Living a Better Story Blog Entry!

I can remember literally sitting in the dark, PG&E having cut off my electricity for failure to pay my bill. I can remember thinking I would “only take a year off” of college which turned into half a decade. And I can definitely remember every time that my girlfriend has decided that, “we have taken way too long to get married, most couples are only together a couple of years before they get married.” Each one of these are examples of different problems that have occurred as results of my current life story.
When I was a senior in high school I figured out how to live my life with just enough work to get by. To be honest it worked for a while, I got by in every situation with just enough. This has been my life for the past decade, a series of decisions based on a preconfigured system I designed myself to get past any given objective. I got through most of college with a minimal amount of studying and a great term paper or two which amounted to the minimal passing grade. As a youth pastor, I studied up the night before a preaching every time I spoke at a youth night. I decided that a part time job and a few credit cards could get me through my over-indulgent life style.
Then one day, all of my systems came crashing down over me. I won’t go into detail but suffice it to say that my systems all failed and would not only crash down over my circumstances at the time, but the aftershocks also impacted my current situation.
So today I find myself at a job that I don’t like, knowing that I am meant for more. I found the woman of my dreams yet I am not being able to marry her because I not only have bad credit but no money. I want to finish school but I am afraid to lose my job, health benefits, security, etc. And on top of that I am a dreamer, I see myself being the pastor over a church, writing great books, being married to the love of my life and buying her a nice house in a good neighborhood. But the way I am living now, I doubt I would be able to reach any of that.
One day I picked up a book by the best author on earth (not only is this shameless sucking up, I also believe it) and read it cover to cover faster than a Lamborghini does 0 to 60. I couldn’t get my hands off of the book and when I had finished it, it birthed something inside of me. Within me I had a fresh dream that had previously been destroyed by my own hands. I had a goal for my life that I honestly believed I could achieve. I had a vision for a new story, a story that I would tell with my every day decisions and would be written in blood, sweat, prayers and tears.
The day I first read about the “Living a Better Story seminar,” I knew it was a God send. I thought to myself, what better way to kick start this life-change than by attending a seminar with the man himself and soaking up knowledge from the man that wrote the book on re-writing your story? To be honest, I know that attending this conference will not change my life but the experience itself can be an inciting incident that propels me to change my story also giving me practical ideas on how to do so. Even if I am not chosen, I really hope to attend this conference with people that are feeling the same way I feel and living the same way I am, but with a plan to take the pen back and write a new story.
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for more information on the "Living a Better Story Seminar go to this website: www.donmilleris.com/conference
and
Watch this video:

Living a Better Story Seminar from All Things Converge Podcast on Vimeo.

Another Scary Story Contest!

So I have entered another scary story contest on one of the blogs which I frequent. I thought I would give you guys a chance to check it out. I'm not sure if it's good enough, I guess we will see. wish me luck!
Rules to contest:

This is a Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest. Your job is to come up with a creative and frightening story inspired by this photo (please submit your story via comment), while adhering to the following five rules:
Rule #1: It doesn't have to have anything to do with the actual real-life subject/explanation of the photo.

Rule #2: It has to involve a character nicknamed "Mr. Shifty." There is nothing significant behind the name "Mr. Shifty." I thought of it, it made me laugh, and I want to see how you turn something that makes me laugh into something foreboding.

Rule #3: Somewhere, your story must contain this phrase: volcanic ash cloud.

Rule #4: Your story must contain five sentences. No more. No less. However, there are no rules dictating the length of your sentences

Rule #5: Your story must be frightening, moody, mysterious, or otherwise scary in tone.

so here is my entry:

Little Billy Johnson had given the scary man the moniker “Mr. Shifty” due to his strange behavior around adults and his habit of joining in the juvenile games of the small children in our neighborhood when the parents weren’t around. The stories that roused our curiosity enough to break into his home that night, aged back to my parents’ generation and spoke of dark nights when Mr. Shifty would drag dead bodies across town from the graveyard on one side of town to his home at the top of the hill.

My heart still beats as rapid as it did that day when we found the tarp that contained the fragments of little Billy Johnson’s body, the putrid odor of which struck our nostrils like a volcanic ash cloud. I can recall the feeling of every ounce of courage being drained from our bodies when the door swung open to reveal Mr. Shifty standing there dragging a dead goat with a smile on his face as he exclaimed, “I see you came to play with us!” I alone escaped to tell the tale.

5 Sentence Story Contest

Okay so A few weeks ago I entered into a small contest on a blog that I frequent. It was a little writing contest that Jayson Boyett posts up once in a while. I will re-post the rules exactly as he did.

Rule #1: It doesn't have to have anything to do with the actual real-life subject/explanation of the photo.
Rule #2: It has to involve a character nicknamed "Hambone."
Rule #3: Why "Hambone"? Because it's a silly name, and I want to see how you turn a funny nickname into something scary.
Rule #4: Your story must contain five sentences. No more. No less.
Rule #5: Your story must be frightening, moody, mysterious, or otherwise scary in tone.

So anyway, I did it! One of my first times posting my writing in public so I was kind of proud of it! Lol Now, I didn’t win, BUT I did receive an honorable mention:

Most disgusting (possible) allusion to a Death Cab for Cutie song:
J Lopez, whose John Spellman decided to "repossess the heart" of his lover, Connie, via an apple-sized chest cavity he apparently created with his bare hands, just as Ben Gibbard might.

I thought I would share my story with you guys. Enjoy!
John loved his girlfriend Connie more than she could ever love him back and they both knew this was the reason that she had cheated on him.

As they slowly drove along the snow covered back road the night appeared darker than usual as the snow banks rose higher, swallowing their existence whole if only for that night; and John was counting on it. The unusually mild-mannered John looked at Connie in the pale moonlight that night with love so fierce that it immediately became an urge to repossess the heart that he had surrendered to her which he believed was hidden deep within her own heart and so he lunged at her, her scream muffled by the sound of the snowstorm.

In the morning all the police found was the pearl-colored four door vehicle covered in snow containing the dead body of Connie Young, girlfriend to John Spellman aka Hambone, the murderous lover of five separate women who had failed to love him to his desired standard. Within the apple sized cavity created by johns own hands was a note that read: My search for a woman that matches my love is far from over so please expect to find as many women as it takes – Hambone.