"Somebody to Love" - Wake County SPCA

Watch this video with dry eyes. I triple-dog dare you (no pun intended...swear!).

Closing Down - Update: Not so fast, my friend...

About a month ago, as a knee-jerk response to a new social networking policy from Wake County Schools, I posted this:
"For the three or four of you who have followed this, I haven't posted in a while anyway, but this blog will be going away because of the dangers inherent in the new wcpss policy about social networking. I will be taking this down in a few days, and so I say...adios."

Turns out, maybe I was being a bit impulsive (and perhaps chickenshit?). The policy was geared toward teachers "friending" students and the parents of WCPSS students, and thus creating an inappropriate relationship with them outside of the school on a private forum like facebook. As it happens, this blog is not only public, but completely unaffiliated with my other career as a teacher, and there is no way to create one of those relationships even if I wanted to (and I don't...my wife is the single greatest human being alive, so why would I?).

So, in short, this oft-updated blog (j/k) will continue as it has, and maybe even get a few more posts, because from everyone I've spoken to I'm legally allowed to have a blog that I don't access or update from work. Carry on....

A Fellow Advocate for Adopting Pets - Mr. Simon Wood

My wife and I will always have rescue dogs, if we have dogs at all. We both think the Tamaskan wolfdogs, given notoriety lately because of NC State adopting one as its live mascot, are absolutely beautiful. And frankly, we both want one, quite badly.

However, we've both agreed from here on out, only recues, just like the girls we have now.

Those of you (all 4 of you) who have followed this blog know I am a big advocate for adopting from shelters, so I was especially touched when I learned today of the awesome deal Simon Wood is offereing on all of his books for the next two weeks. Thus, I thought I would repost it here. To wit:

So from Simon:

This is for the animal lovers out there.

I doubt anyone is aware that my wife and I foster animals for the ASPCA and other organizations. We usually take the no hope cases, where the animals aren’t expected to survive or need specialist care. Over the last few years, we've rescued dozens of cats and dogs and found them new homes. Our family pets are all rescues -- ones that we couldn’t give up after the care we'd given them.

Our cat, Bug, was one of those rescues we couldn’t let go of after we’d taken him in. After five fun fill years, Bug died last week. He was a great cat and a lot of fun to have around the house. We’re going to miss him a lot.

In Bug’s honor, I’m going to donate all eBook royalties earned at Amazon and Smashwords.com for the next two weeks to Best Friends, an organization I truly admire. This applies to the following titles:

The Fall Guy
Asking For Trouble
Working Stiffs
The Scrubs
Road Rash
Dragged into Darkness

Please feel free to share this appeal on Twitter, Facebook or your blog. If there's a strong showing, I’ll extend the appeal.

Thanks for listening,
Simon Wood

So grab you a book for the upcoming holidays!!!

Timesuckers...or, "Watch out, these people VOTE!!"

I've discovered something about myself (I really always knew, but work with me here): I have a horribly addictive personality. Couple that with the ability to focus on really meaningless shit, and you have the things I am supposed to be doing getting left by the wayside in favor of timesuckers. I'm sure, knowing that many of the 5 or 6 of you who are reading this are unpublished writers like me, you are aware that writers are notorious for letting shit distract them when the writing isn't going well. And unpublished writers are the worst. If you don't know that, I'm probably talking about you. Don't take offense, I'm talking about me, too.

By the way, if you don't know what a timesucker is, you need to get out more. If you do know what a timesucker is, or you're like me and know ALL TOO WELL what they are, then we REALLY need to get out more, eh?

So anyway, as I'm tooling around the internet (instead of doing what I should be) over the last few days, I found a new one.

Whoa, Nelly, did I find one. I thought it was going to be funny. Instead, it terrified me.

The site is called (The Customer is) Not Always Right. Wow. Just...wow.

Yeah, I know some of it, even most of it maybe, is made up by people with too much time on their hands. But come on. You can't read through the horror stories on that site and not remember incredibly stupid people you've come across. For instance, I can remember being asked by someone (names witheld to protect, and all that), "Okay, so that's how I play the DVD. Once it's over, how do I rewind it?"

And that's nothing compared to the stuff I've heard up and down the halls on a daily basis...

(even on workdays)....

Remember, many of the people on that site, at least the ones that involve Americans, can vote. And you wonder why our government is so monumentally huge and sluggish and inefficient.

I came to one solid conclusion as I read through that site: They should license people to breed.

I know, I know.

Hey listen, I TEACH Orwell's 1984, and all about the Orwellian State. I know the dangers. Hell, I've been paying attention as the last two presidents have grown the government exponentially. I know governmental control is a bad thing, okay? Big Government=Bad.

Thanks. I get it.


I still came to, and stand by, that conclusion. Because the thought of some of those people raising children frightens me (and I'm using the word "raising" in such a broad and expansive and nonspecific way that I may have stretched any real meaning right out of it). Go ahead, peruse the site. It would scare the shit out of Jaws, I'm convinced.

Okay, Jaws would just be like, "drop 'em in the water, I'll take care of it," but you get the idea. Think on that for a minute, whydontcha, and have a good weekend....

Writers' Police Academy - AWESOME!!!

Just got back from the Christmas present my wife got me last year. I've been foaming at the mouth to go to this thing ever since I read about it on Lee Lofland's blog. And you know what?

It. Rocked.

There is no other way to describe it. Great job by Lee, Verna Dreisbach, The High Point Public Library, and everyone else who pitched in! Got to meet and hang out with lots of published writers (a great thing in and of itself), and even went through F.A.T.S. training with the amazing, talented, and all-around wonderful C.J. Lyons and Kelly Irvin (who both kicked ass in the training just as well as they do on the written page)!

I will be posting some of the stuff I learned from the workshops for you guys over the coming weeks, along with lousy photos I took with my cell phone (had the digital camera there with me, but the batteries got a really good charge since I left them in Raleigh...).

So, stay tuned for more, coming soon!

First Gear

Yeah, it's been forever, I know. I let life get in the way. So sue me.

Anyway, I managed to let life get in the way of my writing, which is the biggest no-no out there if you're a writer. Why? Because writers write. They don't talk about their book to others. They don't sit and daydream about the story for a month or two. They sit their ass down in the chair and write.

And if it sucks? Successful writers edit.

They don't look at the first piece of random frog shit they come up with and say, "MASTERPIECE!!!" They go back to the frog shit and clean it up until it's less like shit and more like a real story. Then they repeat until there isn't a whiff of shit to be found.

But it's that time between initial idea and blank screen that causes me trouble. Because frankly, I DO daydream the story, and take too damn long to organize it, and so forth. Why? Because I dove in the first time, and I could never clean it up past the "still whiffs of shit over here" phase.

It's okay, I can admit it, because the fact is it wasn't a good story. I have no idea if this one will be better, but I have taken WWAAAAAAYYYYYYY too long in preparation just to try and make sure it is. Now I'm ready to let that clutch out and start off.

And I'm freaked out. So the only thing I can do is put the (horrible) working title on the top of page one, and away we go.

How about you? What's it take to get you to the starting line? Let the clutch out slow, or pop it and hope the sucker starts?

Get out there and ADOPT!!!

The SPCA of Wake County is celebrating 43 years of saving lives by reducing all adoption fees this Saturday, June 12 and Sunday, June 13. Their shelter is packed full of adoptable cats, dogs, puppies, kittens looking to go home.