"It Gets Better"

My friend BreiAnne shared this video with me this morning. I don't generally approve of the things Obama does, but this really renewed my faith in him. He had no obligation to say anything that he said here, but he did anyway. He does love our country, I know that.

It makes me so sad to think about all those kids who are dead now because of the hatred others show them. It makes no sense. If we think they're wrong about something (be it sexuality or anything else), we shouldn't hate them for a difference in opinion or lifestyle. I don't agree with a lot of things people do, but I don't have to. It's not my life they're living, it's their own.

Being a member of a fairly conservative church gives me a different perspective of the issue than many have. It's so hard. I know that. It's hard when people hate you for being who and what you feel you really are. I know what it's like to struggle through the harsh, ignorant, and spiteful words of others.

But Obama is right. It WILL be better. I really believe that.

My stance on the issue doesn't even matter. Whether I agree or disagree with gay marriage or anything else doesn't matter. SO many friends of mine are gay. My own twin is gay and I love him still. He's still a wonderful person and an amazing friend and I trust him above nearly everyone else. I don't like it when people put him down. His feelings are just as human as anyone else's. When he cries, his tears are water and salt, just like everyone else's. When he laughs or smiles, the world knows his joy, just as they know it when anyone else laughs or smiles.

I want a better world for him and for everyone. We're not all going to agree on everything. It's just not human nature. But does it really matter? Can't we just agree to disagree and get on living our lives in peace?

Why is it that people who are so outspoken against the war in the Middle East are so eager and willing to start a civil war in their own country? People are cut down. Lives are lost. Futures vanish in the blink of an eye.

Why?

Bullying and hate need to stop and it needs to stop NOW.

I don't want any more mothers and fathers to bury their children. I don't want brothers and sisters to feel the emptiness of a lost sibling. Loved ones should be allowed to stay together.

Hypocrisy kills me. I really hate it. I do.

I have a question for all of you.

Let's say being gay is not a sin. For argument's sake. Let's just go with that. But let's say acting on those feelings are.

How is that any worse than the straight man who watches pornography and ends up destroying his family because he can't stay faithful to his wife?

How is it worse than the man who beats his wife? Than the wife who screams at and hits her children?

How is it worse than the liar or the thief that almost all of us have been at one time or another?

If you think it's a sin, fine. Think so.

But just remember. No one hates you for your sins. No one throws it in your face and says you're going to hell for something you don't even recognize as a problem.

So stop. Just stop.

We live in a country that is proud of itself for offering freedom and liberty to all.

You may have a freedom of speech, but also keep in mind that everyone has the freedom to live. Life is a God-given right to EVERYONE. When you push someone to the edge and do things that make them want to kill themselves, you are taking that right away from them. YOU.

People don't commit suicide because everyone loves them.

Just think about it. Think of how many faces you would never know if this hatred continues.

I love my friends. I love my twin. Who wouldn't? They're wonderful and amazing people, each with his or her own story to tell.

Stop hating. Stop teasing and taunting. It doesn't help anyone. It especially doesn't help you.

Grow up. Realize that people are different for a REASON.

Love. Don't hate. Please.

Leave my family alone.

Audience

I forgot to add something earlier that I think is important.

My stats say that I have almost twice as many readers in Denmark than I do from my own country, the USA. The UK is only one short of the US and I've finally reached two of my favorite countries in the world - France and Germany.

Thank you everyone for reading! It really warms my heart and makes me feel accomplished somehow, knowing other people are reading my blog.

Please leave your comments and tell me what you think of the things I write. I'd love to hear from you all.

Thanks again!

Merci beaucoup!

Vielen Dank!

(Anyone know how to say that in Danish?)

♥♥♥

NanoWriMo - Character Development

This part of Nano usually comes later for me, but this time around I have SO many characters that it seemed like a good idea to start some of this early, especially for the deeper (or really the sadder) stories.

The first one I want to work on is the first one I came up with. This story really started off the whole project and gave me the idea to make several shorter stories instead of making it one really long story. This one was just too much for me to do as a novel in and of itself, though I have enough ideas that I could. It just seemed more meaningful as a shorter story.

This story has two tentative, working titles at the moment. I'm not a huge fan of either, but you get the idea. It's called "Brothers" and "Always Half, Never Whole."

Brief Summary:

Jonathan is in a very bad accident (details TBD) and will not be able to recover. His father, a renowned surgeon, attempts to save him. He can't save him as a whole (due to a massive and vague head injury that damaged his brain) so he splits him in to 2 humanoids, John and Nathan, each with half of what the human child was.

