Nihilism and the Boston Marathon...My A to Z post for Tuesday.

I was going to right about being nominated. I was nominated earlier today for a Blog Award. It made me feel good. It made me feel happy. I was excited and couldn't wait to sit down and chat with you, my friends and readers about it.

And then the day got ugly. Ugly with the kind of fear and terror and worry and fright that only senseless harm and destruction can cause. Ugly that someone, singular or plural, would willingly take a wonderful, harmless, dream and turn it into a nightmare.

I only found out about it because I was checking Twitter. And you, my Twitter friends, were so gracious, so moved and hurt and caring and touched by what happened that you stopped talking about books. You stopped talking about writing and finding an agent and getting published and all the ordinary, mundane aggravations of your day. You stopped talking about what you were doing for lunch or whether I should read this book over that or whether publishers who steal from writers should be sent to jail.

You turned to what really mattered, to the news and to the agony and the worry and the sorrow of the people who where there, or who watched it, or who waited; like me, to see if a friend was okay. You turned to what you could do to help, to calm and to share news and prayers and hugs and handkerchiefs. You turned to what a community, electronic or otherwise, really is: a group of people who seek to provide for the greater good of even the least of us.

My thanks and my everlasting friendship and respect go to Susan Adrian (@susan_adrian) who shared a prayer with me for a co-worker running this morning. My thanks to Sarah Wendell (@SmartBitches) who immediately tweeted about donating blood. To Barry Lyga (@barrylyga) who's first thoughts were for the marathoners he flew with from Minnesota the other day. And to the hundreds, if not thousands of others who shared news, grief, hope and prayer for Boston today.

And now? Now I'm just plain mad. I'm freakin' pissed. I'm more pissed than I've been in a long, long time. And let me tell you, this is not a good place for me to be. I'm not a nice person when I'm pissed. I can't even pretend to be nice when I'm pissed. I'm every bit as ugly as the people who did this to us.

I lived in New York during the original terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. I have a "Sailor of the Year" plaque awarded to me almost exactly ten years before the WTC fell. I lost a dear friend, who I had ENCOURAGED to stay in the Navy and seek commissioning, the day the USS COLE was bombed. I have lost more friends, co-workers and fellow service members then I wish to count to the war on terrorism. And I sleep, every night, with a man who is still chased by shadows of things he should never have seen during 22 years serving this country.

And for what? So some Nihilist punks can make us afraid to spend the day challenging our own doubts? So some fucked up punks who don't like their lives, our lives or someone elses lives can take the chicken shit road to perdition? Really? REALLY?

My dictionary defines Nihilism as "a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless and  that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths." 

It goes on to say that it is also "a doctrine or belief that conditions in the social organization are so bad as to make destruction desirable for its own sake independent of any constructive program or possibility."

And yet, they kill the innocent. They steal our sense of security and destroy the GOOD things we all look forward to. A baseball game. A trip to Disneyland. A good, long run.

Mother Fuckers. They need to spend a little time looking in the mirror. A little time looking deep inside themselves, at the darkness and senselessness of their own actions. But they won't. They're too cowardly to do that. Too frightened. Too small.

And us? What do we need to do? We need to KEEP going to ball games and Disneyland and movie theaters and marathons. We need to keep tweeting and blogging and writing stories and reaching out to each other, though our arms may never be long enough and our only connection is the small bit of energy found between our computers. We need to keep doing what WE want to do, when WE want to do it.

We might be scared. We might be worried. We might be frightened and cowering and looking over our shoulders. But we can't give up. We can never give up. We can never let them change our lives, our hopes or our dreams.

Because if we do, if we give them that least little bit of credibility, they win. And they can never win. Never.

(I should probably apologize for the cursing and the language and the general attitude in this post. But I won't. I can't. I'm still mad. And JulieAnne would be mad at me. Good run, Jules! God bless and I can't wait to see you with your BAA medal around your neck!)

Keepers of the faith... I dare you not to smile!!!!

Okay, "K" words are hard to find. Seriously.

Have you looked in the dictionary? Seems like most of the entries I find under 'k' are names. Names of plants, birds, places and people.

And I started thinking, aren't names a way of 'keeping' things organized? I mean, aren't they really a device we use to specify which person, place or thing we are referring too?

We have time-keepers, lion-keepers, goal-keepers and house-keepers. There are zoo-keepers, greens-keepers and lighthouse keepers. There are those who refuse to be their brother's keepers and keepers of the faith. Keepers of myth and keepers of promises. My husband is a keeper; I wouldn't let him slip away for anything. He might even feel the same way about me.

Writers are keepers. We are keepers of written lore, of dreams and fantasies, of hope realized and of faith undeterred. We are keepers of the magic that is the human spirit; unselfish, unbroken and unsullied despite rejection and criticism. Because we just keep writing.

How sad would be the world without writers! Writers of prose and poem, of fiction and fact, of words and notes in song and harmony. How said would be the world without the following; written by a keeper of beauty and light, performed by the best word in the whole dictionary; KIDS :

Happy Friday!!! Bet I made you smile!

Don't be a HATER ...

So, it took me a while to decide what to write about today. "H" is such an interesting letter. Lot's of beautiful words like Hunger, Haunt, Holy, Humane.

And then there's HATE.

One of the ugliest words I know of. Short. Harsh. Mean in every way. It's not just the sound of the word, it's everything it stands for. It's the degree to which it is employed and misused. The very ease with which it trips from our tongues, without regard to it's real agenda.

Too hate any person, place, thing or action is to loathe it's very existence. To abominate it's reality. To despair of it's presence or influence. We use the word itself too freely, to gratuitously. We say we hate something when what we really mean is we dislike it, feel uncomfortable with it or find it painful. We rarely feel such overwhelming revulsion as to really "hate" anyone or thing.

To HATE is to feel a tendency towards deepseated prejudice and resentment, to be willing to do ANYTHING to ensure it's removal.

Elie Wiesel once said "“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference."

Anais Nin said "Everything with me is either worship and passion or pity and understanding. I hate rarely, though when I hate, I hate murderously."

And Orson Scott Card said it best, without ever using the dreaded "H" word: “In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them.... I destroy them.”

D is for Dictionary...

This one is too easy, but it's so important I had to post it:

1. If you don't have a dictionary, buy one.
2. If you don't use a dictionary, start.
3. If you haven't explored your dictionary, do so.

Part and parcel of the same topic:
A. Read your own work. How many times do you use the same verb, adverb, modifier to describe and detail something in your story? Learn what your "catch" words are and find alternatives. Yes, this is more in line with Thesaurus use, but learning NEW words and how to use them will make you a better writer.

B. What are your "problem" words? I know that when the story hits me strong and I'm moved by the muse, the words fly from my fingers too quickly to catch the correct use. My problem words are "there/they're/their;" "to/too," "staid/stayed." I have others, but this is the short list. I keep them posted above my desk, adding to the list as I discover additional words I frequently misuse or misspell. Awareness of those words helps me make fewer errors when I am writing and makes me a better editor as well.

Our language is so complex, dynamic and beautiful in it's variety, it's a shame to limit ourselves to the same stale expressions over and over. Try something new. You just might like it!