Writer At War

For Christmas I received the book THE ART OF WAR FOR WRITERS by James Scott Bell.  Fiction writing strategies, tactics, and exercises.  Mmmhmm.  We’ll see.

As a general rule, I avoid purchasing “how to” writing books, my theory being that those who can do and those who can’t supposedly teach.  And why should I line someone else’s pockets with my hard-earned money so they can tell me how to write fiction with no track record of doing it successfully themselves?

But since this book was a gift by a well-meaning writer friend, I’m glad to have it and have begun reading it.  The exercise on Page 13 says to write “down your honest reactions to the following statements:

“I decided that I would continue to write as long as I lived, even if I never sold one thing, because that was what I wanted out of my life.”

                                                –George Bernau

“Your reaction”

George is a lot like me.  Or a lot like I used to be.  For a long time I never cared if I sold my work.  But in the back of my mind I always expected that eventually I would.  I wrote for years before I sold anything.  Then I sold something else.  And then several years later, something else. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I like selling my work.  I like seeing it in print and sharing it.  I’m happy to receive the dribbles of money that come my way.  But money was never the driving force behind my writing.

However, there came a point in time when I looked at all the unsold manuscripts that lined my shelves and wondered why, if I wasn’t going to try to sell them, was I writing them?  No one else was seeing them.  Was I writing for my own enjoyment or what?

That’s when I seriously sat down and started sending out a manuscript I originally wrote in 1998 entitled A MONTH FROM MIAMI.  Samhain Publishing bought it and released it as an e-Book in 2008 and in print in 2009.

That encouraged me.  If I could fix and sell that old manuscript, could I fix and sell the others?  In between creating new work, I revise the old stuff.  I send them out because I want to sell them.  I think I’m at the point now where I’m getting closer and closer to more sales.  It’s become a matter of hitting the right editor with the right work at the right time.  So…good luck to me in doing that.

But at the same time, if I never sold another thing, would I keep writing?  Yes, of course, because if I give up, then assuredly I won’t sell anything else.  You have to keep writing and sending stuff out.  Just because one thing doesn’t sell, that doesn’t mean the next one won’t. 

No more writing guarantees no more sales.

ONE – Two

“In my life so far…”

Now we’re moving on to discussing differences I’ve made in someone else’s life starting with someone I’ve taught or mentored.  Again I find these questions almost impossible to answer because you could be teaching someone something without realizing it.  This book is basically asking what impact have you made on the people you’ve come into contact with (literally thousands, right?) and the impact you’ve made on the world.

About ten years ago when I naively believed I could make a difference in someone’s life through actual time and effort, I volunteered to mentor a teenage girl through a program set up with the juvenile justice system.  In fact, she ended up living with me for a year and a half.  I’ll call her Darby.  I loved Darby.  I saw a lot of me in her.  At her age (13 when we met) I’d have loved to have an adult take an interest in me, encourage me, talk to me.  I don’t think Darby cared one way or another.  She lived in a trailer park with a single mother who’d never been married to her father.  A father who was married to someone else and who she had no contact with and who lived hundreds of miles away.  I can’t recall now why Darby was in trouble to begin with.  Shoplifting, maybe.

Every week I picked her up and took her out.  To lunch.  To a movie.  I can’t say she ever really opened up to me.  Maybe she found me too bullying or aggressive or inquisitive when I tried to reach her.

Then I didn’t hear from her and I found out she was in juvenile detention for domestic violence against her mother.  When her mother refused to appear in court and take custody of her, Darby was sent to a homeless shelter a few days before Christmas.

Saying this situation appalled me would be an understatement.  What kind of parent allows their child to spend Christmas in a homeless shelter when it isn’t necessary?  In fact, her mother wanted to relinquish her parental rights and give Darby to the state.  Darby was 15 at the time.

With her mother’s permission, I got Darby out of the shelter and brought her home with me.  I had only one goal: that Darby wouldn’t spend Christmas in a shelter surrounded by strangers thinking no one cared and no one wanted her.  She ended up staying for a year and a half.  I spent hours on the phone with the various powers that be and in court with her.  I turned my family upside down for her, rearranged my household, bent over backwards to give her what I thought she needed.

