I got my driver's license renewed the other day. Normally, I could do it
online, but this time I had to go in person and present identification
papers, because the new ones are "Secure Driver's License and ID". They
wanted my birth certificate, my social security card and proof of
residence such as mail from a bank. My birth certificate was the
original that my parents got, when I was born in 197_. The man at the
DMV told me most places won't accept those any more and I needed to go
to the courthouse and get a modern one from the government. However,
since it was already in the DMV system, they could take it. Whew. That
saved a lot of hassle. The Secure Driver's License and ID is Real ID
compliant. Real ID was controversial a few years ago, because it's New World Order compliant. So. now I have a
driver's license/ID that's ready for the New World Order that complies
to the standards and regulations of the coming global government. It's almost here.
It cost $32. I think it was $8.50 the last time, but I'm not 100% sure. That was for a four-year license. The new one is good for eight years. My personal opinion is that eight years from now will be during the Tribulation. The IDs for it are already here.
Carrie Fisher died. It was big news. Even before that I'd been thinking that a ton of famous people have died this year. I was right. One of my Facebook friends posted an article that says the number of deaths of famous folks is unusually high this year. It was too long to read, of course. ;)
This week there was a news story saying that a show I've never heard of has been cancelled. I forget the name of it.
The current president made a lot of trouble this week. I can't wait for the new one to get here. :)
Have a great weekend.
Happy New Year! If you're on the Gregorian calendar, that is.
Friday, December 30, 2016
Friday, December 23, 2016
Separating the Chaff
I was reading my Bible, when I had a thought that didn't seem to have much to do with the text. It occurred to me that in order to have a Godly business, someone would need Godly employees. By business, I don't mean religious institution. I mean any type of business where the owner is a Christian and focused on God and Godly principles. In the U.S. we can't "discriminate" against people of other religions who hate ours. We have to hire haters. Spiritually, this is self-defeating. It's not good to be unequally yoked. Spiritually, it invites attacks. The thought I had was that a business needs to be centered on at least one fruit of the spirit, and the haters will weed themselves out. The popular fruits are love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Pagans would not be able to manifest a fruit of the spirit on a long-term basis. People can fake almost anything but only for a season.
A while back I saw this article about a couple of young women who were videotaped torturing dementia patients. Taking care of dementia patients required love, patience, etc. The women in the article couldn't manifest those fruits, because they apparently don't have them. As a side note, performing righteousness can be thought of as manifesting the spirit of God. Performing evil can be thought of as manifesting a demon. Think of that the next time you see someone doing something wrong, demon manifestation. The setting in the article was a health care environment. From the hospital trips with my dad, I saw a lot of pagan health care workers and a lot of health care workers who didn't seem to care about people. This article didn't surprise me at all.
Many businesses focus on customer service. Service is a fruit of the spirit. If servanthood is the main goal of a business, people lacking the spirit of servanthood will eventually quit, because service is not their true nature. Or they won't be able to perform the job and be fired. The business will eventually end up with employees who manifest that gift. Over time a Godly business can develop without violating any laws. It's a natural process.
Food for thought. What if sloppiness or incompetence or lack of focus on detail in the workplace is more about a lack of a particular spiritual fruit than a physical or mental problem? Think about people who are clumsy in certain situations but highly dexterous in others. Employees may not be able to do certain things, because there's no spiritual assistance. They can't manifest that fruit(or gift). This might be a concept for moving people around in a company to the job that they're best suited for. I'm not a guru on all this. I'm kind of thinking out loud this week.
Focusing a business on fruits of the spirit should be the main goal. God can work through and bless that.
Merry Christmas!
Happy Hannukah!
Have a great weekend.
A while back I saw this article about a couple of young women who were videotaped torturing dementia patients. Taking care of dementia patients required love, patience, etc. The women in the article couldn't manifest those fruits, because they apparently don't have them. As a side note, performing righteousness can be thought of as manifesting the spirit of God. Performing evil can be thought of as manifesting a demon. Think of that the next time you see someone doing something wrong, demon manifestation. The setting in the article was a health care environment. From the hospital trips with my dad, I saw a lot of pagan health care workers and a lot of health care workers who didn't seem to care about people. This article didn't surprise me at all.
Many businesses focus on customer service. Service is a fruit of the spirit. If servanthood is the main goal of a business, people lacking the spirit of servanthood will eventually quit, because service is not their true nature. Or they won't be able to perform the job and be fired. The business will eventually end up with employees who manifest that gift. Over time a Godly business can develop without violating any laws. It's a natural process.
