ThomStratton.com

I always knew there was something creepy about that little guy. We’ve never bothered with Elf on the Shelf. Just seeing pictures from everyone else has been enough to convince me we’d be about as bad off with Talking Tina or Chucky.

Admittedly I’ve been struggling for the past month or more. I know I need to do more world-building for my next novel than I’ve done before, and much of it has been somewhat fun. But I think I hit the wall. It’s not something I enjoy, evidently, and so I’ve been finding other things to do when I’m supposed to be working on my prep work.

Like a short story. I’m submitting to an anthology, and if I don’t pick up my pace I’m going to miss the deadline. At first it was fun to write, but then I seem to have hit some sort of doldrums and had a hard time finishing the first draft, let alone revising it. But I’m determined. I’m going to get this submitted, even if it’s less polished than I would like. I can’t allow myself to flake out like this or it could become a habit.

Once that’s done, however, then it’s back to the novel. I’ve set myself a goal: wherever I am by the first of the year, that’s where I’ll start, ready or not. I’ve got to get back into writing regularly before I lose all momentum.

So, what more do I need to do? Well, I’ve got a map I’ve been working on that needs to be detailed out some more. This next novel will have something of an epic scope in that it could conceivably take place over a wide area, and so it would be helpful to have an idea how each potential location might be different from the others.

Probably the most important step, however, is to create my cast of characters. I’ve been deliberately avoiding it, as I usually start with character and end up with rather flat characters who don’t entirely grow out of their environment–because I haven’t developed the environment yet (funny how that works!). So this time, with the exception of plot and general outlining, I’m leaving characters for last to see if that works any better. I think it will, as my prep work has been suggesting characters I’d not considered before.

And of course there is plot and outlining. I’ve learned from past mistakes that I need to avoid getting too detailed with my outlining, but as this is supposed to be a three-book story I do need to have a general idea where things are headed over-all on at least a high level, then work on outlining the first book in enough detail to capture the main plot and subplots, the character arcs, and so on.

After all that I probably need to go back over everything I’ve got and see if I’ve hinted at certain areas that need more development before I start writing. But if I don’t get that far, well, too bad. I need to get going on this novel!

I’m reading the Altered Perceptions anthology, a project put together close to two years ago to raise funds to help Robison Wells with his financial difficulties caused by and exacerbating his mental illness. The collection is made up of excerpts, unpublished chapters, short stories, and other assorted works by authors who struggle with mental illness themselves, know someone who does, or has a keen interest in helping. Each work is preceded by a short essay by the author discussing their experience with mental illness. Those experiences range from being the support for someone who struggles with it, to having mild forms of it themselves, to facing a constant struggle with it.

As intended, the book is an eye opener. The stereotypical views we get of mental illness from entertainment provide a rather limited perspective and downplays the broad spectrum of ways in which mental illness manifests. After exposure to those various forms I can only wonder if don’t experience some mild forms of it myself. (If so, it’s infrequent, mild, and brief, so I’m not considering myself a candidate for care yet.) Beyond raising awareness of the forms it can take, it’s also a solid step forward in eliminating the stigma surrounding mental illness.

The stories themselves are also fun and interesting. In a relatively short period of time I’m getting exposure to the ideas and styles of dozens of authors, and it’s educational and inspirational. I’m also going to be expanding my reading list soon, as some of the excerpts are tantalizing enough that I really want to read more.

The initial purpose was achieved, so the project is now into its secondary objective of providing funds to help other authors struggling with mental illness. If you’re interested in supporting the project or just getting your hands on some interesting reading, it’s still available as an ebook here.

Nothing I could write today could improve on this: A church decides to surprise whomever delivered their pizzas with a $100 tip that grows to $700 when they decide to collect more on the spot. It doesn’t seem like they had any idea who they were helping, but the young man who received the tip clearly received a bigger boost than they could have known. And this, folks, is what it’s all about. More details here.

And in case you need reminding that not everyone in America is like Donald Trump (in fact, very few people, really), there is this touching gesture.