Did it make a difference?  I don’t think so.  Eventually, she and I played out a version of the same scenario she had with her mother.  Pushed to my limit, I sent her back to her mom.  I did what I could and so did the rest of my family, especially my husband, and I don’t think it made a damn bit of difference in her life.

Darby used to say “everyone gives up on me.”  My belief is, if that is so, it’s because Darby gave up on herself.  If I’d seen any significant change in Darby’s behavior or attitude in all that time our experience might have ended differently.

I’ve seen Darby a couple of times since then.  Once when she stopped by maybe a year later to tell me that for her 18^th birthday her mother kicked her out.  Darby had moved in with a boyfriend and his mother.  Through the grapevine I later heard Darby was pregnant and the boyfriend was in jail.  I got an invitation to a baby shower which I did not attend and I heard she lost that baby.

About a year ago, completely out of the blue, she walked into the Starbucks where I work.  She’d been laid off her job at a restaurant and was collecting unemployment.  She was still living with the boyfriend and his mother and she had a little blond, blue-eyed boy.  She introduced me as her mentor to the boyfriend’s mother.

Frankly, you’d want to think of a mentor as someone whose example you’d want to follow, someone who can help you be all that you can be.  Darby introducing me as such when I failed miserably in that role, is not something I find at all flattering.

Darby had/has so much potential.  I wanted her to use it, to see what she could do and be.  Instead I think she chose the example set for her by her mother long before I met her.

But who knows?  I didn’t stay in touch with Darby so perhaps she’s accomplished great things in her life by now or one day will.

My husband always says we got Darby too late.  Maybe he’s right.

I comfort myself with the thought that my original goal was that she not spend Christmas in a homeless shelter.  In that, at least, I succeeded.

ONE – One

By the time the book ONE was marked down from $10.95 to $4.99 at the Starbucks after-Christmas sale, I decided to buy it using my 30% discount which means it cost me a little over $3.  Frankly, we had a stack of these books left, so I guess it’s not worth $10.95, or even $4.99 to a lot of our customers to delve too deeply into their life’s purpose.

I bought the book as a hoot.  This is the kind of stuff I sometimes mock, especially when it’s sold in a Starbucks.  I figure it’s simply more of the hokey corporate, liberal, let’s-make-a-difference propaganda. 

For example, this past year Starbucks reconfigured their computer system so that a receipt isn’t automatically generated for every credit card sale.  The cashier is given the option of asking the customer whether or not they want their receipt.  Since the marjority of our customers don’t want a receipt we’re saving trees, right?

I refer to declining a receipt as “saving a leaf on a tree.”  Yesterday a customer laughed and said, “Yes, but look at the amount of cardboard in the box you’re giving me to house the one cupcake I bought.”  I agreed and then also noted his coffee is served in a paper cup with a cardboard sleeve.  You see where this is going.  It’s ridiculous propaganda that we care about the environment and the amount of paper we use and waste we generate.  Although we have started recycling milk jugs.  As with most endeavors, some effort is better than none.

Perhaps this book is printed on recycled paper?

ONE is filled with inspirational quotes and anecdotes about how one person can make a difference  Also included are questions for the reader to answer.  That’s why I bought it.  Because I find blogging a challenge and I’m always looking for something to spur my blogging juices.  Even if it’s something like this.

There’s a big heading a few pages in entitled “Ask Yourself:”

Followed by questions:  “Who Am I?”  “Why Am I Here?”  “What Am I Doing For Others?”

You think these’d be easy to answer wouldn’t you, if you’ve exceeded the half-century mark in your life and then some.

How do you answer “Who Am I?”

A female.  A U.S. citizen.  Married.  Mother of two.  Fiction writer.  Deep thinker.  Starbucks barista. 

At the moment, that’s all I can think of.  Does that tell you who I am?  Does it sum me up?

“Why Am I Here?”

Because God put me here.  That one was pretty easy.

