Sometimes the process is a long and hard fought road with no end in sight, such as the experience related by David J. Fuller in a post about his rewriting and revising experiences. In the comments of that post he offers others the best advice he says he ever received about writing: To keep going through the end of the draft, ignoring any problems, to discover what the story is really about.

When the words have been set down and the story seems to have been told, it is time for every writer to take an honest and critical look at their hard work – and tear it to pieces. Chuck Wendic at Terrible Minds offers writers a list of 25 Things You Should Know About Revisions, which in very straightforward, often vulgar terms, explains some of the key points that need to be kept in mind when one dives into the revision process. Among the bits of harsh advice is a line that sums up the truth of revision work; “Go in cold. Emotionless. Scissors in one hand, silenced pistol in the other.”

A writer needs to emotionally separate himself from the story before they revise it. They need to be able to take their most beloved scene or character and cut it out to be tossed aside as unusable.

When a story requires a significant amount of work, it can seem like a writer is starting over from scratch. In truth it is not as much starting over as it is getting a fresh start. A writer knows, when they start writing, that they have something that they want to convey. Sometimes they need only a few minutes to construct the words in their mind and write them out onto paper. Other times they need to write a hundred pages before they know what it was they wanted to say about the subject the novel is focused on. Whatever the journey, the end result should always be to entertain the audience, even at the sacrifice of elements the writer once thought were vital to their story.

An article published Thursday in the Washington Post described how Mitt Romney’s Prep school classmates recall pranks, but also troubling incidents during Romney’s time as a student at Cranbrook School. Included in the article are the statements of several persons who say that they knew Romney and were witness to (or participants in) the described incident. Romney is alleged to have lead a group of other students, who held down a fellow student while, according to the Washington Post article, Romney cut at the young man’s long blonde hair with a pair of scissors.

News sites such as Reuters explain how Romney apologized for what he defined as “pranks”, and stated that he did not recall the event. This lack of recall, rather than denial of participation, brings to question how many such incidents he might have participated in, or lead, that he is unable to recall what seems to stand out very clearly in the memories of the persons that spoke up about the incident.

That left us with some time to kill and Wal Mart right next door gave us mindless aisle wandering time wasting to fill that hour and a half with. So, we went and looked around Wal Mart, picked up some dinner at McDonald’s, then headed back to the theater to get decent seats for the show.

This is the first time I have been to the new Valley Cinema theater, and I have to say that it looks really nice – despite the mass amounts of popcorn strewn along the counter in front of the ungodly expensive snack counter. And yes, when one bag of popcorn and a soda costs over $12 it is UNGODLY expensive. They make ALL of their money from the snack counter, that’s for certain.

Anyway, armed with a bag of popcorn for the four of us to split and a soda for my nephew we went to wait in line to be let into the theater. That took a few minutes, then we went in search of four seats together. No one else had any preference, so I took my preferred position of near the center of the theater about 1/3rd of the way back from the screen. I’ve found that offers the fewest people in front of me that make seeing the screen difficult for a shorty like me, while still placing me far enough back to see all of the screen without watching a ping pong tournament back and forth to see what’s happening.

I’ve never been to a 3D movie before, and I have to say, it was interesting. There were not as many opportunities to make full use of the technology as I think they could have found, but there were still a few points where something headed toward the viewer and initiated a instinctive mental cringe for me.

A few of the lessons learned from The Avengers (trying not to offer anything that would be a spoiler here, so just a few):

- Be sure you know what you are saying when you tell a demi-god to put the hammer down

- Looking to your elders for an example is not a bad thing

- The only order Hulk needs is “Smash”

In the opening weekend, The Avengers smashed the records, hitting an estimated $200 million in ticket sales. According to MTV, The Avengers crushed the previous opening weekend record of $169.2 million that was earned by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt2 last year.

There is no doubt in the minds of any of us that Robert Downy Jr pwnd the role of Tony Stark. He once again brought the man behind Iron Man to life with perfection. All of the cast were in top form, however, and it would be hard to single out any one as being exceptional without also acknowledging the great work of everyone else, so I’ll just say that the casting crew went above and beyond and I am only saddened that Edward Norton did not return as Bruce Banner, but Mark Ruffalo was able to capture a meek timid Bruce Banner perfectly and I do not think I could have asked for a better replacement for Norton since he was not able to reprise his role.