The other night we went to a church Christmas devotional featuring music by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square. I always enjoy the music when those two groups get together, and even more so when it’s Christmas music. But as seems to be traditional, they ended with “Silent Night” and encouraged everyone to sing along on the third verse.

I didn’t. I couldn’t.

I love to sing, but I learned a long time ago that I get too emotional with certain songs. “Silent Night” is the mother of all emotional songs for me. I just can’t get through it. I’ve pretty much stopped trying.

In high school I was part of the show choir, and during the Christmas season we did a lot of performances around town for various groups and parties, usually between 20 and 30 over a month. We would end every performance with “Silent Night”, and even then when we would do as many as three or four performances in an night to the point it became almost assembly-line work, we would still feel something special with that last departing song. We’d walk out of the venue singing it, then gather somewhere nearby to complete it, and it would always leave us with a pleasant, joyful glow.

That was close to thirty years ago and I still remember that feeling.

But since then it has come to mean even more. I was young then, and as yet largely unacquainted with the struggles and pains of life. I didn’t really understand the words behind the song. I didn’t understand yet why any of us would need a savior. Not really. But over the years I’ve learned, and usually the hard, painful way. There have been struggles and heartaches to overcome, dark places in my soul, and defects of character that I can’t overcome on my own. This is nothing unique to me, I realize, and that’s the point. No matter how “together” we appear on the outside we all have things that keep us from being our best version of self.

Jesus Christ didn’t come to earth just to open the “dawn of redeeming grace”. He came to help those who will turn to him become better. I’ve seen this happen in my own life as I’ve worked one some of my weaknesses for years, making slow but sure progress. I’ve seen it happen at other times when I’ve turned something over to Him and had that particular weakness essentially removed, so quickly and thoroughly I’d be inclined to call it a personal miracle. And so there’s also a lot of joy, relief, and sorrow associated with the song I associate so closely with Christ. It’s pretty much guaranteed I’ll get choked up before I get very far.

A few other carols come close. “Oh Holy Night” is one. “O Come Emmanuel” is another. The rest mainly just make me happy, and remain some of my most favorite music of all time. But “Silent Night”… I doubt Franz Gruber and Joseph Mohr had any idea what they were starting when they collaborated on this timeless classic. This may be a case where it would be considered high praise that someone finds their song completely unsingable.

One can only look at the headlines lately and ask, “What responsibility do we, as Americans, bear in this?” No, I’m not talking about Islamic terror. I’m talking about Donald Trump. If anyone seriously thinks that a large number of Americans suddenly woke up one day and decided to back one of the most reprehensible people they could find, they need to think again. We made Trump what he is. How?

Quite simply, modern politics has left many people with nowhere else to go.

Let’s look at the tactics of the Left over the past eight years or so. Their primary approaches are either to assign the worst of motives to anyone who disagrees with them, or to ignore there is even a problem to begin with. Or both. Disagree with President Obama’s policies? You’re a racist, even if other Democrats also disagree with him. Letting millions of illegal immigrants and refugees into the country and making them citizens? There couldn’t possibly be any negative drawbacks to that. You’re obviously a harsh, uncaring person. There is little doubt the Left has gone out of their way to make sure a large portion of America are not welcome in their “Big Tent”.

It likely wouldn’t hurt anyone’s case to admit that yes, there could be some problems from doing X, we’ve thought of them, and we’ve taken steps to minimize them, but the standard Left-ward line is to deny that any unintended or negative consequences could occur at all, and that to think otherwise makes you a terrible person. So people who might otherwise lean leftward can only assume the Left is naïve, mean-spirited, and severely lacking either curiosity (do you see a problem with this?) or imagination (what could go wrong?).

The result is a lot of people who, perhaps rightfully, get the idea that the Left not only doesn’t care about them or their concerns, but actually considers them a bigger enemy than the avowed, violent enemies of America around the world. Hearing liberals claim that law-abiding citizens who see themselves as simply defending their rights are indistinguishable from an army of genocidal killers is insulting, and suggests they’ll get no sympathy or understanding or help from the party in power. It also shows them that the Left is pretty much hopelessly delusional. And, frankly, it probably makes them wonder if radical Islam doesn’t have the right idea. Perhaps if they started chopping off heads the Left would be less critical and more interested in listening to their concerns and being more respectful of their religion.