“What Am I Doing For Others?”

Who knows?  You could be doing great things for others without even knowing it.  You really can’t gauge your impact on the people you come into contact with every day, even your own family members.  Take working at Starbucks for example.  It’s considered by many to be a lowly job.  But most people probably wouldn’t get that there’s more to working there than serving coffee.  It’s interaction.  Stopping into Starbucks is the highlight of some people’s day.  It might be the only interaction they have with another human being.  I might be the only person who smiles at them and asks how they are or listens to them for a few minutes.

I made my husband breakfast this morning.  There.  I did something for someone else. 

I think God puts you where he wants you to be and we all have the opportunity to minister to others wherever we are.  You don’t need a church or an altar.  A cup of coffee and a friendly greeting might suffice.

You could be ministering to someone every day and not even know it.

Goodbye Girlfriend

Goodbye Girlfriend

I will miss you.  I don’t know why.  I try very hard not to get attached to my children’s significant others until I see a ring on a finger, but after two and a half years of including you in every holiday and family event, saying good-bye is killing me.  This isn’t even about me.  I know that and yet I feel this crushing sadness I can’t define.

Is it because I thought my small family would soon enlarge to include you?  I began to count on a future that now will never happen?  I can’t even talk to you on the phone without crying.

Maybe your pain reopened old wounds I’d thought long-healed.  No one likes to be on the receiving end of a break-up.  One thing if it’s your idea.  Quite another when the other party instigates it.  I’ve been dumped.  I didn’t like it thirty-plus years ago and I don’t like seeing someone else go through it, even when I understand the reason for it.

I look at the Christmas gifts I bought for you all wrapped with your name on them and I don’t know what to do.  Will giving them to you make you even sadder?  If you keep them will you think of him every time you look at them?  Or can you separate yourself enough to know he had nothing to do with these gifts?  They’re from me to you because after I told myself not to get attached, I love you.  I’m going to miss you.

Just writing that brings tears to my eyes.  I had such plans for the holidays.  Small plans, but anticipation, just the same.  The matching gifts I bought for you and for my other child, watching you both open them at the same time, hoping you’d like them as much as I hoped when I picked them out.

Christmas Day I’m reduced to this:  putting your gifts in a big shopping bag and dropping them off to you.  This is after a text message and a phone call during which I start to cry.  I’m afraid I’ll start crying when I see you and make you feel worse than you already do.

I keep asking myself, who’s going to drink cheap white zin with me?  The next girlfriend?  If there is a next girlfriend? 

I hope you know it isn’t you.  You deserve someone who can love you completely, the way you deserve to be loved.  Someone who can commit to you completely.  We all thought he was “the one.”  But he’s not and I have to give him credit.  He’s wise enough to know that.  Yet losing you is truly devastating.  For me.

Maybe it’s menopausal hormones.  Maybe it’s another loss piled on so many others this past year.  Maybe it’s hating seeing anyone I care about be hurt.  I can’t explain it.  Or why I’ve cried so many tears over it.  Even now.  They just flow and flow and I get sadder and sadder.

The best thing you can do for me and for yourself is get to over this and be happy.  Find someone who loves you the way you deserve to be loved and go for it. 

 Then we can both stop crying.

Ready, Set, Action

I’m convinced the manipulation gene skips a generation.  I don’t have it, but I’m pretty sure my daughter does.  The gene that allows you to get your own way by whatever means necessary, whether it be whining, the silent treatment, begging or convincing through simple logic.

Although I never figured out how to manipulate, for example, my husband, into doing things my way or giving into me (quite the opposite, imo, it was always his way or the highway), I think I might now be qualified to give advice to the lovelorn or ineffective manipulators out there.  From my own clinical observation and something I was told long ago by my high school English teacher and others, use this effective tool:  Actions Speak Louder Than Words.

In observing a romantic situation with a young woman and her boyfriend, I watched as they seemed unable to resolve an issue between them that arose whenever they visited their hometown.  He appeared to exclude her to spend time with his family and her feelings were constantly hurt and then she became angry. 

