Book Report on the Bible

I was in need of a laugh today, and my coworker seemed to read my mind, because she sent me a really good email. (That's my disclaimer, btw; this ain't mine.)

In the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, darkness, and some gas. The Bible says, 'The Lord thy God is one,' but I think He must be a lot older than that.
Anyway, God said, 'Give me a light!' and someone did.

Then God made the world. He split the Adam and made Eve. Adam and Eve were naked, but they weren't embarrassed because mirrors hadn't been invented yet.

Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Eden.....Not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn't have cars. Adam and Eve had a son, Cain, who hated his brother as long as he was Abel.

Pretty soon all of the early people died off, except for Methuselah, who lived to be like a million or something. One of the next important people was Noah, who was a good guy, but one of his kids was kind of a Ham. Noah built a large boat and put his family and some animals on it. He asked some other people to join him, but they said they would have to take a rain check.

After Noah came Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was more famous than his brother, Esau, because Esau sold Jacob his birthmark in exchange for some pot roast. Jacob had a son named Joseph who wore a really loud sports coat. Another important Bible guy is Moses, whose real name was Charlton Heston. Moses led the Israel Lights out of Egypt and away from the evil
Pharaoh after God sent ten plagues on Pharaoh's people. These plagues included frogs, mice, lice, bowels, and no cable.

God fed the Israel Lights every day with manicotti. Then he gave them His Top Ten Commandments. These include: don't lie, cheat, smoke, dance, or covet your neighbor's stuff.
Oh, yeah, I just thought of one more: Humor thy father and thy mother. One of Moses' best helpers was Joshua who was the first Bible guy to use spies. Joshua fought the battle of Geritol and the fence fell over on the town. After Joshua came David.. He got to be king by killing a giant with a slingshot. He had a son named Solomon who had about 300 wives and 500 porcupines. My teacher says he was wise, but that doesn't sound very wise to me.

After Solomon there were a bunch of major league prophets. One of these was Jonah, who was swallowed by a big whale and then barfed up on the shore.

There were also some minor league prophets, but I guess we don't have to worry about them.

After the Old Testament came the New Testament. Jesus is the star of The New Testament. He was born in Bethlehem in a barn. (I wish I had been born in a barn too, because my mom is always saying to me, 'Close the door! Were you born in a barn?' It would be nice to say, 'As a matter of fact, I was.') During His life, Jesus had many arguments with sinners like the Pharisees and the Republicans.. Jesus also had twelve opossums.The worst one was Judas Asparagus. Judas was so evil that they named a terrible vegetable after him.

Jesus was a great man. He healed many leopards and even preached to some Germans on the Mount. But the Republicans and all those guys put Jesus on trial before Pontius the Pilot. Pilot didn't stick up for Jesus. He just washed his hands instead.. Anyways, Jesus died for our sins, then came back to life again. He went up to Heaven but will be back at the end of the Aluminum. His return is foretold in the book of Revolution.

Thank God for the way children interpret the world. Otherwise, I'd be out of about 90% of my daily humor intake.

Anyone else got a funny for me?

July is Madness

Word count this month: Erm...1500. *sobs*

Song of the day: "Tangled" by Fools For Rowan

I had a dream. I dreamed that all mankind...was being eradicated.

No, seriously, I did. But it was no where near as forward-thinking as MLK Jr's. Ever seen Battlestar Galactica? I haven't seen the old one (probably because I much prefer Starbuck being a girl), but the new one? My dream was quite similar. And you know all those Battleground: Los Angeles commercials? Yup, a lot like that, too. There's a lot of apocalyptic/distopian pieces cropping up lately. (I suppose that's what you get when you have out-spoken televangelists predicting the end of the world every 6 months.)

I also have the intro to an Angel/Demon/Nephilim piece that I was planning to do for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). And then there's the superhero piece I'm going to attempt for a Samhein submissions call.

In short, my brain's in overdrive. There are so many new voices adding to the nonsense up there it's taken me a while to sort it all out. I'm still not sure I've got it in any semblance of order. It's putting a serious damper on my word count. However!!! I have a goal; I'm going to attempt 10k words this week. That gives me a goal of 2k per work day, and leaves me two extra days should I fall short. So!! Who's with me??

