And here are the rules:

1. Add a picture of the award. (Done!)
2. Thank your nominator. (Done – thanks again, Ben!)
3. Choose 15 other deserving bloggers. (You know my rules on this… if you’re in my blogroll to the right, you’re awesome and you get the nomination.)
4. List seven random facts about yourself. (See below.)

And here are more random factoids.

1. I wrote my first story when I was in fourth grade. It is the worst story in the universe, and yes, I still have it.

2. For some reason, I’ve been wanting to play basketball lately. I have no idea why. Probably because basketball is the only sport I have at least a rudimentary understanding of.

3. If I read a fantasy novel, it has to have a romantic subplot, otherwise, I just won’t be that invested in it.

4. I weighed five pounds, two ounces when I was born (and I wasn’t premature).

5. When I was in 9th and 10th grade, my favorite part of the day was night time, when I would write in my journal and listen to music. Those were some good times.

6. I can’t dance. Or swim. Instead, I flail around aimlessly.

7. If I ever have a son, his name will be Peter.

If you’re in my blogroll, feel free to accept the award and post it to your blog.

Abortion. It’s quite a complex matter. Some believe that abortion is the murder of an unborn child. Some believe that abortion is a simple and safe medical procedure. And of course, there are opinions between the extremes. I’ve followed both sides of the abortion debate on Tumblr for quite some time, and I’m actually impressed by how well people argue for their side of the issue: by using legitimate sources and not resorting to flame wars or ad hominem attacks.

I personally believe that life is sacred. I believe that sex is sacred and is not to be taken lightly. When you have sex, you are responsible for the consequences every time you have sex. The purpose of sex is to create new lives, and thus the biggest consequence of sex is pregnancy, which is how life begins. We all began life as tiny balls of cells hidden inside our mothers… unless we were born in a test tube, which is an entirely different debate.

It’s easy to paint with black and white and say, “Abortion can never be justified,” or “abortion can be justified in all cases.” What about children that would be born with severe illnesses or disabilities? What about cases of rape or incest? What about times when the mother’s life would be in danger if she carried a pregnancy to term? There are all kinds of unique cases that aren’t easy to put in black and white. That’s where the lines become blurred and we start to talk about the quality of life, among other factors.

Yes, I believe life is sacred and is not something that should be taken lightly. Quality of life is a big factor in the abortion debate. It is true that being born of a forced union (rape) or being born with a disability or illness would possibly hinder quality of life. But quality of life is subjective. Your idea of a “high” quality of life might be different from mine. Who’s to say that one person’s quality of life is better than anyone else’s? It’s a question I honestly cannot answer. But does life become any less sacred when quality of life is perceived as low? I don’t think so. Life is life, and to me, life is all equally sacred.

I will not speak for anyone else. You might have had an abortion. I will not hate you or make you feel guilty. It was your choice, and in your eyes, it was justified. You might have sex. But the responsibility for your sexual activities is not mine. It’s yours. And the choices you make about the consequences of sex are not mine to judge. I don’t believe people have a right to tell others what to do with their bodies, whether that’s to get an abortion or carry the pregnancy to term. Yes, by all means – guide others and give advice, but above all, THEIR CHOICE IS THEIR OWN.

Feel free to share whatever thoughts you like.

But then life got in the way. Work got in the way. From the start of 2012, I’ve been working 40+ hours a week with only four days off this month. That took over my entire schedule, so my ambitious plans just weren’t possible. Time I would have spent writing was instead spent catching up on sleep and being with my loved ones.

Luckily, I managed to reform my writing and revision schedule so it’s easier and less stressful on me. Writing is probably the number one joy in my life, and I’d hate for it to become a chore.

Yes, life does get in the way, and when it does, it’s important to realize your deepest values and what you’d most like to achieve. Time becomes even more precious and it’s important to be aware of how and with whom you spend it. A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself what or who is most important to you… and schedule time for those things or people. It’s true that sometimes you have to make sacrifices, but what you really want above all is to be happy and productive… without getting burnt out.

Thanks so much to Jeff Walker for nominating me for this award! Weirdly enough, I wasn’t following him before, but now I am!

The rules of this award are as follows: List 10 random facts about yourself and pass the award on to six other bloggers. So here are ten more random facts about me (in addition to those I’ve listed on other blog award posts):

1. I hate being late. For anything.
2. The things that irk me most about the human race are our impatience and our sense of entitlement.
3. I still play Pokemon. (The video games, not the card game.)
4. I can sit quietly for hours and do nothing but think. (Maybe not motionlessly, but quietly.)
5. I believe in ghosts, angels, and demons.
6. If I’m bored, I will proofread/copyedit any written thing in the vicinity.
7. At any given time, I have a song stuck in my head. Right now it’s “Whatever You Like” by T.I.
8. I’m easily amused. This is a good thing, but it’s also bad in some ways.
9. I’m not a vegetarian, but I hate steak.
10. I’m still trying to decide whether I’m more of a cat person or more of a dog person.

And here are six blogs that are quite awesome and that deserve to be read. They’re not necessarily WordPress blogs, just blogs I enjoy reading.