Reasoning with the boyfriend didn’t work.  Explaining why this upset her fell on deaf ears.  The behavior continued.

This is the age-old situation of doing the same thing and expecting different results.  When words don’t work, stop talking and do something different.

So she did.  When he called her after a day spent with his family, she ignored his call, ignored his voice mail, ignored his text messages.  Talking to him had been ineffective thus far.  Words weren’t working.  Perhaps silence would get his attention and make him realize she wasn’t taking his behavior lightly.

Sure enough after an evening of ignoring his attempts at contact he showed up at her door at 3:30 a.m.  Silence got through to him when all the words in the world had not.

This one incident may not resolve the situation.  It might take more than that to change it.  But if what you’re doing isn’t working, for heaven’s sake STOP DOING IT!  Try something else, perhaps the opposite of what you’ve been doing.  If you want to get your point across then remember:  Actions speak louder than words.

It’s Christmas

I’m on my second glass of wine.  It’s 5:31 p.m.  The hashbrown casserole is in the oven.  The steaks are still marinating.

My daughter is at her boyfriend’s house.  My son is back from work and sleeping maybe.  I don’t know.  I was taking a nap when he returned.

We’ve just moved my husband’s jigsaw puzzle back to the dining room table because we won’t be using it again any time soon.  We had a crowd of five here for Christmas Eve dinner last night.

Mostly I’ve spent the day trying not to think about what’s making me sad or crying about it because I am sad.  I’d like to chalk it up to menopausal hormones or too much wine.  Low blood sugar maybe.  When I’m asked how my Christmas was, what should I say?  The truth?  I spent much of the day in tears?  Or should I lie and say it was okay?

I’m not an only child but you’d never know it.  Of my three brothers, I received holiday greetings from one via e-mail.  Won’t be seeing him over the holidays even though he lives about an hour away.  Maybe we’ll get together sometime during the year.  I pat myself on the back because at least I sent them all a card.

I called my mother in the nursing home yesterday.  Sent her a small gift.

My friends have their own families.  Maybe there are things that make them sad, too, but they’re surrounded by loved ones.  At least I think they are.

The only time I laughed today was at the beach with my daughter.  A storm moved in while we were there.  We hustled to get back to the car but didn’t make it.  We were running on the beach, trying to beat the rain,  mocking the gait of a woman in front of us.  And we were laughing.  Hey, today?  I’ll take laughter wherever I find it.

We put our tree up but the top section wouldn’t light this year.  I never did hang the ornaments.  Even the angel at the top looks sad and disappointed.  Maybe she, too, is wondering what happened to the life she thought she had.

On Fox Glen Beck is interviewing service people in Iraq.  I feel for them, but I cannot watch it.  I’m tired of crying.  Rachel Ray and Nick Lachey redid a homeless shelter or something.  Can’t watch that, either.  On Dr. Oz some woman lost half of her body weight and had a baby.  Time to turn the TV off.

I watch my family shrink.  The people you think will love you or should love you because you’re related to them?  That doesn’t always happen.  Families fracture.  They go their separate ways.  And you hang on to whoever you’ve got left who can tolerate your presence for more than an hour.  In the end you realize you’re alone anyway.

Whenever I think I’m alone, I remember that’s when I find God’s there with me.  When I cry I know he hears me when no one else does, because I do my best to cry alone.  I know he does his best to comfort me.  But sometimes it just takes longer.  Sometimes loss doesn’t heal as fast as we wish it would.  And all we can do is wait for the day when we don’t feel sad any more.

Bad Mood

Do you ever wake up and you’re just in a bad mood?  For no apparent reason?  Maybe the day before you were on top of the world and today, before you even open your eyes, you feel miserable? 

 I woke up in pain this morning, a muscle spasm in my shoulder, my neck stiff from staring down at an espresso bar for six hours yesterday, but it’s more than that.  It’s a sort of defeatist, what’s the point? attitude that goes along with that downer of a mood.  You’re lonely.  No one cares.  No one’s interested.  You don’t want to do anything because after all, what’s the point?