Traci Jo and the Epic Harry Potter Series

I thought I was gonna be all original with this whole "post after seeing the last HP movie" thing. I should've known better. In case you've been living under a rock for the past decade or so, Harry Potter is HUGE...and the last movie has now been released.

I actually cried at the 12:20 showing of the movie early Friday morning. The movie was brilliantly done, with fantastic special effects. As good as all the others were, this one tops them all. Anyone who has read the books knows just how many sad things happen in the movie (bring tissues), and I won't spoil it for those who haven't read it.

To this day, years and years later, my sister and I still argue over who introduced Harry and the gang to the family. Lemme 'splain.

For all the times I complain that my parents gave me bad genes, they also gave my brother, my sister and I some really fabulous ones when it came to brains (although my brother and I did both end up with some relatively mild learning disabilities, like processing disorders. Yay, fun.) We've always been the smart kids in class. Always. So when, her third grade year, my sister was placed in an "integrated" classroom with children who still couldn't read, she was extremely frustrated. To help out, her teacher let her read books more her level, starting with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Somewhere around this time, on the local news was a special about a book that was slowly becoming popular. My mother took us to the library every weekend, so when we next went, I was sure to check out that book. It was The Chamber of Secrets, and at the age of 11, I'd finished the book in about 36 hours.

Whichever one of us introduced the books to the family, it soon became a family tradition for Mom to read us about a chapter every night. My brother, who was seven at the time, really struggled with reading comprehension because of his disorder and didn't really like to read. After a few weeks of hearing these books, though, if Mom couldn't read to us for some reason, he'd drag me to my parents' room with HP in hand, plop down on their bed, and valliantly struggle through a few pages before asking me or my sister to read it to him.

This whole "family time" thing was precious to us. At that point in time, my father was in medical school and could only come home on the weekends. He was always exhausted, but he would curl up with us at night and either read or listen with us. Even during the week when he wasn't there, the Harry Potter books still made us feel connected to him, because he knew them, too.

We were so excited when we heard the movies were going to be made. I had a friend at that time who went to book premiers with me, and she and I couldn't have been more thrilled to see the drama play out on the big screne. Before she moved away, we went to all the HP events together, dressing up and everything. Thursday evening, she sent me a picture (which I'll post) and wished me a happy release day. We talked for a while about growing up with the books and how we were sad the series was through.

I didn't cry at the end of the movie or on my way home, but I did spend the time thinking; What an intricate, believable world Ms. Rowling created!! A single mom who wrote her story on paper napkins, she came from nothing and made something out of it. As far as I know, she didn't have any prior experience or writing classes, just pure, natural talent. She's an incredible inspiration for all of us aspiring authors. I can't think of a single writer who wouldn't love for their story to grow into a seven-book series that people grow up reading, and then have it play out on the big screne, and in 3D.

My take-home lesson from this whole experience is this: I no longer have a big release to look forward to from the epic series I grew up with. Therefore, it's up to me or one of my contemporaries to create the Next Big Thing. So, who will be the next J. K. Rowling?

Charitable Thursday

I know, I know, it doesn't rhyme, or start with the same sound, or anything cool, but I'm feeling all "give"y and whatnot, so here ya go.

I got to donate blood yesterday! I've only done it once before. All the other times there was a drive, I was sick or my iron was low, and then I did that whole China thing, so I had to wait a year. Yesterday, however, I was just fine (aside from the whole post-donation "is Traci drunk?" super giggly phase. Lol). This was a very exciting moment for me. I hate needles, but I always like being charitable and helping people out, so after it was over, I was happy.

So, here's my shameless plug for charities in general. Some of my favorites are Virginia Blood Services (VBS), Alex's Lemonade (they raise money to fight childhood cancer), American Cancer Society (another cancer one, with Relay for Life, a fun over-night event to raise money), American Heart Association (pretty self-explanatory). There's probably about a million others that I try to support when I can, but these are some of the near and dear ones. Go donate, kids. It's good for the soul.

What are your favorite charities?