Food for thought. What if sloppiness or incompetence or lack of focus on detail in the workplace is more about a lack of a particular spiritual fruit than a physical or mental problem? Think about people who are clumsy in certain situations but highly dexterous in others. Employees may not be able to do certain things, because there's no spiritual assistance. They can't manifest that fruit(or gift). This might be a concept for moving people around in a company to the job that they're best suited for. I'm not a guru on all this. I'm kind of thinking out loud this week.
Focusing a business on fruits of the spirit should be the main goal. God can work through and bless that.
Merry Christmas!
Happy Hannukah!
Have a great weekend.
Friday, December 16, 2016
Book3 and YA Feedback
Progress continues on Book3, as I've been getting back into the swing of it. I'm going for a minimum daily word count of 1,000 for now that will have to rise later. Book2 is in its resting phase before one last going over. It should be out in January.
I don't do much politics on here, but I've mentioned the recent elections a few times, including the recounts and other shenanigans. Here's an update on those. Wisconsin did a recount. Trump gained 131 votes, making the victory even larger and more glorious than before. The recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan didn't happen, because there was no proof of election tampering whatsoever, etc. Imagining that something might have happened is not proof of anything. More than once, I've imagined myself winning the lottery. The lottery commission refuses to accept my imagination as proof I won.
I received some feedback on a sample of the YA novel from a freelance editor. I thought I'd share it with you.
"Too much dialogue upfront when we don’t know who’s speaking or where we are—this is a touch disorienting. Try to give us a little bit more of a setting by weaving descriptions into the dialogue tags."
and
"In general, I really wanted to see more description of your setting. I think by strategically weaving in more description, it would significantly strengthen your world building."
Where the reader is would be in the cover blurb. The reader would automatically go into the book knowing what's going on. Nevertheless, she's not wrong. I tend to have skimpy physical descriptions of places and items, because that's a lot of extra work. :) And I don't like lots of description, when I'm the reader. I hate pages of description of a setting, only to be gone from that setting forever by the end of a chapter. What a cool place! Farewell!
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned doorknob authors before. Those are the guys that spend pages describing the glint of the sunlight off a doorknob and how that reminds the character of something from the past and suddenly I'm stuck in a lengthy flashback that usually doesn't matter to the story. I don't want to be one of those guys.
But. I need to listen to what this person is saying, since I know she's right. My descriptions tend to be skimpy. That's so true. What I think I need to do is use more description while avoiding the doorknob problem. I suppose I could work a little bit harder and stretch and grow. :) Book2 is skimpy in places. It wouldn't hurt too much to add a paragraph here and there in the final edit and more sentences. Same for Book3.
On a practical level, one way I could do that would be to have a larger description of a setting the first time it appears in the book and then reference it later in a less-lengthy fashion. Think back to descriptions of Chesquial and Millican. I spent a few paragraphs on those and referenced them later by mentioning a spire or something similar that would recall the initial description without trying to redo it.
Going forward, I also think I'll try to add a few more sentences in minor locations. I'm going to have to find a balance without going overboard spamming description after every dialogue tag. If it grounds the reader while at the same time adding content of real value, it can only make the stories stronger.
Have a great weekend.
I don't do much politics on here, but I've mentioned the recent elections a few times, including the recounts and other shenanigans. Here's an update on those. Wisconsin did a recount. Trump gained 131 votes, making the victory even larger and more glorious than before. The recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan didn't happen, because there was no proof of election tampering whatsoever, etc. Imagining that something might have happened is not proof of anything. More than once, I've imagined myself winning the lottery. The lottery commission refuses to accept my imagination as proof I won.
I received some feedback on a sample of the YA novel from a freelance editor. I thought I'd share it with you.
"Too much dialogue upfront when we don’t know who’s speaking or where we are—this is a touch disorienting. Try to give us a little bit more of a setting by weaving descriptions into the dialogue tags."
and
"In general, I really wanted to see more description of your setting. I think by strategically weaving in more description, it would significantly strengthen your world building."
Where the reader is would be in the cover blurb. The reader would automatically go into the book knowing what's going on. Nevertheless, she's not wrong. I tend to have skimpy physical descriptions of places and items, because that's a lot of extra work. :) And I don't like lots of description, when I'm the reader. I hate pages of description of a setting, only to be gone from that setting forever by the end of a chapter. What a cool place! Farewell!
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned doorknob authors before. Those are the guys that spend pages describing the glint of the sunlight off a doorknob and how that reminds the character of something from the past and suddenly I'm stuck in a lengthy flashback that usually doesn't matter to the story. I don't want to be one of those guys.