The Avengers is a must see for anyone that loves Marvel heroes, and I only wish that I could afford to go see it again while it is in the theaters.

If you want some inspiration for your own workspace, or proof that you are not the craziest writer ever in your tendencies, then you should take a look at some of the writer’s rooms in the series by the Guardian newspaper on writer’s rooms.

Writer Michael Morpurgo had his own troubles when he wanted to find the best writing place for him to work, even asking a neighbor, Ted Hughes, how he wrote. It did not take long for Morpurgo’s feet to inform him that he was not like his friend who preferred to write while standing at a lectern. Morpurgo’s inspiration came from a picture of Robert Louis Stevenson. In the picture the author sat propped up by pillows in bed with a writing book rested on his knees. Morpurgo mimicked his idol’s style – until ink on the bedsheets led him and his wife to create an actual retreat house styled after the Anglo-Saxon chapel of St Peter-Ad-Murum.

Morpurgo is not the only writer to create a style that makes him comfortable in his writing. Clive James is an inspiration to any packrat-style writer who has a workspace crammed with unfindable scribbles and assorted odds and ends that pertain to writing. In an article in the Guardian, Clive James describes his collection of assorted odds and ends and scraps “I can’t remember why any of the stuff is here, except that I never have time to throw any of it away, because I’m too busy.”

While it is nice to work from home, it can also be filled with distractions of all kinds. For writer Louis de Bernieres, the secret to working from home is to get as far away from home as possible when he wants to write. In fact, there are many cases where writers take over a garden shed to escape from the distractions found within the house.

Writing in bed, writing in a garden shed, creating a special little cottage in which to write. Is any of this actually necessary? No, not really. John Grisham is just one example of writers who manged to write a novel during a busy schedule. He would sit down in stolen time between court hearings and meetings to write on legal pads when he wrote his first book.

There are many examples of writers who wrote their first book during stolen moments on scraps of paper.

The basic point seems to be that there is no right place to write. So, what is needed to write? If there is no single connection between successful writers and where they write, how can there ever be successful writers? Because they write. No matter if they have found their perfect writing place or not, they write. It is the process of placing words together, no matter how they are recorded or where this happens. Dictations into a recorder or longhand writing in notebooks, the key to writing is the act of writing, anywhere, any time, no matter if the writer is in their ‘perfect’ place or just has a few minutes to wait. If a writer wants to succeed, they need to get the words down while they are still looking for that writer’s paradise where they can feel comfortable creating their work.

Forget the office and get right on that writing.

I really need to figure out how to convince the rest of the world that I actually DO have a job though, because this has got to stop being shoved around toward “When it can be done” to make room for what other people need me to be doing for them. So, goal right now, reclaim my job and stop letting others pile work onto me simply because they think I should be able to do things for them instead of working on my writing. It is a career, dang-it, so I need to stop letting other people treat it like it is not.

Yeah. I’ll let you know how that works out for me. If I can actually find the time to get regular updates posted here, then you will know that I have managed to reclaim my work time.

One year later I had long since contacted all debt holders and no one unknown had shown up to ask for money, so I felt it was okay to close the account so the bank could have a clean end to the fiscal year.

As part of my efforts to establish my credit worth, and hopefully buy my home of 20+ years, I have been working with a lady at a credit recovery place to assure I’ve not missed any unknown debt of my own lurking out there from trips to the emergency clinic and such. Today I called her and talked to her and she asked if I knew _________. That gave me a moment of pause, after some discussion about things she could not discuss but could only say “I can’t say anything” she referred me to another number and to talk to a specific someone in that law firm.

Okay, I immediately call the law firm and state what I am calling about and give the coded number that the other lady had given me. The lady at the law firm is totally confused for why it is even an issue since the debt is over 14 years old, well past statute of limitations, and was marked as being canceled and closed because the person in question is deceased. She marked it “canceled and closed” again, zeroed it out and said not to worry, that she would make sure it was all cleared up and I no longer need to concern myself with the issue.