 I don’t know what causes these mood swings.  Hormones?  Something I ate?  My mind playing tricks on me?  I don’t always know what to do to make it go away except to slog on through the day and hope I feel better tomorrow.

Yesterday at work a customer who moved away from the area four years ago came into the store.  She said it was nice to see a familiar face.  I remembered her, though not her name.  She used to come in every morning.  I enjoyed seeing her, but somehow seeing her made me feel old.  Older than I usually feel.  Like I’m stagnating.  I’m not moving forward.  I’m not selling my work.  I’m still waiting on “my” editor to get back to me on something she’s had for six months.  Six months!  Yep, I’m feeling pretty special right about now.  I write something unique and different and the entire manuscript is requested by a top level editor.  She’d like to buy it, but it’s a little too unique and different.  So, I’m going nowhere.

Stack that on top of what’s happened to the economy and the fallout we’ve personally experienced due to that, my family abandonment issues, oh wait, I think I might be getting a clue as to why I woke up in a bad mood today.

 You can sit there and tell yourself many things such as you should count your blessings, there are many people worse off than you and God loves you.  But you know what?  Even doing or knowing all of that, doesn’t immediately change the way you feel.  Sometimes I think we’re entitled to our bad moods.  Sometimes I want to wallow in my misery for a little while.  Maybe it makes me appreciate more those days I don’t wake up in a bad mood.  So for today—keep your distance and don’t talk to me.

On a final note, in regard to annoying people who walk into Starbucks, there is a guy, I don’t know what his deal is, but I grit my teeth every time he approaches the counter.  I’ve heard various stories about him.  That he’s homeless, or unemployed.  Unemployed I can believe, but he doesn’t look homeless. He’s too clean to be homeless.  He rides a bicycle that looks like it’s in pretty good shape.  He’s Eastern European, maybe, with a heavy accent and can barely make himself understood.  I see other of his native countrymen occasionally sitting with him and sometimes they buy him something to drink, because one thing I do know:  this guy never appears to have any money.

 If you make the mistake of sitting outside on a break anywhere near him, he’ll start talking to you like he knows you. If you’re a young pretty girl, he’ll try to get you to be his girlfriend.  He’s probably harmless, but I think he’s a little nuts.  Or maybe a little desperate to connect with another human being.  Thinking that now, I’m thinking I should try a little harder to be kind to him when he comes in.  He never buys anything.  He always wants a cup of water.  Some of the kinder Starbucks partners will throw him a free cup of coffee.  And once upon a time they’d give him a sandwich at the end of the night if it was headed to the garbage anyway.  But then he’d make a mess all over the table and leave the packaging there for us to clean up, which we didn’t appreciate, so we stopped doing that.

 But yesterday he came in.  He stands at the end of the counter and I literally have to force myself to go wait on him.  I stand halfway away and ask him what he wants.  He wants water.  So I go make him a cup, ask him if he wants ice, but I have to ask him twice because I don’t think he understands the question.  I don’t give him a straw or put a lid on the cup, because that’s my payback to him for not buying anything and expecting something for nothing.  Water.  Just a cup of water.  And I wonder why I’m so small and petty in dealing with another human being.  Why do I care so much?  Why does he bother me?  I give him his water with ice and I don’t make eye contact because I don’t like him and off he goes.

 I say something to the shift supervisor about him and I remember something my dad used to always say.  There but for the grace of God go I.  And I think, someday that could be me.  Asking for a cup of water and receiving nothing but contempt from the one grudgingly giving it to me.

I think of what Jesus said:  When I was hungry you gave me food.  When I was thirsty you gave me a drink.  If you did this for the least of my brothers, you did it for me.

 I know there’s a lesson there.  That’s probably why this guy keeps showing up.  To try and teach us the lesson whatever it is.  Compassion.  Kindness.  He’ll keep making an appearance until we learn it.  I think of the example of someone else who works at my store, who never seems to have a problem with this guy, the one who gives him a cup of coffee for free.  I should learn more from his example.