They have no memory of ever being Jonathan and so continue their lives as new people. Nathan is perfectly content to live his simple life, going to school and being with his father and brother. John, on the other hand, is not. He longs to be human and know what it's like, so when he can't find a way, he gives up everything, leaving Nathan alone.

The story takes off from there and watches Nathan struggle to be half of the entire whole. In the end he can't manage it and decides to find his brother in the next life, whatever that may be. And if there isn't one, then he sees no reason to continue on in misery anyway.

SO! Very depressing. There are fewer depressing stories in my book than not. Have no fear! This one just happens to be my favorite.

The development of Nathan's character is easy for me. He's very simple and easy to me to understand. He's at his happiest when those around him are happy. He wants nothing more than to be with his father and brother and live his life. He thinks he's relatively selfless because all his actions revolve around making others happy, but when John dies he discovers he's extremely selfish. All he wants is to be happy himself, and he doesn't know how to be happy without his brother there. He knows his death will (no pun intended) kill his father, but he can't make that more important than satisfying his own wants.

John is a little harder. Here's what I have in my notes:

"John. Teenaged humanoid. He wants to know what it’s like to be human. He hates being different and thinks everyone despises him for being a part of their “perfect world.” He feels like a stain on a white carpet that everyone wants to be rid of."

It's important, but that's not all of it. He's so complex... and it's hard to get in to his head. I'm much more like Nathan or Sara (the friend who tries to stop Nathan) than John. I looked around for something to inspire me. Here's something I found that helped a bit:

This picture was found here. I don't own the drawing, nor do I own the original picture that this is based off of.

Anyway. This seemed to fit because one brother (the one on the right) is looking at the camera and seems content and grounded. The other (left) isn't paying any attention to what's around him and is staring off in to space, probably dreaming about something better.

It gives me a visual reference, I guess, but I'm trying to steer clear of "reference photos." I feel boxed in when I have them, so this is a feeling reference, I suppose.

GAH! Unfortunately I'm now completely out of time. I slept in until 9 - WAY LATE - and have gotten nothing done since except to clean up and partially cough up my lungs. Fun, eh? =P

So before I run off and leave this be until another time (probably tomorrow), I'm going to post 2 videos for songs that have really helped me with this one. Interpret their purpose as you like. =) That I'll keep to myself for now.

Tschüss!

Spring Nicht Official Music Video from Scream TH on Vimeo.

Note: This is an edited version of the video. In the original, he falls off the roof at the end (in addition to his other selves walking away and disappearing). I couldn't find a good quality video of that version, so I posted this one instead. The fall is important to me, though.

Procrastination...

I does it.

I was playing around with my webcam and this was the best one I got. It's a light from a keychain my uncle gave me, pointed directly at the camera.

It kinda looks like a blue planet exploded... and the moon is about to get it. Lol.

Or perhaps... that's no moon. >:3

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

OH! Really quickly.

HAPPY 21ST BIRTHDAY GARRETT!!!! ♥♥♥♥

He's one of my dearest friends and he is currently serving a mission for our church in Finland.

It's been over 2 years since I saw him last. It's pretty crazy sometimes, to realize how much time has passed. It feels like forever ago and yet only a second ago at the same time. Funny how that works, isn't it?

He gets back either late in November or early in December. I may have to wait until January to see him. He lives in Vegas and that's about a 6 hour drive from here. (Our country is HUGE!!!) I don't know if I'll have the time or motivation to go all the way down there haha.

He's sent me more recent pictures since this one, but I haven't scanned any of them.

So there you go! One of my best friends. =) If any of you are in Finland (I believe he's in Kerava right now) and happen to meet an Elder Hybarger, send my love his way.

I'm so glad he'll be home soon. I miss him. =)

I hope, my dear friend, that your birthday today is the best one EVER (even though it's already half over for you haha).

NaNoWriMo - part 3 (self publishing and the like)

Well. The exam was extremely easy. I think everyone finished in under 30 minutes. And after my interview today, I'll be done with that class! Yay! It was starting to get to me. I love being done with block classes haha.

Right now I am continuing to procrastinate doing my other homework. Reading 20-some pages of analyzing art is not my cup of tea, so I'm putting it off. Haven't even made it through 2 pages and am already bored out of my mind. At least it's in English though... If it were in French, I'd never make it haha. I still have 3 hours to get it done though. There are only 2 questions this time, so that's not too bad.