Can you really blame them when any time there’s a violent incident in this country the Left rushes to blame the usual suspects–the NRA, Christian fundamentalists, the Tea Party–even before there is any actual information on who is behind it? Can you blame them when, should the perpetrator be linked in any way, however loosely, with one of those groups the Left acts as though it’s the fault of that entire group, and that that group somehow advocated the violence? Can you blame them when, should the perpetrator prove to be from some other group, the Left falls all over itself insisting that we shouldn’t judge an entire group by one person and that we shouldn’t rush to judgment?

On the other hand, the Right’s approach over the past eight years hasn’t been much better. They either roll over and play dead whenever the Left trots out the epithets, or to simply stonewall without seeming to propose any alternative. They couch their arguments in terms a large percentage of Americans don’t accept as a basis for law. And, at the risk of opening another can of worms, they seem incapable or unable to get their side of any issue out to the public, whether because their leadership are inarticulate dolts, there’s a left media conspiracy, or they just have no marketing skills. What the people who find they simply can’t trust the Left see, however, is a group with no apparent principles of their own to stand on, other than “we oppose the other team”, and no real will to stand up to anyone.

Both Left and Right seem to ignore at best, and denigrate at worst, anyone in the middle. In short, they feel they’re not being listened to, and there’s no one willing to fight for them. Except perhaps Donald Trump.

You may remember that Trump ran for president before, and no one took him seriously. Now? Total reversal. What happened?

There are a lot of things people see in Donald Trump that they don’t see anywhere else:

• He fights. He’s the “honeybadger” of politics. Call him names because of his views? Donald Trump don’t care! He just thumbs his nose. The Left is used to scaring people into submission with their name-calling. Those who have been scared by it have to admire Trump’s thick skin.
• He’s not afraid to call a problem a problem. Yes, he may exaggerate the problem, but that may be preferable to someone who refuses to even see a problem at all.
• When he over-reacts he seems to over-react in a direction they can accept. When faced with a choice between people who seem to claim that Islam poses no threat whatsoever, regardless of evidence to the contrary, or someone who claims we need to do whatever is necessary to keep ourselves safe, is it really so bizarre that people go with the people who err on the side of safety?
• He’s not a fancy talker. He doesn’t dance around the issue, afraid the say anything that might turn anyone off. He says what he means and he seldom backs down. If you misunderstood him or were offended by him, that’s your problem.
• He’s so colorful the media can’t resist covering him. Even those looking to trip him up in his own words end up doing him a service, as he gets his message out. Every word he says gets reported. And the media is baffled that people respond to that message. They keep screaming that the emperor has no clothes only to find that’s what people like about him. (Okay, perhaps not the best image to put in your head. My apologies.)
• He’s not Hillary or Bernie–or Jeb or Ted or Marco or anyone else we’ve been hearing about for years and are frankly sick of and wouldn’t trust on a dare just because they’re established politicos. Consider the low ratings of Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court of late and you should be able to pick up on a general distrust and dislike of “the usual suspects” conducting “business as usual.”
• He’s not a pretty face. He’s got the money to be if he wanted. Whatever else he may be, he probably looks more like “one of us” than just about anyone else out there.
• We’re a country addicted to reality TV drama. Trump is not only a reality TV star, he exudes it even when “off camera”. We love a train wreck, and that’s our Donald.
• He is the “un-Obama”. Obama is cool, suave, and seems to see himself as president of only the parts of America he likes. He musters more anger for Republicans than for terrorists who slaughter thousands. Trump is passionate, perhaps to a fault, but at least he gets angry at the right people. It’s easy to see him doing more to combat the injustice in the world than just starting a hashtag campaign.
• The Donald comes from the real world. You can practically see it on his suit. America is getting a little tired of intellectuals who actually knew what arugula was before Obama made it cool, but seem to have no idea how real people live, work, or get along with people they don’t like. Trump knows.
• He’s unashamedly un-PC at a time when PC is running rampant, with blatant examples of over-reach and hypersensitivity on national display.