 I always say being kind costs us nothing.  Why can’t I behave that way?

I AM SO SCREWED!

I don’t know why blogs are called blogs.  They should be called rants, because that’s really what they are.  Everyone blowing off steam about whatever pissed them off that day.  We’re all just venting and I’m no different.

My rant today?  I got yet another rejection.  My disgust with the publishing world literally (no pun intended) knows no bounds.  How my head has not cracked in two from all the years of banging it against the wall in utter frustration is beyond me.

For years, no I mean YEARS, I’ve been writing romance novels.  Romantic comedy (published 3 of those, over a period of eight years—big whoop), romantic suspense, women’s fiction, straight romance, etc.  Am I a horrible writer?  Well, I don’t think so, but who can be objective about their own work?  I’ll tell you who.  No one.  So…the editors that bought those books saw something in them.  Bottom line?  They were good enough to be published, yes, by small publishers, but still published and well received with good reviews as far as I know.  (Meaning if they got bad reviews I never saw them or heard about them.)

Admittedly, I queried a lot of editors and agents with stuff that probably wasn’t ready to see the light of day and that’s why it got turned down.  Frankly?  I still do that.  And sometimes it’s a close call (or so the editors say), but it’s still a no.

Here’s what I heard about the romance book market.  There’s a glut of romance writers and limited slots and shelf space.  You need a twist, you need something special, something different.  Even though, when you get right down to it, a romance novel is a romance novel, is a romance novel.  So doing something different and unique is apparently a challenge I’m not up to.  It can’t just be good.  It has to be great.  Supposedly.  Which doesn’t explain why so much mediocre crap ends up on the shelves.  But I digress.

Okay, so I switched genres to what I term screwball urban fantasy.  A really unique idea.  No.  A.  Really.  Unique.  Idea.  Never been done before so far as I know.  A possibility for an endless series.  Admittedly I didn’t know what I was doing, but in my gut I thought it was a great idea and I got it down on paper.  Did it have problems?  No doubt.  And I won’t go into how many published books I read that have problems.  I’ll save those thoughts for another rant.

But, a well-respected sci-fi/fantasy editor with a recently acquired imprint at a well-known traditional New York publisher asked for the entire manuscript.  Exciting for me?  You bet.  I started cooking on the second book, getting even more ideas for the series, some I even shared with said editor.  This is it.  I’m in.  She wants to see it.  Was intrigued enough after seeing the first three chapters to ask for all of it.  Great!  I’m finally going to break out or in to the world of publishing!!!

Until I got a lovely rejection letter that basically says, I’m sorry, this story idea is just too far out there.  Wish I had more leeway, wish I was still a small press but because I’m with a big company now, I can’t take this kind of chance.

Are you effing kidding me?  I am SO SCREWED.  After years and years and years of hearing your work isn’t unique enough, different enough, doesn’t have enough of a twist, I’m hearing, gee, wish I could buy this but it’s TOO UNIQUE?

I. CAN. NOT. WIN. 

Conventional wisdom says find an agent.  You can sell this.  I’m not a believer.  The few agents I queried even when I had this editor looking at it sent rejection letters back so fast my inbox smarted from the sting.

There is a well-known psychologist who believes we all choose who we want to be before we’re ever born.  For example, some guy chooses to be the deadbeat, alcoholic father who abandons his kids so they can grow up and be wonderful opposite examples of him.

If this is true, then I chose to be the writer who wrote for years and years and years and never achieved any kind of significant publication track record, even though (maybe) I was a good writer.  May no one ever follow in my path.

How the world is not littered with the bodies of frustrated writers who have given up and put a gun to their heads is beyond me.  Sadly, with the economy in freefall and without another book sale, I won’t be able to afford the gun.  Let alone the one bullet I’ll need.  So I’m back to banging my head against the wall.  Which costs nothing.  But I’m wondering now if it stimulates hair growth?  Because that would explain why mine is so thick.

GOOD BOOKS

I have a bone to pick with the author, Lisa Unger.  Basically, it’s this:  How dare she write such a good book?

