Navel Gazing: The Books That Changed My Life - Forget the habits, just learn this 1 thing

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey

This book is actually too densely written, hard to get through, too complex to be easily applied to everyday life. But when I was re-reading some bits last year I realized that I'd internalized a lot of it. The main thing I got from it: That you should plant your identity in principles, and not in externals that you can lose. Don't take your identity from being a spouse, or a parent, or an employee, or an activist, or a student, or whatever. You can lose ANY of them at any time, and then you'll lose your identity. I've seen that happen.

But your core beliefs can't be taken from you; and Covey argues that there are principles that are fairly universal, and those you especially can't take away from someone. Ever since then I've carried around this idea that at the core of my person is a set of beliefs that I won't let anyone touch, except myself. They change, they evolve, but only at my bidding.

At this point I wish I could embed Joni Mitchell's "The Sire of Sorrow" but it's disabled on youtube. It's her song from Job's point of view, and Job is the ultimate story about who you are once everything's been stripped from you.

Once I was blessed
I was awaited like the rain
Like eyes for the blind, like feet for the lame
Kings heard my words, and they sought out my company
But now the janitors of Shadowland flick their brooms at me.

Listening to... hiphop

Outkast - Spottieottiedopaliscious


My characters for my new book began as real people -- Paris Hilton and Jason Newsted (former bass player of Metallica). I chose the latter because he seems like the quintessential Nice Guy and I thought I'd like to write about a QNG.


And at some point he turned into a black guy. So now my character is a combination of Newsted and Pharrell Williams. Which has really helped move my plot forward.


And it means that now I'm listening to hip hop instead of metal. But Williams likes all kinds of genres, especially rock, and his own band (N.E.R.D.) is a mixture of hip hop and rock, so the heavy metal will still find a place in there. He'll be an interesting hero by the time I'm finished with him. Interesting to me, anyway. ;-)

XXX

Literary agent Rachelle Gardner posted a question on her blog about books that her readers would be embarrassed to admit they read/loved. Since Gardner specializes in Christian books, many of her readers are Christian. And it's interesting to see that the main thing that embarrasses them is sex. They're embarrassed to admit they've enjoyed books that contained sex.

But not books that are horrors, or violent, or gory. So as people have pointed out before, and my brother recently brought up: Why are we so much more shocked by sex (in movies, in books) than by violence? Why is much of North American society more hung up on a potentially-life-giving act, than on a life-taking one? This seems to be a North American thing--or maybe countries colonized by Britain. Even ex-French-colony-Quebec is more cool about nudity.

The only area where perhaps this isn't true is in music. There's a lot more tolerance for "Let's Get It On" and "Sexual Healing" than for, say, gangster rap.

Nano-nano

I signed up for National Novel Writing Month again (50 000 words in November.) I realized that Fernando will be at his sister's for part of the time, so there isn't too much risk of divorce. It will be a good way to jolt my next novel into existence. My only goal is the first 50 000 words of a rough draft --> get some new ideas going --> establish the tone, etc.

My profile.

One of my fave songs when I was a kid

Terry Gibbs "Somebody's Knockin'"

awesome-o

most amusing thing on the internets today

Scott Baio did perpetrated some Foolishness on the tweets this week. Including threatening to sue someone because she unfollowed him.

Scott Baio's Righty Rant -- What do you get when you combine a washed up child star and unimpeded access to a computer keyboard? Apparently, in the case of Scott Baio -- one-time "Happy Days" and "Charles in Charge" heartthrob -- the result is a stream of vitriolic statements about "liberals" and a flame war with some random person.

Baio, an admitted conservative, posted a series of now-deleted statements that got a few folks riled. A sampling:

"Someone said that the best thing about the cash for clunkers is, now most of the obama stickers are GONE!!!!! YES YES YES!!!!!!!"

Then, in response to a protest that Obama is "still our pres," Baio replied:

"yeah and Michael Vick still plays football. What's ur point? They both are losers."

Baio defended himself later in an interview with Glen Beck. And despite an assertion that he can roll with the punches ("it's the kind of game I'm in"), Baio has since converted his Twitter page to an approved access-only account. (from the Washington Post)

So the site Dear Author has started calling him a chachbag, and trying to get his name associated on Google with the term.

I really must incorporate this word into my vocab.