1. Florence in Print
2. Ignorant Historian
3. Jennifer Welborn Writes
4. My Simple Inspiration
5. Writers in the Storm
6. Yeah Write!

Thanks again, Jeff!

When you’re younger, it’s hard to tell the difference between wants and needs. When you were walking through the toy store and you saw a toy you liked, you probably begged your mom for it, citing how much you “needed” that toy because it was the latest, the greatest, and the coolest thing.

But of course, you didn’t “need” that toy. You only wanted it. A need is something that is essential for your survival and the basic needs are food, water, shelter, and human companionship.

What’s interesting about our society in America today is that the majority of our nation’s citizens have those basic needs totally fulfilled, so we don’t know what it’s like to NEED something. That’s why I think that a lot of us get our wants confused with our needs. Yes, it’s easy to say we need the latest iPad or smart phone or whatever, but if you think about it, the technology we have is sufficient. (It’s another story if you do NEED that type of thing in order to succeed at a job or something.)

It’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting, and not appreciating the things we have that fulfill our basic needs: the food in our cabinet and refrigerator, the water from our tap, our loved ones, the roof over our heads, the steady job that allows us to keep our needs fulfilled, etc.

So the next time you find yourself wanting something, ask yourself… do I really need that?

In real life, I’m a terribly shy person. I come across as rather standoffish. On the Internet I feel a lot less shy, probably because, even though I use my real name on websites, it is still fairly anonymous. Nobody I know on the Internet is going to come to my house or see me in real life, unless we choose for it to happen.

When parents stumble across their kids’ Facebook pages, they’re often shocked by the different side of their child that they’re seeing. It’s one thing to feel as though you have an innocent and even somewhat naive daughter, yet it’s an entirely different thing to see her posting rants about sex and drugs online. That begs the question… which side is true? Which side is the true personality of that person?

We all put on different faces in different situations, whether that’s the anonymity of the Internet or with our friends or at the doctor’s office. There is nobody who knows everything about us and all our different sides – except a higher power, if you happen to believe in one.

Basically, if you’re shocked by what someone says online and it seems entirely different from what they’d say in person, that doesn’t mean that that person has changed and become different. It’s just a different side of them – a side that has been born from anonymity. Use an anonymous status carefully. I know I’ve said it before on this blog, but it bears repeating: Don’t say anything (whether anonymous or using your real name) that you would regret later on.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Before I really thought deeply about it, I hated this question. It’s a difficult one to answer because we can never truly see where we’ll be in five years. Maybe we can see where we’d like to be, but it’s impossible to make a prediction that’s anywhere near accurate. Who’s to say that we won’t be on a totally different career path in five years?

I think the reason employers ask this question is to make sure candidates have concrete goals and aspirations. Sure, it’s all well and good to say that in five years, you see yourself in a managerial role. But the other, unspoken part of the question is how will you get there? What are the concrete steps you’ll take to actualize that goal? That’s really what they want to hear.

Now I’m going to be thinking about my answer to that question a lot more seriously. I want to become some kind of editor or work with words in some capacity. I want to become a published author. How am I planning to get there? Those are things that I can’t answer right now because I have yet to come up with good answers.

The “five years” question may be complex and hard to answer, but it’s worth it if you actually sit down and think about it for awhile. Don’t just answer this question simply to prepare for and get through a job interview. Answer it to come up with a genuine plan for yourself. It helps to look into the future and make even just a basic plan – and to rethink and retool your answer from time to time.

1. Abortion
2. Gay marriage (or marriage in general)
3. Immigration
4. Gun control
5. Sex education
6. Animal rights
7. Affirmative Action
8. Alcohol and cigarettes
9. 2012 election
10. Death penalty and euthanasia
11. Legalization of marijuana
12. Environmental protection
13. Genetic engineering
14. Feminism/women’s rights
15. The economy/scarcity of jobs

That’s just a few. Eventually I’ll come up with some more. Feel free to make suggestions!

So for the past month or so I’ve continued along with those characters and settings, writing the story more or less as a soap opera, with different scenarios and dramatic incidents happening.

Then I realized when the entire story ought to end. It wouldn’t make sense to have the story continue past that point, since it seemed so final when I was thinking about it. So now what I’m planning to do is stop moving forward with writing the story. I’m going to look at what I have written and I’m going to organize it so that the story builds up toward that end point. I’m going to be cutting out quite a few characters and getting rid of some useless scenes. In other words, I’m going to revise much earlier than I had intended to.

Sometimes it’s necessary to stop what you’re doing and go back, retool and revise, then start again. It might seem counterproductive since you’re not moving ahead, but there’s no sense in hacking through the foliage at a dead end when you could double back and find the hidden path you hadn’t taken before. (Weird analogy, I know!)

Silence is healthy sometimes. In church, the priest was talking about how it’s hard to find silence in the world these days, since every moment is filled with some kind of sound or some kind of technology to take our minds off spiritual matters. Silence is necessary to feed our souls and prepare us for a world that sometimes forgets that it doesn’t need to constantly be making noise.

Words like violence break the silence
Come crashing in, into my little world
Painful to me, pierce right through me…
- Depeche Mode, “Enjoy the Silence”