entire life, and who sounds remarkably like the dark side of my mom). I wrestled with her pretty much the balance of the workday.

About halfway through the day, I noticed I had a charleyhorse from sleeping in the car. It got progressively worse as the day wore on. By the time I finally got to head home, I was nearly doubled over. My ulcer was killing me. My charleyhorse hurt from my ankle up to my… another word that starts with the letter A. I looked like Igor, hunched and limping.

I picked up the kids, and headed home. Brief dinner, baths, homework, Dora. Before I knew it, the kids were in bed asleep, and I realized that Grey’s Anatomy was on. It was almost halfway through, but I figured it would be better than staying on Wikipedia continuing to try to figure out the difference between fate and destiny, determination and free will.

So I turned on the tv and plopped on the couch.  There was Meredith Grey, in the land of the dearly departed. Talking to her mom. And it all clicked. Psyche has to go into the underworld, to bring back beauty. The last chapter of Till We Have Faces. All the ghosts, images of her loved ones trying to distract her from her purpose, get her stuck.

“Run, Meredith,” says Ellis Grey. Go back to life!

“Dammit, Kate, RUN!” shouts Jack into the Walkie. Get the hell off of Alcatraz.

A five year old me, toy-stuffed handkerchief in hand, “running away from home.” “I want to run away, I hate you!” I said to my mom, no idea how badly that would hurt a 25 year old, insecure kid. Could she really have been that young? Twenty-five? “Fine. Go.” says Mom.  I got all of two blocks before realizing I didn’t really have anyplace to go and that what I really wanted was for her to tell me to stay.

A six year old me, running away from my friend Kristen and my sister Jen, to see if they’d find me. Hiding in the dogwood tree, surrounded by flowers and budding green leaves, watching them call for me.

A nine year old me, running away from Jessica and Julie and my other girlfriends on the school playground, to see if they’d try to find me. To see if they’d “prove” they really liked me. I did it so many times, they eventually got tired and quit and gave up on me.

A twenty-two year old me, leaving Florida and separating from Chris to see if he’d re-engage and try to bring me back.

What have the last five years taught me? To stand. To stop running. To stop trying to get people to prove to me that I’m worthy of love, and live out of the love I know is given to me.

Ephesians 6: 10-13

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”

February 23, 2007 | Filed Under the soulful life | Leave a Comment 

unwritten

…live your life with arms wide open, today is where your book begins, the rest is still unwritten… Natasha Beddingfield

…Every day is a journal page, every man holds a quill and ink.  And there’s plenty of room for writing in all we do and believe and think… Chris Rice

Compatibilism (from Wikipedia): the belief that free will and determinism are in fact compatible and capable of co-existence. 

Fate|Destiny: Although the words are used interchangeably, fate and destiny are distinct things. … Fate is an outcome determined by an outside agency acting upon a person or entity; but with destiny the entity is participating in achieving an outcome that is directly related to itself. Participation happens wilfully.

So what do you think, campers?  Is your future preordained?  Was your past predestined?  Are we all just making it up as we go along?  Or is it some mix of the two?  Are there certain key events that are, in fact, certainties–while others are left up to human choice?  What’s your stance on divine intervention?  And why would the Divine need to intervene if everything is going to happen the way it’s going to happen? 

Are there moments you can point to in your life where you knew you were at a crossroads, you knew that your decision would change the course of your life (maybe many peoples lives), and you believed you were truly free to make that choice?

The last week or so has presented me with a lot of cause to pause and reflect over my personal story.  How much of it did I bring upon myself, and how much (if any) was placed in my path?  How much of what’s ahead is really up to me?

As for me personally, I tend to fall somewhere in the middle.  I have to believe that my choices have mattered, and will continue to matter.  But I also believe that some things are certain, or at least so likely as to be virtually certain. 