I thanked her profusely and she emailed the other lady, who I called back to let know what the law firm had said. I was again assured that it was all taken care of and cleared up and not to worry about it anymore.

End result, after multiple calls this morning, is that the debt was canceled out and closed 14 years ago and should not have been showing up as a debt anywhere. I have to wonder just how many more false active debts there are floating about out there in people’s credit files mucking up the system.

But what actually happened and why?

Throughout Wednesday, January 18th, there was a coordinated effort on the Internet to display, in an exceptionally visual manner, what the Internet could look like if bills such as SOPA and PIPA were to be passed in Congress. At the heart of the Internet strike was freedom of the Internet. One of the most notable effects of the strike was the complete blackout staged by Wikipedia. Other sites, such as Google, simply placed a blackout bar across their name and allowed users to continue to make use of the site’s services.

So why the huge protest? SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) are trying to do good things, the problem is that they are trying to do good by doing a lot of possible harm.

SOPA is more formally known as “H.R.3261 — Stop Online Piracy Act”. You can find it on THOMAS, or check H.R. 3261 – Stop Online Privacy Act which is where I located it as of the time I am writing this, or the THOMAS entry for SOPA at the thomas.loc.gov website.

The first thing you see under the heading of the bill is the mission statement of the bill:

“To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by
combating  the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.”

The first thing I have to think is – what other purposes?

The Stop Online Piracy Act, hereafter referred to as SOPA, was introduced in the House of Representatives on October 26, 2011 by Mr. Smith of Texas for himself, Mr. Conyers, Mr. Goodlatte, Mr. Berman, Mr. Griffin of Arkansas, Mr. Gallegly, Mr. Deutch, Mr. Chabot, Mr. Ross of Florida, Mrs. Blackburn, Mrs. Bono Mack, Mr. Terry and Mr. Schiff.

What concerns manyof those who oppose the bill is the manner in which SOPA seeks to stop online piracy. It is a long bill, so I will pinpoint areas I have seen that others have discussed, however, I encourage you to please read the bill for yourself.

I will be referring to the H.R. 3261 – Stop Online Privacy Act link in the following points:

Page 10.1 —-

Sec. 102 Action by Attorney General to protect U.S. customers
and prevent U.S. support of foreign infringing sites.

Sounds okay, right? I mean, we want our government to protect us, right? And they do have a few pages there that discuss how they find the owner of sites and order them to stop doing what they do not like. Then we get down to page 13, lines 21-25, and page 14, lines 1-10:

(i) IN GENERAL. — A service provider shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures designed to prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) that is subject to the order, including measures designed to prevent the domain name of the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) from resolving to that domain name’s Internet Protocol address. Such actions shall be taken as expeditiously as possible, but in any case within 5 days after being served with a copy of the order, or within such time as the court may order.

Move on down to page 15, lines 11-20, and we have…

B) INTERNET SEARCH ENGINES.—A provider of an Internet search engine shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, but in any case within 5 days after being served with a copy of the order, or within such time as the court may order, designed to prevent the foreign infringing site that is subject to the order, or a portion of such site specified in the order, from being served as a direct hypertext link.

Now it is possible that your favorite picture site will be compliant and remove all images that infringe on any copyrights, but if they don’t then the entire site is likely to be blocked by search engines so you can’t find them via a search engine anymore. And, even if you do have them bookmarked or the URL memorized so do not see why them no longer showing up on a search engine is a bad thing, page 15 line 21 kicks off another reason why you should be worried about SOPA.

That is where they specify that if you pay to use the legal parts of a website that has illegal content on it, that your payment network can still block you from making subscription payments to that service.  Ending your ability to subscribe to it from within the United States.

What is of concern to manyis that by providing any sort of service where persons can communicate (think about your favorite forum or social networking site), or post content for others to download (think about your favorite file or document or image sharing site), the site owner can be held liable if their site is used for illegal purposes. Not the entire site, if just a portion of it is used for illegal purposes.