But. I need to listen to what this person is saying, since I know she's right. My descriptions tend to be skimpy. That's so true. What I think I need to do is use more description while avoiding the doorknob problem. I suppose I could work a little bit harder and stretch and grow. :) Book2 is skimpy in places. It wouldn't hurt too much to add a paragraph here and there in the final edit and more sentences. Same for Book3.
On a practical level, one way I could do that would be to have a larger description of a setting the first time it appears in the book and then reference it later in a less-lengthy fashion. Think back to descriptions of Chesquial and Millican. I spent a few paragraphs on those and referenced them later by mentioning a spire or something similar that would recall the initial description without trying to redo it.
Going forward, I also think I'll try to add a few more sentences in minor locations. I'm going to have to find a balance without going overboard spamming description after every dialogue tag. If it grounds the reader while at the same time adding content of real value, it can only make the stories stronger.
Have a great weekend.
Friday, December 9, 2016
YA, Book3 and So Forth
I went through the YA book polishing things and changing some of the jargon to make it more accessible to a wider audience. For instance, I used NPC multiple times instead of non-player character. Most things like that got changed. The jargon is all 100% real and easily identifiable to the target audience, but you know. Other people need to understand what's going on, too. :)
I also started going through the part of the Book3 rough draft that's done in preparation for getting back in the saddle. The rough draft is over 25% complete on that one. I've also started thinking more about the non-fiction book I want to do. It would be about things the general church doesn't know. Why Sunday isn't the sabbath. Will the anti-Christ have 40 days of testing in the wilderness before beginning his ministry? Is the Rapture in the Psalms? Why all denominations are false. Why Moses can't be one of the two witnesses in Revelation(Hint: he's dead). Why the Tribulation must begin during autumn. Why Paul's ministry ended in spectacular failure. Etc.
It's going to be both easy and difficult. Instead having a logical story over the course of however many pages, I'd need a logical narrative over one chapter. Each chapter would have to make sense on its own. Remember that blog in which I mentioned Book2 has a character who raised somebody from the dead, while in Book3 she doesn't have that gift? I wouldn't have to worry about things like that. On the other hand, a lot of the topics would never fill a chapter. Should I have a chapter with multiple subjects? Should I have multiple chapters where the subjects share a common theme? That's going to be the hard part. Some subjects can be explained in a few paragraphs. Which translation should I use? I usually use the KJV here, and it's the most authoritative by far. The problem is quite a few of the words no longer have the same meaning they did in 1611. Communications, for instance, in 1611 meant something like deportment or behavior rather than exclusively speech. Whenever I hear someone talking about a verse with communications in it, it's always explained in terms of speech and media, which isn't exactly what those verses mean. Speech was merely a subset of communications in 1611. The average pastor doesn't understand that words like that are even a problem. Not having to explain what words actually meant in 1611 versus today would make things easier.
The non-fiction book would be something I'd want to promote on YouTube, which is one of the reasons for the delay of that channel. The YA book would be promoted on the other one, which is one of the reasons for the delay on that channel. In addition to problems I've mentioned previously.
It's looking like a January release for Book2.
I had a dentist appointment on the 7th that I had to wait about two-and-a-half weeks for with only ten days of antibiotics after waiting to make the appointment to begin with. I got creative and made them stretch. I could use prayer for that and things like finances and the car I need, etc., if you're a praying person and are inclined to pray for me. :)
I also started going through the part of the Book3 rough draft that's done in preparation for getting back in the saddle. The rough draft is over 25% complete on that one. I've also started thinking more about the non-fiction book I want to do. It would be about things the general church doesn't know. Why Sunday isn't the sabbath. Will the anti-Christ have 40 days of testing in the wilderness before beginning his ministry? Is the Rapture in the Psalms? Why all denominations are false. Why Moses can't be one of the two witnesses in Revelation(Hint: he's dead). Why the Tribulation must begin during autumn. Why Paul's ministry ended in spectacular failure. Etc.
It's going to be both easy and difficult. Instead having a logical story over the course of however many pages, I'd need a logical narrative over one chapter. Each chapter would have to make sense on its own. Remember that blog in which I mentioned Book2 has a character who raised somebody from the dead, while in Book3 she doesn't have that gift? I wouldn't have to worry about things like that. On the other hand, a lot of the topics would never fill a chapter. Should I have a chapter with multiple subjects? Should I have multiple chapters where the subjects share a common theme? That's going to be the hard part. Some subjects can be explained in a few paragraphs. Which translation should I use? I usually use the KJV here, and it's the most authoritative by far. The problem is quite a few of the words no longer have the same meaning they did in 1611. Communications, for instance, in 1611 meant something like deportment or behavior rather than exclusively speech. Whenever I hear someone talking about a verse with communications in it, it's always explained in terms of speech and media, which isn't exactly what those verses mean. Speech was merely a subset of communications in 1611. The average pastor doesn't understand that words like that are even a problem. Not having to explain what words actually meant in 1611 versus today would make things easier.