Assassin Kitty

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Assassin Kitty, a.k.a Chloe. Don't let the cutesy little thing fool you; This tiny creature kills and drags home animals twice her size. Somehow she drags birds through her little cat door. My parents haven't figured out how yet. We're pretty sure she makes Pagan sacrifices, too, because she leaves the heart and stomach on our neighbor's steps.

Creepy, right?

My parents are out of town for the weekend, so I'm "grandparent sitting". This means that all those little "love presents" Assassin Kitty leaves on the garage steps for my parents? Yeah, I get to clean them up. When I came home from work, there were a number of feathers on said steps, as well as one small unidentifiable object. I couldn't even look too close at it. However, this super-sweet-looking cat likely dug it out of some poor animal.

I have a point, I promise!!

So, my MC is two different people. Super-sweet-looking mom, Kallen, raises two little girls and works as a Trauma Surgeon. However, in her past and upon the girls' death, she is Vesper, deadliest assassin in the known galaxy. She specializes in torture, and has let me know that in avenging the deaths of her daughters I will be "seeing" a lot of blood, guts, and gore. Woohoo. Psyched. At least I'll have a little practice, huh?

What's the grossest thing your characters have shown you?

Babbling characters

So last time, I posted on how the voices in my head had stopped talking to me, and how that was a problem.Well, thanks to some writing buddies, the voices are talking again. A lot. Even when I'd rather they be quiet and let me sleep. Lol.

Yesterday, one of my characters, one that I didn't think I'd be seeing again, actually told me a little story. All of the things the characters have told me are all sad. Really sad. Like, I was afraid I'd have to find some tissues.

Moral of the story: character interviews are fabulous.

Hi, I'm Traci, and I Hear Voices (WA#3)

Words written this month so far: 370
Song of the day: Castle Made of Sand by Pitbull and Kelly Rowland

Yesterday was one of my "crazy" days. I was having trouble focusing on reading anything or writing for any period of time. Why? Because the assassin in my head was sullenly silent and giving me death glares. (No worries; I didn't actually tell anyone this. They would have tried to medicate me. Then where would I be as a writer??)

Thankfully, I have some awesomely supportive writer friends who were willing to come to my rescue (Gemma and company). They started helping me interview Vesper, my assassin, to try and get her talking. It's been helpful, in that I've found she's hiding something from me. No wonder all the silence!! However, getting it out of her has proved to be...difficult.

Yesterday I also came across several pages of notes I had almost forgotten about. When I'm tutoring, I'm supposed to "ignore" the boy while he's working, so I jot down notes on my story. These notes then get tucked into my purse, and I sometimes forget they're there while I'm running errands (bad Traci!). But I found them again! Now I just have to interpret them...lol.

Alrighty, then, off to feel crazy again!

Wedding Planning

My best friend is getting married!!! This is not exactly new, as her fiance proposed in March, but after the initial excitement of "OMG WEDDING!!!!!!" wore off, things died down, and we haven't done much preparing until now.

Last week, Steph (the bride) bought her dress at the Brides Against Breast Cancer sale in D.C. It's gorgeous, and for a wedding dress it was cheap! She's having a small wedding (50 guests and 2 attendants each), so that made her happy. We're doing most of the decorating and everything ourselves.

This weekend, Steph and I went up to Maryland to visit the other bridesmaid, Kat. We all had a great time. On the way home, in the middle of a storm, Steph put me in charge of conversation to keep her awake. We talked about the wedding the whole 2 hours it took us to get back to Richmond. She pretty much has all the decisions made now, and she's booked the ceremony site. Now it's just ordering, making things, pre-wedding events, etc. Even for a small wedding, there's a lot to do! I'm so excited though. It's going to be so much fun!!

Happy July!!

I have an announcement...I posted my first book review on Good Book Alert this morning!! It was an intriguing YA Fantasy read.

So, today being July 1 and all, I thought I would start the month with a new challenge. Last month, I had decided to try to write 30,000 words before today. I only managed a little under 8k. *sigh* Epic fail moment, I know. But, I thought I'd try again. However, I'll set my sights a little lower.

*Ahem* For the month of July, I, Traci Ferrance, challenge myself to write 20,000 words on my current work in progress.

Anyone else up for a challenge?