It rained today. Not quite ferocious, but strong just the same. Now it’s just dripping like a leaky faucet. Here’s to hoping that it continues until at least tomorrow morning. I’d like to step outside and enjoy a smoke on my patio in the rain.

I think I’ve been working too hard this week. I came home today and just crashed for a few hours. I typically don’t do that, especially on a Friday when I try to extend my weekend by pushing myself to stay up well beyond my normal bedtime. On any other weekday, I’ll come home and hit the gym. So to come home and just sack out says something about my physical needs.

I blame work. With these huge tradeshows coming up and being the only fully-committed writer on staff means that I’m putting down 10-hour days minimum. Plus, to demonstrate my leadership qualities, I feel it’s only fair that I stay late when the wage employees stay late. I’ll tell you one thing though: I’ll be happy when things get back to normal.

So, here we are on Coffee Friday, which just so happens to fall on the last day of the month. What I’d like to start doing is recapping the activity on the site at the end of each month, mainly for the feed subscribers who don’t get to see the News section.

With that said, November has seen pretty good returns in terms of hits, considering it’s only been one and a half months since I launched. I currently get about 60 unique visitors daily. That’s not too shabby in my opinion, but I know that that’s not going to translate into a very high CTR for AdSense. Still, it’s a start, which is why you’ve probably seen several layout changes if you’re a frequent visitor. More tweaks are coming in the future. Be prepared.

November Movie Reviews:

• Sophie’s Choice
• What the Bleep Do We Know?
• Stranger Than Fiction
• Let’s Go to Prison
• Idiocracy
• Failure to Launch
• Employee of the Month

November Restaurant Reviews:

• City Broiler (Chino Hills, CA)

November Major Links:

• Facebook

Since I’m doing my best to get some exposure, I frequent as many social networks as I can. More often than not, these Web sites have an “About Me” section with a sub-section for favorite movies. I’m always fascinated with the common threads that tie everyone together. One film title that I constantly find on female social networking profiles is The Notebook. This appalls me, not because it’s a bad movie, per se, but because the romance portrayed in the film represents both everything that’s wrong in relationships and apparently what women want in relationships.

It goes without saying that you shouldn’t read this if you haven’t seen the movie yet.

OK, so we have Noah and Allie and they’re just two crazy kids in love. We’ve all been there. It’s easy to fall in love over the summer when you’re young and silly and having fun lying in the street laughing at stoplights. That’s why, at the end of the day, Allie’s parents were right in splitting them up. What did Allie know about love? She was 17. She knew everything about passion — agreed — but that’s not love. Love — real love — is loving someone when it’s hard, when they don’t deserve it, when they’ve hurt you in the worst way. Real love does not blossom in the span of one summer.

Noah and Allie find themselves separated for seven years, during which time they live out very different lives and meet new people. They still carry a torch for each other and that’s fine. I still think of girls I knew in high school and wonder what ever became of them. It’s natural, but Allie meets Lon and he’s amazing. He comes from the same background. He’s charming, has great prospects and, let’s not forget, he absolutely loves Allie. She claims to love him back and he has no reason to doubt her since she’s agreed to marry him. This is awesome. This is what every person hopefully strives for when they seek out relationships. Yet the moment Allie sees Noah’s picture in the newspaper, everything that she and Lon built suddenly and completely goes down the toilet. Flush. No floaters.

She tells Lon that she’s going to visit the Old Town, knowing full well that she’s actually going to see Noah. Lon, of course, has no problem with her visiting anywhere because his trust in her is that complete. Allie and Noah reconnect and what happens? She lets him take her to the boneyard. Repeatedly. Astonishingly, Lon, the great guy that he is, forgives Allie and is willing to take her back. Allie declines, opting to be with the guy she knew for a total of three months, hadn’t seen for seven years and has no identifiable source of income.

Never mind that she told Lon that she loved him.

Never mind that she agreed to marry him.

Never mind the entire life she’s built with him.

Allie found “true love” and that’s all that matters.

Everything else be damned!