French Civ exam #3 opens tomorrow. Blech. Not fun. At least my project proposal is done, printed, and ready to go. I'm way behind on my Isaiah project, but it's alright. Hopefully I'll get to work on that some time this week. That and maybe get in SOME hours for work. I didn't get in any last week. Boo!

I really want it to be November... Nano will make me incredibly happy and will give me something fun to do.

As for the book as a whole...

I really want to try to tie in some of the stories to one another and give it some more continuity, since I'm lacking a little in that department. I mean, a series of short stories is great, especially because they have a common theme, but tying them together makes it seem more polished and thought out. At least I think it does.

So far all I have is a connection to "Junkyard" and "The Creator." I want Jim (the creator himself) to hear about the Junkyard incident and then to go and try to fix the Androids that were killed in the events preceding it. I don't know if I'll come out and say it upright, but it will at the very least be strongly implied.

I really want to post things about my book online here, but I have 2 issues with doing so.

1. Idea theft.

I'm not too worried about that because I don't think many of my ideas make sense to other people right now. Lots of them are still in picture form and have very little solidified as of yet. Plus I don't think many people are that desperate. If someone could do something with just my basic ideas, they'd be creative enough to come up with their own story and therefore wouldn't need mine.

The second is more important.

2. "Self publishing"

I always want to leave the option open to getting my work published some day and if you "self publish" it's MUCH harder to achieve this. Since this book can be however long or short I choose it to be, based on the number of stories I write, it wouldn't be a particularly difficult one to conceive of getting published one day. So yeah... I don't want to run the risk of not being able to do that because I posted too much of it on the nets.

Rawr. Silly publishing companies.

I noticed that, since I started writing about Nanowrimo, my audience has tripled! Thanks everyone for reading my blog :) I really appreciate it. I'd really love to hear from my readers. As of yet, my blog has 0 comments and it makes me a little sad. So if you have a second, leave a comment please. I'd love to hear from you!

Maybe once I finish my French homework (and maybe read for Isaiah as well haha) I'll update with more stuff about my book. I need to develop several of my characters a LOT more. I have general ideas for stories and I know HOW my characters will respond to their situations, but I have very little idea about the WHY of it all. It seems important to me.

Anyway. I'm REALLY stalling. I need to get back to work.

Only 2 more months of this semester!! It's kind of hard to believe it's already half over. =3 Oh how time flies.

Bye friends!

NanoWriMo - part 2

I should be studying for my first final which is in... just over 2 hours. But I just don't have the motivation right now. So hi blog!

So, Nano story is already going under construction. I decided to take out the story "The Little Tailor." It's all fine and good, I just can't make it interesting enough. It'll probably be condensed and used as an intro.

To replace it, I came up with "The Mind of the Machine." But more on that later.

I started going through all the music I want to use as inspiration/mood setters for when I'm actually writing next month. I haven't even gone through 1/3 of the stuff on my hard drive, but it's alright. It'll give me something to do for the next couple of weeks.

Can you believe October will be over in just 2 weeks? Crazy, isn't it? Two weeks from now is November 1st! GAh!! So excited =D

I'm starting to solidify character names and basic personality outlines as well. Those are always subject to change, even while writing. It's pretty rare that I change names once I've started writing, but personality and background stuff change all over the place.

But anyway! Music!

I would LOVE to make playlists for each chapter/story section, but most of the music I use can't be found online at places like playlist.com. Amazing site, but my music taste is a little strange. So still looking in to that.

Does anyone know of a site where you can upload your own music to playlists? I don't want to make individual ones in my iTunes, though that is also an option. What do you guys do?

Here's what I have so far. It's all raw and hasn't been fine-tuned AT ALL, so many of these songs have the distinct possibility of a non-future on my list. But we'll see.

I look through the files that are sorted according to artist, so if it seems skewed in the early-alphabiet direction, that's why. I'll get to the later ones (hopefully) when I have the time. ^^;; haha.