Let’s get one thing straight. I don’t like Trump. I don’t want to vote for him. I think much of his extremism is an act, but I’m not willing to bet our future on it. But I can see why he appeals to people. I can see why he’s so popular. You can’t ignore, overlook, demean, talk down to, and even villain-ize a large segment of the population for this long without them grabbing onto someone they believe will at least give them some respect. I hope along with many of the rest of you that his campaign will self-implode before too much longer, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. But if he took a more moderate stand on many issues I would find it much harder to dislike him. He may not be a breath of fresh air, but at this point people may be thinking anything different is good.

I remember after 9/11 people asking of Muslims, “Why do they hate us so?” If anyone is serious about beating Trump they really should be looking at his core supporters and asking that very same question. But no one wants to do that because it’s easier to dismiss those people as stupid, ignorant fools with the wool pulled over their eyes, bigots, racists, or whatever. I don’t think most of them are anything of the sort. I think they a real people with real, legitimate concerns that no one is addressing. They’ve had it, they want some respect, and if it means putting someone like Trump in the White House to get it, that’s what they’re prepared to do. They hate all the other candidates because they sense the other candidates hated them first.

America, we created this monster. If we’re not careful we’re going to find out what a real uniter he can be–turning both Left and Right against the guy who won the White House while we fiddled and flamed.

Just a few interesting videos I’ve seen lately. (Yes, that means I couldn’t come up with anything of my own to post today. You may now issue a huge sigh of relief.)

I think I’ve mentioned Physics Girl before. She’s the great host of a science series covering a variety of physics-related topics. This week she explains why perpetual motion machines don’t work–or appear to work, but aren’t really perpetual motion machines.

I’ve talked about Senator Ben Sasse before, also. Here’s his take on San Bernardino and much of the debate going on right now. I think he mostly sums up my feelings on the matter:

And on a completely different note, here’s a cute video about what it is to be a geek. I’m not personally this way, but I know some who are. For myself I had to just accept that there is far more out there to geek out on than I will ever have time to keep up on, so I will stake out my segment of geekdom and not criticize anyone else for theirs.

Last, but not least, you can never go wrong with the Slo Mo Guys. This time they create a fire tornado, which is cool enough by itself. But of course you also get to see this one in slow motion! And for once there is no harm to Dan!

I have a love-hate relationship with Christmas music. I’m very particular which groups and which arrangements I listen to, as the rest get over-done, commercialized and/or played to death. But there are those magical few cases where they “get it right.”

This is one:

People can be pretty decent people sometimes. I really need to look for more stories like this and make sure they get more attention.

In this case, a woman ordered a cake from the bakery of a local grocer. When she went to pick it up she decided it might be nice to have it personalized, so she asked someone she thought was a bakery if they could write on the cake for her. The employee did. It wasn’t until later she looked at the cake and saw the writing was, well, unprofessional in appearance.

She didn’t freak out. She didn’t demand a new cake. She decided to leave it as was, realizing it was not that serious a matter, and went to pay for the cake. It was the store employees who started to get upset.

Read the rest of the story here. All I can say is we could use a lot more of this: someone who has a reason to get upset…chooses not to.

In related news, Woman shoplifts ingredients for her child’s birthday cake, investigating cop picks up the tab, doesn’t arrest.

American politics can get a little rough, but thank heaven we’ve not sunk to this point yet:

It can’t be flattering to be compared to “Lord of the Rings” character Gollum, but a Turkish court is trying to determine if it is a crime.

A doctor who likened President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the pasty, cave-dwelling creature is facing up to two years in prison in Turkey, where insulting the president is a crime, reports said Wednesday. Bilgin Ciftci is accused of sharing images of the two, but it is up to a court to determine whether a comparison to the muttering, gangrel creature from J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy novels and the hugely successful films is a punishable offense

They’d need to build new prisons to house all the people on both sides who have dared to insult Presidents of the United States. As much as we could do without much of the nastiness leveled at our politicians (granted, not always undeserved), it’s comforting that we still can speak our minds without threat of jail.