Wow, I am ranty today

The weather is gorgeous and golden and cold, and I'm going to wash my hair and push forward with NaNo. I think part of my problem earlier was that I was trying to start at the beginning and force my way through, and that has never, ever worked for me. So I'm going to try to see what I can get written up from later in the story and add that to my word count.

My mother wants to go see a movie on Sunday, but I don't know that there's another one out that she'd want to see. I'm trying to figure out if this is a gambit on her part to go see The Prestige again or what.

Letters to God end up in ocean, unread. The title just struck me as something so sad and beautiful. And then the end of the article made me sick.

U.S. needs "sexual literacy" - ex-surgeon generals: "U.S. efforts to promote abstinence as a cornerstone of sexual education have not lowered levels of sexually transmitted diseases, two former U.S. surgeon generals said on Thursday." GOD, abstinence-only education pisses me off. It's like refusing to teach kids to drive and then saying, "Now, kids, cars are bad! Don't get in any cars!" "But there's no public transportation in this town--" "Bye, kids! Stay safe and out of cars!" The essence of futility, in other words. They're going to "get in cars" anyway, and now they don't even know what they're doing. (I'm sure it's a flawed analogy, but work with me here.) And here's another thought, genius: okay, so they don't have sex until they're married. What happens after they're married? They still don't know what they're doing! I'm not saying I want y'all to issue the Kama Sutra as a textbook, but there is no excuse for young married women who think that you can't get pregnant while breastfeeding. There are entire message boards and LJ communities dedicated to letting girls ask the dumbest questions EVER about pregnancy and their bodies because YOU WON'T TEACH THEM. "Well, the parents should educate their children!" What if the parents also had abstinence-only sex education? I mean, yes, I feel like parents should be saying, "This is what sex is, respect yourself and wait for someone who cares about you," but there's a lot of things that a lot of people have managed not to learn--or be taught. That's why people go to school, so that they can partake of knowledge, where the teachers have textbooks and videos and visual aids and up-to-date facts and figures. There are things you should be teaching kids about sex, disease, pregnancy and responsibility, and "Don't do it" isn't going to cover it. (/rant)

Kanye West sore loser at MTV Europe Awards. But I think his rant was actually shorter than mine up there.

Miss Great Britain stripped of title for dating one of the judges. The best part is, the article seems to be saying that she was chirping on about shoes the guy got her for Christmas, and people went, "Wait, you said you didn't start dating him until the pageant started in FEBRUARY."

More Chuck. I'm thinking the Armstrongs should take this show on the road.

Rumor: Michael Hoffman to [possibly] direct Half-Blood Prince. Who? "Director of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Restoration and Soapdish." I'm telling you, every directorial choice after Cuarón, who at least had done A Little Princess in addition to being totally awesome, has made progressively less sense. The guy who did Four Weddings and a Funeral? Sure! How about the guy who did The Girl in the Cafe? Clearly experienced with fantasy movies and young actors! By the time we get to Harry Potter and the Blah of the Blee, we're gonna be down to some newbie they found at a film festival.

Actually, we'll probably be back to Chris Columbus, because I've heard rumblings that he wants to come back for the last one. There are two kinds of Potter movie fans, and neither one understands the other, so I'll try to be as objective here as possible, ( but I will probably fail )

Before I get another glass of tea

My mother and I cannot think of anything that she would actually want to see on Sunday. Flushed Away? “NO.” Apparently, despite the fact that she loved Finding Nemo, my mother has finally outgrown animation (it is so animation! Materials are given animation in some fashion!) and will not see them because all the other moms might laugh at her, or... something. But it does have Hugh Jackman! “Only his VOICE!” Okay, simmer down there. The Departed? “Ew, that’s too violent.” The Prestige again? “I’m not paying to see that twice! We’ll get the DVD.” Well, you don’t want to see The Queen, and Borat and Saw III are right out. You tell me--what’s left? My mother heaves the sigh of a martyr: “We may just have to go see MARIE ANTOINETTE.” GASP.

Meanwhile, I worked on my NaNo some more, and while I was washing my hair, I actually thought of the end of the story. Now, those of you who have read any of my previous literary natterings may know that I always come up with a beginning and an ending, possibly not even in that order, before I try to connect the two with this, how do you say, plot in the middle. So I knew the literal ending of the story--who lives, who dies, whatever. But I wasn't happy with the final paragraph. I'm a big fan of what I call "sticking the landing"--ending on some image or paragraph or phrase that not only feels final, but has some kind of thematic significance or somehow blows the reader's mind in some small way. You know how people will flip to the end of the book first, and mostly it doesn't do any good because it's all dénouement that doesn't mean anything if you didn't get there honestly? Well, I am one of the few writers who might actually put a major (okay, at least a minor) revelation in the last sentence. Daniel Handler does this beautifully in the last Lemony Snicket book; JK Rowling has said she's long known what the last word of the last Harry Potter book would be. I won't say what it is lest someone keel over dead from spoiler, but it's pretty widely known if you want to look it up. So it was a big thing for me to finally realize what the last paragraph of this story should be, because it was like I'd poured the foundation for the story: I knew exactly what I would be building on.

Internet auction for prayer letters canceled; God puts up smiting rod. For now.

From coast to coast, people are lining up to answer the prayers of members of a northern New Jersey congregation whose pleas apparently went unheard when their letters to God were dumped in the Atlantic Ocean. And the New Jersey fisherman who found them bobbing in the surf canceled an Internet auction for them on Friday after seeing how sincere the interest was among the faithful who want to make sure that someone finally hears each request.

"The religious folks are coming out of the woodwork," said Bill Lacovara, a Ventnor insurance adjuster who found the letters on the beach in Atlantic City last month while fishing with his son. "It's been non-stop: a pastor in Texas, one from Colorado, another from somewhere in the midwest. One guy said he wants to write a play about this."

Of the 300 or so letters he found in the surf, Lacovara offered about half of them for sale on eBay, thinking that at most he'd make a few dollars and take his family out to dinner. But when more than 25 bidders pushed the price over $550 in less than 24 hours, he knew things were getting out of hand, and canceled the auction. "It was never my intent to make a lot of money off this," he said. "If it went over $100 or so, we were going to donate it to charity."

(Thanks, bluebren.)

( More linkspam )

jasminelily: "Totally off topic, but it would be great if you could drop a few wordsin your next linkspan (if it's before or on Nov. 7) about 866 OUR VOTE. It's a nation wide free phone number that people can call with any questions about voting or the voting process, and its whole purpose is to help Americans vote. It's run by a totally non partisan group, and is staffed by lawyers from all around the country, and is a great resource for helping keep elections fair. The phone lines are live now, and will be all through election day." You know, in case you'd like to call up and ask them if it's true that naturalized citizens can't vote, ASSHAT.