I not only write fiction I read it.  All the time. Tons of it.  If I could get paid to be a professional reader, I’d take the job.  Unfortunately, the downside to that job is that my major complaint would be the same as it is now.  There just aren’t that many really good books out there.  I mean, there are good books, don’t get me wrong.  There are some pretty good books.  But there’s also a high percentage of mediocre books.  So-so books.  Ho-hum books.  Boring books.  You get the idea.  There’s a lot of crap that gets published, in my opinion.

Now then, it seems to me, that there was a time in my memory where I read a lot more good books.  Really good books.  Books I couldn’t put down.  Either the books are getting worse or I’ve become more discerning in my old age, but the “this book is so good I can’t put it down” behavior rarely happens to me any more.  Very rarely.

What I’ve noticed of late is how impatient I’ve become when I’m reading a work of recently published fiction.  I often develop this attitude of, “Come on, already, get to the point.”  Or “Is anything interesting ever going to happen?”  Or my least favorite, “What is this book even about?”  In other words, I find most of the books I read very easy to put down.  And not because I’m tired of reading necessarily.  I’m just tired of reading that book. 

With the holidays, I’ve sort of been pressed for time.  I have a manuscript on which I’m doing a read-through and edit.  Another one I’m writing.  Another one I’m reading for a friend.  That’s what I’m supposed to be doing.  But this past weekend, when I had plenty of free time to work on the editing of my own manuscript, which is what I should be doing, what did I do?  I kept picking up Lisa Unger’s BLACK OUT.  I’ve decided she’s bad for my writing career because I’m like finally, a really good book.  A book I don’t want to put down.  I did put it down.  I’d work on my own stuff for awhile.  The problem was I kept picking Lisa’s book back up.  I finished it last night.  This is the third book of hers I’ve read, as a matter of fact.  They were all good.  If you like psychological suspense, read her.  If you have work of your own you need to concentrate on, don’t pick up one of her books. 

So now I’ve started reading a new book.  I can tell already, even though I’m only a few pages into it, it’s going to be easy to put down.  It’ll probably be an okay book.  Maybe a good book.  Even if it’s not I’ve given myself something to look forward to.  I have another Lisa Unger book to read.  It’s buried on the bottom of the pile so I won’t be tempted.  Because I have my own book to finish first.

Kissing Freedom Goodbye

Welcome Guest Blogger MATT MEYERS

Matt is a 27-year-old who lives in Southwest Florida and works as a manager in the hospitality industry.

If our elected officials listened to us, this health care bill would have been dead long ago. I am fearful that they will pass this, and it will be disastrous for the country on so many levels. Did you see Obama’s interview on Fox? First time he’s thrown out the “double dip recession” line. And now they are thinking about taking a look at some tax cuts for small business so they can hire immediately. Hey idiot…that’s what conservatives were saying all along! This stimulus package was about the worst idea ever and can’t be executed at all. Yet, they can fix healthcare?

As I’ve said before this has nothing to do with helping people or fixing healthcare. It is about power and redistribution of wealth. They are creating a 51/49 dynamic where you have the provider class and the recipient class. It’s all right there in Rules for Radicals – which is the playbook. It is beyond me how so many Americans are naïve enough to think these people actually want to help them and for that matter how many Americans see the Federal Gov’t as a necessary force in their lives.

I fear that we may never recover from this with the policies (monetary, social, environmental) that are being put in place. I do believe that unemployment will hit 12% eventually, and with greater tax burdens, regulations, etc. we will not be able to sustain ourselves as a super power or a free country. I am hoping that I can keep my job long enough to get my degree, because I will not be in this country should it go the way I believe it will.

Here’s what really bothers me…this is NOT the America I was raised in. No longer do we have a Ronald Reagan who believes in the spirit of Americans and their ability and talent. No longer do we have a government that recognizes its Constitutional limits. No longer do they truly believe in a free market system. That is not the country I love, not the country I was raised in…and NOT the country I will raise my children in. I refuse to let them see an America that runs that way.

