Glenn's blog

Once again, I have not been keeping up my commitment to write posts on this blog more regularly.

I have a few post ideas I'm working on. I've just finished reading Europe Central by William Vollmann (took me almost 5 months!) and will try to write a review soon. I also intend to write a review of Eating Animals. I also just read (in 2 days) Nick Cave's new novel, The Death of Bunny Munro.

Mostly, I think it's laziness that keeps me from writing. When I get home from work, unless I have something I am compelled to write about, I don't really want to focus too much on something. So, I instead read emails, watch tv, work on things that don't involve too much thinking.

But this is really an example of a lack of discipline. My life is pretty disorganized. Let's see how good a job I can do at turning that around in the new year.

I sat down to write a post this evening and couldn't think of what to write about. So I posted the question on facebook and got a few responses:

Wool

I wrote a post about wool over on the Liberation BC blog. Wool can be tough to write about, especially since I think it's wrong to exploit animals even if we aren't causing them any immediate pain. It's the system of exploitation that is wrong, the whole system that's been built over thousands of years to push animals into the shapes that we want them to be, into the spaces where we want them to live.

Writer's block

I get writer's block a lot, but it might just be because I don't really have a lot of things to say.... I overcome it by picking something at random or by playing a game to choose a topic. Once I have a topic that is manageable I can just sit down and get to work.

Procrastination is another story. I am a terrible procrastinator, and picking a topic is only a small part of the bigger battle of getting something actually written.

I like the game of posing the question on facebook and letting other people decide for me what I should write. But then I end up writing a pretty boring post about wool.

I should mention that when I was at Farm Sanctuary I really liked the goats, but wasn't a big fan of the sheep. It's hard to get to know the sheep. They are so scared, and they spend most of their time moving around as one big group. Some of the sheep were nice, but goats are really neat and I was drawn more towards them than almost any other animals.

Your first highschool dance

I don't remember my first highschool dance. Likely I went with my best friend and we danced, but not with any girls, then hung out on the bleachers. I was short and nerdy, and not confident at all. Dances were not terribly fun.

There were some dances though, where we had lip-sync competitions. I really loved doing those, since we got to dress up and do some crazy performances. I am afraid to see any pictures from back then because I had the worst hair ever. Even worse than yours.

What would you do if you won the lottery

If I won the lottery (which I actually hope doesn't happen since studies have shown that people who win the lottery often end up less happy than they were before they won the lottery – plus I NEVER buy lottery tickets) I would start a sanctuary, give almost all of the money to that sanctuary, put some in the bank for retirement, donate the rest of it to charities, and then go back to work.

I work for a company that develops direct mail campaigns for charities, among other things. I end up reading a whole bunch of examples of fundraising letters, and I see outside examples as well. Some are powerful and some are good.

I've found that the powerful letters are the ones that actually bring tears to my eyes. And very often it's one small section of the letter, a turn of phrase, a sentence that catches me. It's hard to explain – and I'm no good at really analyzing it.

Roger Craver posted on the Agitator today about an email he received. That email has one of those sections that caught me right in the chest. (The whole post and email are very much worth reading.)

And if you live near Philly and need your car washed, or your dog walked, or your plants watered while you're away... I'm there. And I can bring a gaggle of Youth Ministry kids to help with bigger jobs. If you visit Philadelphia and would like a home-cooked meal while you're in town, I'm your gal.

More importantly, however, you'll get a great deal of sincere gratitude from everyone involved, prayers of thanks and warm blessings on your behalf, and the knowledge that you helped another human being, one on one.

Bam. Right there in the second paragraph of this excerpt.

Last week a co-worker sent around a letter from a refugee to an Amnesty refugee coordinator, sharing the news that he successfully got asylum in Canada. Powerful stuff to begin with, but his email also had one of these moments:

In her conclusion the judge talked about so many things but the one, which touched me- She mentioned AI Canada, which gave me a support letter. I felt like she was saying that if AI Canada supported Mr. Mugisho, who am I to deny him.

I think there's something about really getting across not only the personal element of the story, but the power that Amnesty supporters have to change people's lives and make a real difference. All presented so simply.

The first example was written by a professional copywriter and the second was not, but they both have this moment of emotional power.

I've found that some poetry has this kind of effect sometimes, when it's really well written. When I'm browsing in the poetry section I often judge a book on whether a random selection has a moment when I feel a catch in my throat, the sudden presence of tears in my eyes.

This past month has been really busy, and I'm going to try to do a better job of writing on this blog from now on!

I went to Book Camp Vancouver last week and heard a good talk by Lorraine Murphy (aka Raincoaster). The biggest takeaway for me was that "blogs need to be fed." I've been terribly neglecting this blog and feel like I haven't been taking good enough care of the poor guy.

From now on I'm resolving to write daily.