That brings us to today’s social landscape. Women around the world are watching The Notebook and applauding it, saying to themselves, “Yes. YES! This is proper behavior! My love life should be like this!” This movie tells women that even if they are in committed relationships with men who are good for them, they should cash these men in like a small stack of poker chips in a casino for the chance at passion. Words have no meaning and when you tell someone you love them and that you’ll marry them it should be understood that all contracts are only binding insofar as you don’t run into your ex-boyfriend.

Conversely, The Notebook tells all guys that it doesn’t matter how well you treat your girl. You can offer her financial stability, emotional support and your dashing good looks. None of that matters in the face of true love. And even if you think you’re the one she’s truly in love with, as Lon surely did, The Notebook proves that you’re only right until you’re proven wrong. Therefore, as a boyfriend, you should be as controlling as possible. Don’t let your girlfriend go dancing, grocery shopping or get the car washed, because you never know where she might discover true love. Imagine how embarrassing it would be to have your girlfriend take your Lamborghini to get washed and run into her old high school sweetheart working there. Their eyes meet and memories of remedial algebra crash into their thoughts as suds, love and violin strings swell around them. Hey, it could happen, which is why it’s never too early to become a Muslim Fundamentalist.

The point here is that, as a guy, you cannot rely on your good looks, fine upbringing, good job or wonderful treatment to keep you secure in your relationship. Furthermore, you can’t make the mistake of thinking your girl’s words are worth a damn when she tells you she loves you and that she’ll marry you. NOTHING TRUMPS TRUE LOVE.

The insidious aspect of romantic comedies and romantic dramas is that they make men sympathize with the guy who gets the girl, never with the guy who loses her. Therefore, we naturally think that we are the hero of our own romantic drama. And maybe that’s true, but only until we get the girl. Once that happens, if we follow the rules of romantic dramas, we become the villain. And as we all know, the villain can only lose the girl.

One of the few romantic dramas that I can respect is Casablanca. Rick’s decision to let Ilsa go at the end is the very essence of true love. If Ilsa doesn’t go with Victor, everyone’s lives are going to suck. Instead, they keep the love for each other safe in their hearts, because it’s not something that can survive in the world anymore. So, despite the personal anguish, Rick lets Ilsa go because it’s what’s best for her in the long run.

Heck, that’s better than true love; it’s smart love.

I’ve been getting back into the writing lifestyle recently and have been making a good-faith effort to join as many writing sites as possible. One of the forums I’ve joined has an area for non-fiction and since that’s my forte I’ve been reading a few pieces members have submitted for workshopping. Instantly, I was transported back to college, sitting in a circle with people who had no idea of how to take advantage of the workshop to benefit their work. So, for any would-be writer who’s thinking of either joining a writing group or submitting their work to public online forums, I’ve put together some pointers for you. The following list is not meant to be exhaustive in any way. Think of it more as a guideline.

1. UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS AND ADHERE TO IT. In most writing workshops, it works like this: A writer brings his/her work to the group and distributes the proper amount of hard copies. The group takes the piece home, goes over it with a red pen and brings it back the following week for discussion. The author sits quietly and absorbs the constructive feedback, ideally taking notes all the while. Afterwards, the author gets to explain and rebut any anything he/she feels needs to be explained or rebutted. That’s how it’s supposed to work, anyway. You don’t know how many times someone shows up with less copies than necessary or no copies at all and forces group members to print their copy from an email. That’s just tacky. Furthermore, when you’re the author having your work discussed, you really should shut up and listen. On very rare occasions I’ve been OK with authors interrupting discussion to get clarification on vague feedback, but by and large, the author should do his/her very best not to break up the flow of discussion. I know it’s tough when someone is ripping your piece to shreds, but that’s the process.
2. BRING ONLY YOUR VERY BEST WORK. There are two very big reasons for this: First, when you’re confident in your piece it’ll be easier to have people read it, because you know that you’re not being completely judged on incomplete work. If you get squirmy when people read and discuss your piece, then it’s definitely not ready for workshop. Secondly, realize that the writer’s workshop is not there to write the piece for you. Only you know what story you’re telling. The group can only offer feedback on how it affected them and what techniques might serve your story better. The rest is up to you.
3. KNOW WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR IN YOUR WORK. While it’s enough to simply go to a writer’s workshop, have people read your work and then gauge their reactions, you’ll get more out of your time by targeting specific parts of you work. If you have an experimental passage, you may want to address that in particular during discussion by asking questions about it. If you’re not sure about the pacing of a scene, be sure to bring that up. Just because someone doesn’t raise a criticism about that aspect doesn’t mean they thought it was fine. It might have slipped their mind to talk about it or, the worst case, they’re a lazy reader and this is your opportunity to force them to read more closely.
4. FILTER OUT THE NONSENSE. This one is a bit trickier and will have to be developed over time. Writing workshops are made up of people and people, for the most part, suck. Either they’re a moron and have no idea what’s going on or they’re a bad reader and just glossed over your work or they’re having a bad day and just want to destroy something beautiful. You’ll have to learn how to filter the feedback. For my part, I immediately discard praise, because it’s usually empty and does nothing to help improve my writing. When someone tells me that “this flowed well” or “I really liked this paragraph” what am I supposed to do with that comment? How do I integrate that into my revisions? Hearing that something I wrote is “good” is one of my workshop pet peeves, because I already know the piece is good. It’s supposed to be good. It’s my very best work. I just want to know if it’s bad. On the other end of the spectrum are the overly harsh criticisms, which you’ll naturally want to disregard. The only advice I can give for that is to glean what useful criticisms you can out of them.

Well, that was a shorter list than I expected to write. As you can see, being successful in writer’s workshops is simpler than many people may think. If you treat the method with respect, it can be a very handy writing tool.

I hope everyone in the States has recovered nicely from Thanksgiving and detoxed all of the tryptophan out of your systems. As for everyone else, I hope your Fridays were quick and you enjoyed your evenings. As you can see, I’ve made some major changes to WORKING AUTHOR. Now that I’m starting to get a decent amount of hits a day, I’m paying more attention to my Web reports. Seems like the majority of visitors are browsing at 1024×768. My last layout catered to an 800×600 resolution as a kind of catch all. Unfortunately, the lowest common denominator has to be catered to when it comes to Web development. On the other hand, sometimes that group is in such the minority that it becomes more beneficial to say, “Oh well for them.” That’s why I’ve maximized my layout for the larger resolution. This way I get to add new features without visitors having to scroll for days just to see what’s available.

On the third hand (if you’re a mutant), I think there’s a way to have the best of both worlds. The way it works is like this: People running resolutions at 1024×768 obviously get the full experience, however, 800×600 resolution people can still have a nice display when they arrive without feeling like the short guy at the back of the crowd. When an 8×6er comes to my page, what they get are the left sidebar, the wide column in the middle and the middle-right sidebar. It’s all of the necessary stuff before the horizontal fold. I think it’s a pretty cool idea.

Anyway, as with all things Web, it’s a pain in the butt to code for both Firefox and Internet Explorer. I’m no professional, mind you, so I’m running into walls trying to get the IE version to behave. If you’re rocking IE, you’re probably seeing some extra fat on the width of my blog. I have no idea why that’s happening. Woe to the Internet Explorer 6 user for whom my layout completely breaks. The best bet is to switch over to Firefox 2. It’s a free download, safer than Internet Explorer and gives you access to a bunch of cool addons.

Download Firefox 2 today. It’ll make your life and mine a whole lot easier.

Short and sweet today, folks.

Just wanted to wish you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving and I hope you all get to where your going safely. More importantly, here’s to wishing that you and your family can repress the inner hatred you feel for each other for a few hours. I know I’m definitely going to try.

For your information: WORKING AUTHOR will be undergoing a few changes, but it shouldn’t affect the site’s uptime. Hopefully I’ll get it done by the end of the long weekend, but between some work I had to take home for my day job and putting up my parent’s Christmas decorations, Web development is going to touch and go.

Wish me luck and don’t eat too much!

PS. For my readers abroad who don’t celebrate Thanksgiving: You’re missing out.