just minishorts.

Boy, have I been on a extra-daily basis, these days. While I have left the obscene Bedtime Stories behind for a while, I've been talking about pretty deep stuff, eh? But I digress and we shall talk about writers today, and how you can 'get that chance'.

I must first direct you to Sharon Bakar's site, and her insightful discussions and ideas regarding the writing profession. Bloggers, and readers, who still hold the faith that their work and style are good enough to be noticed, and published one day, should visit Sharon's site on a regular basis. Not many writers are as generous as her, you see.

Not too long ago, Sharon posted a 'kick-up-the-butt' post, 'A Lazy Colony of Silverfish??' calling for aspiring writers to move out of the Short Story shell and proceed to 'bigger' things such as The Novel. I raised my opinions regarding writers who are Raman's 'lazies', and in that comment, I said

Sometimes, all it takes is a small recognition from a significant publishing house to fuel a spirited writer/author.

'Giving Writers a Chance' is Sharon's very long and thought-provoking response to my comment. In this poignant piece, a must-read for aspiring talents, Sharons tells people with dreams, yes, you, you, and you, that

The best way to learn is simply by reading enough quality writing. If you want to learn how to write short fiction, immerse yourself in the best short story writers and learn from the masters.

… and then,

We do need to fuel our new writers, as you say Minishorts, but it does not have to be the responsibility of a publishing house.

And then after a bit, she handed the podium to me.

Personally I feel that many aspiring writers are sadly being pushed down by the bigger 'greats', who hold on to their own thrones like a possessed lord, afraid to share the fruits of their own successes.

In my very, very long response to Sharon, I said, 'Many unplucked talents are still seedlings in a jungle where the huge, taller tropical kings reign supreme while jealously blocking the sunlight from reaching the ground.'

The rest of the comment can be read here, but please do read, first, the entire post by Sharon before jumping to see what I've said there.

I am still young (a line that Eric tells me, is not good enough to justify being 'complacent' in life), and my buckets of thoughts may not hold very heavy waters. But if you are a hopeful talent waiting to be plucked, heed Sharon's call, please. It isn't the responsibility of publishing houses to beg you to write for them, we're not worthy of beggars yet. The duty is a collective one, and sometimes, it takes you to take out your pen before they give you a blank manuscript.

The end product isn't yours alone either. True success begins when you acknowledge that you are were not alone.

You've read it wrong. I wasn't condemning anybody Well, yeah I was only condemning particular divisions of society who have REDUCED the entire holy being (be it Christ, Buddha, Krishna etc) into a cruel and unloving being who will torturously send an unbelieving soul to hell just for the sake of them not believing.

Adoring God, whoever you prefer him to be, is not about living in fear, nor is it about making others fear.

There are other ways to spread the good word (whichever version you choose it to be), and telling people that 'you'll die and live in hell if you don't believe in my god' just isn't the way to go.

It seems as though Christianity is one that I've been talking about mostly, so allow me to talk about how Buddhists too make this fault.

At the place where I work, there's a small Buddhist community that spends every afternoon chanting the mantras. The old, the young, men and women alike, would be there chanting, chanting, and chanting, and sometimes, from where I'm sitting on the fourth floor, I can hear the 'soothing' rhythms of their chants. A few months later, I don't know if soothing is the right word when I see the way they choose to practise the Buddhist teachings.

In Buddhism, many practise the ritual of 'Freeing the Live', fang sheng. The men set terrapins free, while the women would set birds to the sky. The normal temple allows this practice on special occasions, or at least, the normal temples that I visit with my mother does this.

This place near my office seems to be freeing terrapins in the huge lake every other day. In the mornings when I drive to work, I would sometimes see a terrapin or two walking along the gravel. A closer look and you'll see these are not terrapins, but land tortoises. They do not belong to the lake. They'll DIE in the lake.

And yet these practising Buddhists are setting these poor creatures to their eternal damnation every single day, chanting the good Lord Buddha's name in vain, I say. Anyway I too wonder why they don't have to go to work, because the chantings go on in the late mornings, times when people should be busy working to earn a living, and live a good life.

Have you ever been 'evangelised' by a Buddhist who tells you that your brand of Buddhism is practised wrongly? Well, believe me, I have. And many would agree that there is a tug of war between temples to keep devotees to themselves. The concept of God is manifest in every living thing doesn't nearly exist everywhere. Even visits to particular Taoist mediums might tell you not to go to another temple anymore because they teach you the wrong things, or, the idols in that particular temple are not filled with the good spirits of the deities.

I chanced upon a blog recently that had this very troubling line, and this was said by a woman who has been a Baptist for I say, 50-odd years?

She said this, (unabridged) 'The best person in the world will go to hell if he has not accepted in his heart and soul Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.'

In response to my comment to one of her posts stating why the God will bar homosexuals from entering heaven (yes I quoted Leviticus to her), she said this to me, 'I hope you find that free ticket to eternal life and the peace that passes all understanding, just as I have.'

And she dedicates the entire site to proclaiming her love for Jesus. In that same site, she talks about how Allah is not a true God, that people who advocate euthanasia are anti-Gods, and that homosexuality, well, wrong wrong wrong.

She calls me 'a non-Christian who hates for Christians to tell her what God is about.'

I tell this lady, Jeannette, no. I don't hate for Christians to tell me what God is about. What I hate, is for Christians like Jeannette, who tell the rest of the world what God is NOT about.

I disagree with this person, because in my personal book of understanding, there are no tickets to heaven. No purchases required. And, living life right shouldn't be because of living life to achieve eternal life, or nirvana or etc. Living life right should be for the simple reason of respecting life, itself. This is why I sincerely cannot take people who accuse atheists and agnostics for living without morals or conscience.

What, indeed, is so wrong about living life right for the sake of living it right? Do we, as human beings, need to be so way-less as to be accused of being unmoral merely because, 'I do not believe in God.'

After all, believing in God is not equivalent to being a morally just person. If you need to pile your worries in God and trust in God merely because without God you are unmoral, then what kind of person are you? I call it quoting God in vain. When you say God-fearing, does it mean you are only a good person because you are afraid of God?

Whatever happened to the concept of being good just because? No strings attached. And definitely no, not because being good because God wanted us to be good.

If life were so miniscule as to living it right just to acquire the end of times in a 'peaceful' manner, and that be your reason for loving God… well… it's simply not worth living at all. Life is more precious than all that, and please…

Be human. It's more important than being anything else.