Saturday, December 11, 2010

Karma, and Why it Can't Exist

Karma is something that many of you have probably heard of. You know when a co-worker's been pissing you off lately and then suddenly they drop something heavy on your foot. Some people call that karma. I call it seeing what you want to see.

The only thing that pisses me off more than Roman Catholics, (This applies to the 95% of them that are basically inane imbeciles that wordlessly follow the Pope. There are good Roman Catholics. They're just hard to find.) is people who believe in karma.

Let's take the Columbine High School incident for example. Just for a brief summary, two kids were bullied for years. Finally they had enough and brought guns to the school, killed 15, and injured 24. Part of the 15 dead were the shooters themselves. Now, some of you might say, "Oh, well they deserved it. Karma lulz." For those of you who think that, there's a special place in Hell for you. While I cannot justify what they did, others would have done the same in their position. Now off the topic of this and back to karma. There was no karma in this. Saying that this was karma is like saying the Americans deserved 9/11, albeit on a much smaller scale. It's not right.

Second off, karma, much like God, isn't real. While God is fine and all for giving people something to believe in and blame suicide bombings on, he still isn't real. Just because of a coincidence that seems like karma happens, doesn't mean it's real. It's a pathetic self-justification for getting pleasure from other people's pain and suffering. In other words, even the belief of karma is immoral. You're justifying the pain of others.

Karma is often used by those who want to derive amusement from other's pain without feeling bad. It's like punching someone who called you a name and calling it karma. When a person that was previously mean to you trips a month later, it's not karma. It's not even close. There's a month's difference between the incidents. Even if it happens right after, it's just a coincidence.

I mean, if you believe in karma, then all those suicide bombings, all those dead people, deserved it. Everyone. You can't argue against that without making karma a thing with certain exceptions, much like the hate of the Roman Catholic Church.

In conclusion, karma is used as an excuse for people to feel good about getting pleasure from other peoples' pain. It's immoral to justify it. In other words, it's a sick thing. It's a nonexistent lie.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Sunday Night Blues

So today I took my piano over to my friend's place after school. He has this effects thing that we managed to hook up to my piano, so it was pretty much like a synth. We jammed for a bit before I learned the notes for twelve bar blues and we recorded some stuff. We were actually pretty good, though my friend is prone to...head spasming during solos. I might be able to put the stuff on here if I can figure out how. It should be too hard.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Editing, Revising, Hell

First of all. I'm watching Dora in some way that is unfathomable ironic, yet is ironic nonetheless. It's ironically cool in an ironic sense. That was just to confuse you. Onto the actual stuff.

For those of you who know me, I did NaNoWriMo last year. I also did it this year. I'm a veteran of NaNoWriMo. Just for a brief summary, NaNoWriMo is a competition or sorts, where you race to type a 50000 word novel in one month. The month in question is November. This was my second NaNo.

This year, I actually like my story. I'm planning on editing/revising it and sending it to an agent to I can get it published. right now though, before I even start reading it, I gave a copy of the file to a friend of mine to read. He printed it out, and now pretty much my whole class is bugging me to read it. I'm already a famous author, you could say. Apparently it's really good though, yet I'm still working up the guts to give it a full read through. It's scary, because you think it'll be bad. So, I'm of conflicting opinions regarding reading it. Luckily for me, I have a book report due next week, so I can't read anything until I type up the rough copy. The book I'm doing my book report on is The Law of Nines, by Terry Goodkind. It's a pretty good book, despite the awful reviews. Then again, I'm not a picky reader, and the action was almost non-stop, so I have no qualms with it.

I'm going to put some revision tips here just because I love you all so much. Not really though. I just need to procrastinate. Okay, it's just one thing, but it helps. A lot. Seriously.

Before you even start editing and revising, read through your story and take notes of what happens each chapter. Then put your notes on separate index cards/sticky notes/dead bodies. Now you basically have a movable version of your storyline. Try arranging it in different combinations until you find something that you like. If you're stuck for ideas, just scramble them all up. You might stick with the storyline you have, or you might find some even better way of doing it. This helps. Seriously. It may sound stupid, but from personal experience, you can have a lot of fun with it, as well as find an even better way to do your story. Add some events in the middle if you want. It's basically fixing your storyline/plot.