I tend to agree with Mary Beth Mayfair, the character from Anne Rice’s Witching Hour, who said that while the future isn’t set, it is usually very predictable, because while everyone has free will, the vast majority of people never use it.  One really determined, wide-awake person can change the course of history, but such people are few and far between.  Most people are content to travel in the rut presented to them their whole lives. 

What about you folks?  How similar is your life to the one everyone expected you to have?

February 23, 2007 | Filed Under the soulful life | 18 Comments 

you can’t always get what you want

… and sometimes, you get what you want, only to find out that it isn’t what you expected. 

I tried giving up coffee for Lent. 

That was a rough two hours.  Then I decided to give up chocolate instead, and continue enjoying my enslavement to the java bean. 

Like the movie Airplane!, I picked the wrong day to give up coffee (did fine on refraining from snorting cocaine and sniffing glue, though.)  It wasn’t a bad day, but hokey smokes, Bullwinkle, it was a full one.  I got to work on a proposal for a project so cool, I am still geeking out about it from the bottom of my comic-fangirl heart.  Plus I got to do a lot of wordsmithing today, and got lots of positive feedback for my work. 

And of course, only a Four would find that to be a problem. 

I’m trying to find the right balance between being fully involved and engaged at work, without stepping over the line into obsessing about work and letting it become an idol or an addiction.  Why is that such a hard balance to strike? 

It would be easy for me to become addicted to the praise and atta-girls.   But the thing is, the more I put the weight of my well-being on those things, the more I set myself up for a massive fall.  Because as with all addictions, the law of decreasing returns applies.  Been there, done that. 

I know the right attitude to have.  Actually living it out is a lot harder. 

February 22, 2007 | Filed Under the daily brew | 1 Comment 

testing your freedom

I was on Sacred Space yesterday (before conking out) and I was taken by the little bit of introductory text for this week, which begins the Lenten season.

“We are at the start of Lent, the time of the year when the church invites us to test our freedom, and to question the notion: I can take it or leave it alone. Try that with grumbling, drunkenness, talking about yourself, stealing, gambling, or other habits that diminish our freedom. What habits make you hard to live with? Lent is about regaining control of our own lives, especially in those areas that damage other people. We don’t admire those whose appetites or habits lead them by the nose. Nearly all of us have habits, or even addictions, that keep us from God, and harm both ourselves and others. These seven weeks before Easter help us to focus our energy on improving.”

I do think that one of the things that the evangelical movement has lost is the rhythm of time.   There is something very valuable, I think, about observing the seasons, the festivals, the pattern of the year which the Jewish and Catholic calendars have which is lacking in the contemporary evangelical church.  God works in seasons, not necessarily literal annual seasons, but in a constant, cyclical pattern.  I can see those patterns in my own life, and in the lives of those set out in the scriptures as examples.  I keep coming back to Ecclesiastes, and the idea that there is a time for every purpose under heaven.   There is a time to accept our fallen nature because until we do, we can’t accept grace and forgiveness.  There is a time to respond in gratitude by trying to live in a more grace-full or grace-abundant way.

And I’m also captured by this idea of freedom, which is so opposed to the modern way of viewing “freedom.”  Ultimately, people who reject God so they can be “free” to do whatever they want, invariably, inevitably just end up in another set of chains and constrictions.  I could probably write an entire post just on the idea of freedom.  In fact, I think I will.

But not till later today. ;)

February 20, 2007 | Filed Under the daily brew | Leave a Comment 

i’m just a motherless child, don’t know right from wrong

I was “pimping” my myspace page, and I ran across a link to a subsite for the truth campaign. 

I’m not writing this to condemn any of my friends or family who smoke, or to convince them to quit.  God knows, I’ve given up on reasoning someone out of smoking.  I just found this particular fact to be a bit of a gut-punch:

“In one year, tobacco leaves 12,000 kids motherless.  That’s 33 mothers a day.”

Jen and I, and our sister Bobbi, would be some of those 12,000 “kids” a year.   And I can say fairly conclusively that being 30 didn’t make it any easier to lose our mom.  Every hour of every day, someone somewhere is losing their mom to tobacco. 