It is good to have someone make sure that your site is are not being abused or used for pirating, but as SOPA stands now, I would have to completely close my sites to comments (including my forums) so I could read EVERY comment before it was posted or I would face a $2,000,000 fine and prison time. For multiple cases a $5,000,000 fine. (And note that the same bill has $5,000,000 as the fine levied for someone that intentionally causes harm or death to someone or who shares military or government secrets – WHY is murder and treason comparable in fine to sharing two songs online????? Shouldn’t murder and treason be a bit more serious than an artist losing the sale of a .99 cent song???)

If I just leave my sites (as I have been known to do – a LOT), and someone posts links to where a movie can be downloaded (which BOTs do, a LOT), then under the SOPA bill I am held liable and fined multiple millions of dollars, plus whatever the entertainment industry decides to fine me for their lost income.

I’m in the US, and as far as I know all of my sites are too, but if a site is not in the US, and the site owner is not in the US to be dealt with personally by the laws of the US, then the Attorney General can order search engines to block your ability to see the site. (Section 102(c)(2)(B) as indicated in excerpt above – (Page 15, Lines 11-20)) That means the Attorney General decides to black out sections of the online world to US citizens. For their own good of course.

The scary part is, we, the people of the United States, would be giving our government the right to decided what sites need blocked from us. How easily could that power be abused?

And that is just part of what makes SOPA scary. I can’t go into full details in this post, so for a very good look at just what SOPA would mean, check out Why SOPA Is Dangerous byChris Held over at Mashable. He breaks it down into easily understandable language, but you still owe it to yourself to read the full bill and see just what it has to say for itself.

This post is VERY long, so I am going to break this discussion into a series of posts. Tomorrow I will tackle the next part of it: the Internet Strike and what happened with websites all across the Internet going dark for a day. I think if you read SOPA between now and then, you will understand why the sites felt it was necessary before I can get that post made, but come back anyway, I have some pictures of some of my favorites that I will share in tomorrow’s post. Then tomorrow or Monday I will get to why the Justice Department took down Megaupload and what you should know about Anonymous’ strike back, and why everything might have just been poorly timed events that snowballed to create the chaos it did.

The first month, payment time on the dryer approaches and I get a call to remind me to come in and make a payment. Wait… what? No. I am not the one that got the dryer, someone ELSE rented it I should not even be on that contract. What happened? I got it sorted out – until the next month, when I was called again. I keep trying to sort it out, and so does the person that has the dryer, but Rent A Center does not comprehend that I am not the person who rented the dryer.

They just called me again.

Me: Hello?

Her: This is ___ at Rent A Center, this is just a courtesy call to remind you that you need to make a payment on the dryer.

Me: …. what dryer?

Her: You rented a dryer.

Me: No, I did not, ____ rented a dryer, not me. You should call them.

Her: Oh.

Me: What number do you have there?

She rattled off my number and said it was marked as “Courtesy call.” And another number and said it was marked as “Courtesy call.” Then she read off a third one, the right number.

Me: And what is that one marked as?

Her: Call about dryer.

Me: That is the number you should call.

Why can they not comprehend the basic detail that I am NOT the person that rented the dryer, it was someone ELSE. Both me and that person have asked, on multiple occasions, for them to call the person who rented the dryer, to list that person as the number one contact about the dryer, but the local store can not do that. I’ve even talked to the manager and explained the situation to him and asked him to please fix it – but he can’t seem to correct the referrer being listed as the renter.

I don’t get my free rental time as a referrer and instead I have to face the headache of having them calling me to talk about someone else’s rental. It is really starting to annoy me and tick me off. I’m not renting anything from them again, I’ll go to the other rental place in town and give them all of my business and future referrals.  Rent A Center just can not seem to understand my only part in the dryer was to ask if they had one and then hand the phone to someone else as a referring customer. I never signed anything or even saw the store people in person when the dryer was rented, and it was not delivered to my house, so they need to stop harassing me about it unless they can not contact the person who rented it. PLEASE, can they just try the other number first for ONCE?