After that, revise and edit to your heart's content. Just remember, editing and revising a novel, a NaNo novel especially, is Hell. Remember to keep your red pen at hand and use your Inner Editer in large doses. Potentially lethal doses. It wants you. The voices are telling me to edit my story now. Shut up voices. I won't make a sandwich. No. NO. STOP SAYING THAT. YOU'RE EMBARRASSING ME VOICES. I HATE YOU VOICES. FML.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Faun-Bites: Now with Double the Holiday Spirit

I know, I know, its been awhile. I've been preoccupied with NaNoWriMo though, so I find that to be a valid excuse. Oh, and I won. So, now I'm a somewhat seasoned writer, with two, now three short stories, and two 50, 000 word novels. (They're not precisely 50k words long. Add a few hundred or so.) So in the spirit of doing crazy things, I'll put up some random story thing I just wrote. I blame the Pan's Labyrinth soundtrack, which is awesome by the way, though I still need to see the movie. This is why I have to be careful during freewriting for English class. (There was no editing done, as this is a first draft. It took around ten minutes. And no, I don't have mental problems.)


The Curious Death of Jay

“Remember to clean up the attic,” Jay’s father had told him a week ago. Despite that, he had neglected to do so. It was more of a fear of the attic; a fear of the dark, and those things that lurk in it. Even when you grow up you still keep that fear of the dark. It’s instinctive. You may try to logically persuade yourself that there’s nothing in your closet, but there is. Jay found that out much too late.

With a yawn Jay fumbled with his keys and swung open the creaky door to his house. The paint on the door, which was red, was starting to chip. Jay wasn’t exactly what you would call...quick to get to things. He was a slacker, and he even admitted it. He shrugged off his suit and tossed it over the railing. With a stretch he placed his briefcase onto the floor next to the railings before trudging up the steps. He walked into the bathroom and looked up at the ceiling.

There was a cord dangling from a panel in the ceiling. It was the door to the attic, though Jay had only been there once, when he had moved there. It creeped him out too much, to think of what horrible monsters lay in wake for him up there in the dark. No one would hear me scream, Jay mused as he pulled on the cord and watched with boredom as a small stairway unfolded itself. Jay walked over to it and took his first hesitant step towards the attic before running back downstairs. Flashlight, flashlight, Jay thought as he rummaged through his cabinet. At last, he took the flashlight and headed back to the staircase to the attic.

Jay flicked the flashlight on and then step by step, headed up the staircase. Every step made a creak, and scared Jay even more. At last he stood at the top of the staircase. He shone the flashlight around the room, fighting the urge to run back downstairs. The dark shadows dancing on the walls terrified him. They were monsters, demons reaching out for him. Jay shook his head before pulling the staircase back up. There was a click. Jay tried to push the staircase back down, but it had locked in place somehow. Jay felt an overwhelming desire to flee, but his only escape route was blocked off. Jay turned around, trying to think of an alternate way to escape, but found only a dusty window. The window was on the second story, and though Jay’s fear was great, he couldn’t bring himself to jump. Jay heard a shuffling noise from behind him and quickly turned and shone the flashlight at the source of the sound. Jay screamed at the sight of the culprit. It was what looked like a faun; from the waist up it looked like a horribly mutilated human. Below that it was built like a goat. Its skin could have been compared to bark like scales. It had two mishap horns that looked almost as if they were about to fall off of its head.

Jaaaay,” The creature croaked. Jay stepped backwards and tripped over a nearby box. The creature advanced on Jay. Jay instinctively put up his hands and started to edge backwards towards the window. At this point, his fear had turned into a full out terror. It was a fear so strong that it made him consider the option of death for a moment.

“L....Leave...M.....Me alone,” Jay stuttered as he shone the flashlight at the creatures face. The creature let out a sickly bleat before it quickened its pace. Jay went to get to his feet so he could run away, but the creature grabbed him before he could.

You’ll....diiiiie,” The creature hissed as it held Jay in front of it. Then it slowly hobbled over to the window. At that point Jay had simply snapped. He did nothing as the creature smashed through the window with a disfigured fist and licked the blood up. Jay made one last whimper as the creature threw him outside.

Jay landed with a sickening thump on the cold hard ground. He saw the figure of the creature in the attic window before he boarded Charon’s boat. A small pool of blood formed around Jay as the first snow of the year started to come down. It was stained with blood.