In recent weeks, some things have happened that have given me a lot of peace and closure regarding my mom’s early passing.  And I’m grateful for that; I truly am.  But it doesn’t make me any less angry at the shear staggering loss of life that is attributable to just plain, unadulterated, unmitigated greed.  And yes, I’m fully aware of the ways my mom contributed to her own end, and the choices she’s responsible for. 

That doesn’t make it even remotely right that somewhere, in some leather-appointed, mahogany-lined board room, a bunch of rich assholes are still counting the money they made off her death and plotting ways to convince my son’s schoolmates to take up the habit in the next couple of years. 

There is no good reason on earth to continue to produce a product that addicts, maims and kills such a ridiculous number of its consumers, and whose only “positive” effect is the money made on it.  Honestly, what the hell else does tobacco contribute to the world?  Death, misery and money? 

Bear in mind, my family is from Kentucky.  I know the economics of tobacco.  And I still want to say “Grow something else!  Anything else!”  Soybeans.  Corn.  Heck, grow medical marijuana and sell hemp.   At least something vaguely useful and positive would come from that. 

Okay, vent over.  You may now return to wondering when I’m going to start posting about something interesting again. 

February 20, 2007 | Filed Under the daily brew | Leave a Comment 

shortest hibernation EVER.

I got a nasty cold over the weekend, and when I went into work, it seemed the most prudent thing to handle the few small urgent things and scurry on home before infecting too many of my coworkers (although, to be honest, I’m fairly sure I caught it from one who was wandering ’round the office sniffling last week, but whatever.) 

So anyway, I came home, had a little hot tea, and downed both a Zicam and some Alka Seltzer Plus cold medicine, the combo of which knocked me out for the bulk of the afternoon. 

I woke up at about 3:30, groggy but no longer congested at all.  I popped my head up to look out the window, and apparently, I slept till Spring got here.  When I laid down there was two or three inches of snow; I woke up to a snowless, sunny day and I swear it must be 40 or 50 degrees out.  Weird.  I know everybody’s been praying for an early spring, and it usually does seem to spring almost overnight, but dang–to come during the length of a nap?  

Would ask for prayers if you don’t mind, for Chris this week.  He’s travelling West to Tucson, to see his parents after his dad’s accident and surgery.  So if you get a moment, send up a prayer for a safe trip. 

February 19, 2007 | Filed Under the daily brew | Leave a Comment 

hip deep in life

Just a quick catchup for everybody.

The weight loss effort is still going well, if slowly.  I know, I know.  One to two pounds a week is what you’re supposed to do.  It just feels very slow.  And considering the way I fell off the wagon last weekend during the Festival of Her Royal Highness’ Birthday (**cough** White Castle and Chick-Fil-A on the same night…) I should be happy to still be making any progress.

Chris and I are both still liking using the Daily Plate to track our calories eaten and burned.  I love their interface, but then again I geek out over AJAX.   Still working on pimping out the myspace page, just because again, I’m a geek and and a Four, and I can’t live with the default settings on anything for very long.

And I found on the WordPress codex a plugin that will allow me to pull the RSS feed from both my Daily Plate account and my Myspace page, and publish it here as posts.  Which makes me ridiculously happy.  A blog plugin should not make a person this happy.

Back on the diet and exercise front, I’ve intended all along to use some gift cards I’ve received as incentives.  I’ve got $25 for Best Buy, $10 for Target, and $50 for Kohl’s.  So this week, in honor of hitting my goal of seeing the next lower tens place on the scale, I am going to spend my Best Buy card.  I’m saving the Kohl’s one for new clothes once I’m basically at goal.   I guess I’ll make Target the next tens place down.

Hope everybody has a great weekend.  I’ll be spending mine doing my taxes.  :(

February 16, 2007 | Filed Under the daily brew | Leave a Comment 

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