"Lovers Scorned"

• "If I apologised" from Mirrormask
• "Wishing you were somehow here again" from the Phantom of the Opera
• "I'm with you" by Avril Lavigne
• "Complicated" by Avril Lavigne
• "My Happy Ending" by Avril Lavigne
• "The Scientist" by Coldplay
• "Enchantment Passing Through" from Aida (the musical, not the opera)
• "Radames' Letter" from Aida
• "Goodnight Julia" from Cowboy Bebop
• "Rain" from Cowboy Bebop

"Junkyard"

• "Baroque" by Malice Mizer
• "Path, vol. 2" by Apocaliptica
• "Go" by Asia
• "Requiem for a Dream" by Clint Mansell
• "The City is at War" by Cobra Starship
• "Otherworld" from Final Fantasy X
• "Crawling in the Dark" by Hoobastank
• "Down with the Sickness" from "Queen of the Damned"
• "Bad Reputation" by Joan Jett
• "Epiphany" from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
• "Rakuen" from DNAngel
• "City of Angels" by the Distillers

"Brother" or "Always Half, Never Whole"

• "Silver and Cold" by A.F.I.
• "Learn to be Lonely" from the Phantom of the Opera (film version)
• "Kiss Me Goodbye" (both English and Japanese versions) by Angela Aki
• "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" from Les Mis.
• "Javert's Suicide" from Les Mis.
• "Crawling in the Dark (Studio Version)" by Hoobastank
• "Frozen Flower" from DNAngel
• "Darkness" by Darren Hayes
• "Mad World (Full Version)" from Donnie Darko

"Heart(h) and Home"

• "Jinsei no merry-go-round" from "Howl's Moving Castle"
• "Koe" by Tsukiko Amano
• "You Showed Me" by the Backstreet Boys (yeah I know. It's a good song though, so no hatin')
• "Wandering" from Final Fantasy X (I think...?)
• "Caged Bird" from DNAngel
• "Mitsumeru Saki Ni Wa" from DNAngel

"Dancer in the Street"

• "[jibberish from non-transfered Japanese text] - Acoustic Version" from DNAngel
• "Boku wa Koko ni Iru" from "Full Metal Alchemist"
• "True Color" by Cyndi Lauper
• "Blackbird" from "I Am Sam" (remake of the Beatles' song)
• "風の辿り着く場所" from/by I Have No Freaking Clue
• "Ave Maria" - Cowboy Bebop Version

"Curiosity"

• "The Sore Feet Song" by Ally Kerr
• "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" by The Backstreet Boys
• "I'm Still Here (Jim's Theme)" from "Treasure Planet," written and performed by Jonny Resnick
• "Flying Teapot" from Cowboy Bebop
• "Yagami Light's Song" from DeathNote

"Serenity/1000 words/Simon Says (Nothing)"

• "Shape of my Heart" by the Backstreet Boys
• "Sayonara Solitaire" from Chrno Crusade
• "Castle on a Cloud" from Les Mis
• "Always Know Where You Are" from Treasure Planet, performed by 98 Degrees(??)
• "Green Bird" from Cowboy Bebop
• "Flying Teapot" from Cowboy Bebop

"Asylum"

• "Uninvited" by Alanis Morissette
• "Misera Cantare" by A.F.I.
• "Sekai no Yakusoku" from... uh....?
• "Introduction (Titles)" from "Edward Scissorhands," written by Danny Elfman
• "Darkness" by Darren Hayes
• "Opening Titles including Underground" from "Labyrinth," written and performed by David Bowie
• "Enter Sandman" by Metallica
• "Suffering Planet (remix)" from Final Fantasy 7 (originally)

"The Creator"

• "I Know He Lives" by April Meservy
• "Clocks" by Coldplay
• "Don't Give Up" by Eagle Eye Cherry
• "Concerning Hobbits" from "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring"
• "Higher" by Creed
• "If You're Not the One" by Daniel Bedingfield

"The Mind of the Machine"

• "Easy as Life" from Aida
• "The Alchemic World - Two Years Thereafter" from "Conqueror of Shamballa," a sequel film for Full Metal Alchemist
• "Caged Bird" from DNAngel
• "Let Me Be Your Wings" from Thumbellina

Generic Music That Has No Specific Category but that Seems Useful in Some Way or Another:

• Same acoustic version as "Dancer in the Street"
• "Prelude 12/21" by A.F.I.
• "La Chanson d'Azmaria" from Chrno Crusade
• "Zanarkand" from Final Fantasy X
• "The Sending" from Final Fantasy X
• "One Day More" from Les Mis
• "Finale" from Les Mis
• "Music of my Heart" from "Music of the Heart," performed by N*SYNC with Gloria Estefon
• "Not One of Us" from "The Lion King II: Simba's Pride"
• "Heaven (Candlelight Remix)" by DJ Sammy and Yaonu

WOW That's a TON of music. This almost seems like spam haha. But there's so much music!!! It's insane.

I love this haha.

Ok. Procrastination over. Must study. Test at 9 and I have to leave in just over an hour. Yay!!

Wish me luck =3