The non-fiction book would be something I'd want to promote on YouTube, which is one of the reasons for the delay of that channel. The YA book would be promoted on the other one, which is one of the reasons for the delay on that channel. In addition to problems I've mentioned previously.
It's looking like a January release for Book2.
I had a dentist appointment on the 7th that I had to wait about two-and-a-half weeks for with only ten days of antibiotics after waiting to make the appointment to begin with. I got creative and made them stretch. I could use prayer for that and things like finances and the car I need, etc., if you're a praying person and are inclined to pray for me. :)
Friday, December 2, 2016
Book 2 Progress
Despite some obstacles, I finished going through the Book2 manuscript again. Things are looking good on that front. It should be coming out soon. I'll do a 99 cent pre-order for faithful readers and let it be full price at release. Probably $3.99 instead of $2.99. I'm thinking of raising the prices on all the books to $3.99. I'll have to give that some more thought. If I did that, I'd want to make a cheaper combined edition for each series. For example, the Messengers series could be $5 or $6 or likely a little more for a combined book instead of nearly $13 when bought individually. More thought needs to go into it, but that's kind of what I'm thinking.
I haven't mentioned it lately, but I've been practicing a lot for making YouTube videos. I don't have to be the greatest. I just need a certain level of polish that gives people a chance to listen to what I say without focusing on how well/poorly I'm saying it. I kind of want them looking past me and at whatever the message might be. Going on YouTube is a big step. I have reservations about it.
The software I got for the YouTube fiction series had a major update the other day that changed a lot of things. I've been exploring that. It's not all good news, but I think I can still use it.
The other day I mentioned an effort was underway to have recounts for the presidential election in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. There's no factual reason to do the recounts. One of the minor party candidates was able to raise millions of dollars by doing it. It might just be a money and publicity grab. After watching the news a little, a recount could change a few hundred votes, which would not alter any of the results. It's kind of like millions of dollars are being thrown in a hole. That reminded me of a verse.
Ecclesiastes 2:26 For God gives to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he gives travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity and vexation of spirit.
Heaping up refers to amassing wealth. The recount money goes to the states in which the recounts occur. It's like God's taking the money away from sinners and putting it to better use. I think this could work out very well for Trump. Based on what usually happens in recounts, nothing will change as far as the election goes. What will change is that people will see that Trump still won. He'll be able to use that to his advantage and show critics that the system worked. It would add a stamp of legitimacy to his victory he wouldn't have gotten any other way. It would silence a lot of critics. And his enemies would have paid for it all. What is meant for his harm would be turned to his good. There are verses for that, too. :)
Have a great weekend.
I haven't mentioned it lately, but I've been practicing a lot for making YouTube videos. I don't have to be the greatest. I just need a certain level of polish that gives people a chance to listen to what I say without focusing on how well/poorly I'm saying it. I kind of want them looking past me and at whatever the message might be. Going on YouTube is a big step. I have reservations about it.
The software I got for the YouTube fiction series had a major update the other day that changed a lot of things. I've been exploring that. It's not all good news, but I think I can still use it.
The other day I mentioned an effort was underway to have recounts for the presidential election in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. There's no factual reason to do the recounts. One of the minor party candidates was able to raise millions of dollars by doing it. It might just be a money and publicity grab. After watching the news a little, a recount could change a few hundred votes, which would not alter any of the results. It's kind of like millions of dollars are being thrown in a hole. That reminded me of a verse.
Ecclesiastes 2:26 For God gives to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he gives travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity and vexation of spirit.
Heaping up refers to amassing wealth. The recount money goes to the states in which the recounts occur. It's like God's taking the money away from sinners and putting it to better use. I think this could work out very well for Trump. Based on what usually happens in recounts, nothing will change as far as the election goes. What will change is that people will see that Trump still won. He'll be able to use that to his advantage and show critics that the system worked. It would add a stamp of legitimacy to his victory he wouldn't have gotten any other way. It would silence a lot of critics. And his enemies would have paid for it all. What is meant for his harm would be turned to his good. There are verses for that, too. :)
Have a great weekend.
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