I don’t know if you know who Art Laffer is, but he was Reagan’s chief economic advisor and a brilliant man. He says if he had a long weekend he could undo all of this. God I wish he was going to get the chance.

They say Repubs have no ideas or solutions. Here’s what I’d do tomorrow if I could:

1. Cut the corporate tax rate to 10% – match the lowest in the world and keep jobs and companies here.
2. Cut payroll taxes in half for at least 3 years.
3. Cut capital gains to zero for at least one year – no higher than 10% after that.
4. Close the border once and for all – put illegals with something to offer on a path to citizenship and ship the rest out.
5. I’d start drilling for oil in ANWAR – as well as clean coal technology, nuclear power plants, wind and solar.
6. I WOULD IMPLEMENT THE FAIR TAX ASAP.
7. I would privatize social security – or at least give individuals the opportunity to not participate.
8. I would cut the federal government size to pre-Great Depression levels and gives States their sovereignty back.

If reading this makes a difference for one person it’s a success. Yes, it is sad and depressing because we’re watching our country slip away under a socialist smiley face. And, you don’t hear any Republicans actually speaking from the heart and telling it like it is. They just reiterate talking points, with no details or solutions. And it’s sad that people like Ron Paul are made to be pariahs when what they are saying has validity and logic behind it. The problem is that those in Congress on both sides do not want to relinquish power, and when someone is advocating following the Constitution by definition that means smaller government, hence less power. If they really wanted fairness, they’d be all for the FairTax, but that’s not really what they want. You could get rid of the IRS, talk about reducing the scope of government!

If they offered Landreau $100M to get the vote, they’ll just do the same for Lincoln and Nelson. And why not, we have money to throw around right? Of course, when we get into inflation or hyperinflation, that $100M will only be worth $30M. I’m sure it’s deficit neutral though.

It is obvious to me that the left – whether Lib or Blue Dog – are not going to vote based on what their constituency wants. This bill is strongly opposed by nearly every demographic, but they will ram it down our throats because we’re just stupid peons who don’t know what’s best for us. We just need to let the government take care of us, don’t worry about a thing. There’s the smiley face again! Interesting that when you look past the initial 10 years of the bill, the cost triples. I am sure we can afford that, let’s cut Medicare for seniors and transfer that to young people and illegals and the poor. Aren’t the poor already covered under Medicaid? And illegals have no rights as citizens? Regardless, health insurance is not a right and is not Constitutional to begin with. But, the Constitution is a relic anyway right? We need to be more like the Europeans, cause they’re so great! Never mind that they’d all be Nazi’s if it weren’t for us, because we defended FREEDOM! Never mind that the relative peace of the last 60 years is because of the US and its people.

We used to hold our founding principles near and dear, we used to know that freedom wasn’t free. We knew it would need to be defended. We just never knew we’d have to defend it from within.  Actually this is exactly what the Founders feared. The crossroads is here, and education is the key. Many in my generation haven’t the slightest clue, hell they can’t wait for their $600 stimulus check. I’m sure the education system run by the Left has a little something to do with this!

If only we could afford to sink our time and energy into actually fighting for the things we believe in. Unfortunately, we have jobs (if we’re lucky) and we can’t. Hard to know we have very few advocates on the inside. Our only chance is to reject at every turn every politician who advocates larger government in any terms. I will not vote for anyone who does whole heartedly support freedom and the American people. If you do not hold the Constitution sacred I will not support you. No longer will I vote for the lesser of two evils. I will vote for a third party candidate if it will disrupt blue and red. I will educate myself and I will question you if you do not represent your constituents. Government works for us, and every bit of soft tyranny is that much more freedom lost.

Your 51/49 dynamic will not last, because innovators and those with talent will flock to freedom. You will lose your precious provider class, and you will be left with a country in ruin. No one to take from, and nothing but poverty, misery, and government control over once free human beings. It will be sad to watch the decay of a once great people.

One of my favorite management philosophies is this; you get what you accept. It applies to government too. If you accept what is happening, then you’ll get what you deserve. Unfortunately, those of us who don’t accept it will be long gone.